Oro opened last year in the space next to Nixta in Northeast Minneapolis. We ate there in November for the first time and loved our meal. Indeed, it showed up in short order on my list of top 10 formal restaurant meals eaten in 2023. We would have loved to have come back again very soon to try the next iteration of the menu but we then took off for Bombay and Seoul for three months. By the time we got back to the Twin Cities in March, they had become a much hotter ticket and reservations were not available in the spring on days that worked for us. Then they got a Beard nomination for Best New Restaurant of the year (that’s for the whole country) and, as you might imagine, that did not help with the reservations situation. But back in May I managed to snag a table for four in early July and so we arrived there for our second dinner a week or so after we got back from California. After all this hassle and fuss, what was our experience? Well, the second dinner was even better than the first. Here are the details.

Reservations having become harder to get isn’t the only new development at Oro since our first visit. Sometime in the intervening period they expanded. There is now a bar adjoining the main dining room where you can get both drinks and food. And the rear of the bar opens out into an attractive outdoor patio. The dining room itself has been reconfigured a bit—it felt less cramped than it had in November. By the way, those new seats at the bar and on the patio aren’t bookable: they’re available only for walk-in diners. And if our experience on a Saturday evening in early July is any guide, those seats are probably much easier to get than reservations. The patio was almost empty at 8 pm. So if you live closer to Oro than our one hour drive and you have difficulty getting a reservation, walking in for a patio table is probably a good gamble.

We, however, had a table. We were joined at this dinner by friends who eat out with us often, though they were not with us at that first Oro dinner. Once again we decided to get a bunch of things for the table to share. First though we ordered some cocktails. I had not been overly impressed by the cocktails in November but I am happy to say it was a different story this time around. The missus got the Zapatero remendón (a take on a Cobbler); one of our friends got the Negroni El Jefe (with mezcal etc.); our other friend got the Palomita Ajena (a take on the Paloma); and I got the El Cantarito (mezcal, grilled pineapple etc.). We were all very happy. We’d barely taken a couple of sips before the food began to arrive.

We’d opted to get two dishes from the Botanas section, three from the Masa section, and three from the Platos section. Both the Botanas were outstanding. They included the Ceviche de Hongos (with mushrooms and hearts of palm) and the Aguachile Negro (with scallops). Both came with excellent blue corn tostadas. The ceviche was a perfect balance of flavours and textures. The aguachile was likewise excellently composed, with the avocado mousse and and especially the corn husk ash setting off the sweetness of the scallops perfectly.

Next up were the three dishes from the Masa section. We got the Sopes (with braised venison etc.), the Quesadilla de Espárragos (with requesón and asparagus), and the Chochoyotes Mofongo (masa and plantain dumplings). The sopes themselves were very good even though I thought the venison was a little anonymous. The quesadilla and the chochoyotes, however, were dynamite. As good as the quesadilla was, my favourite thing on that plate might have been the black garlic hollandaise. The chochoyotes I loved everything about: the masa and plantain dumplings themselves, the bacon jam underneath and the various pickled things atop it all.

Three of us got drink refills at this point: a Negro Modelo for one friend, a glass of a Mexican tempranillo-cabernet blend (Santo Tomas) for the other, and a pour of mezcal (the Banhez Ensamble) for me. Thus fortified, we were ready for the larger plates.

First to arrive was a very good Lamb Barbacoa with pipian negro etc.. The whole lamb shank was pink and tender and a good match for the sauce (and the accompanying tortillas). Also very good were the Enmoladas de Pato or enchiladas with duck and mole. The duck confit was nicely done this time (it was a bit too dry in November) but it was the house mole that was again the star of the show. The final large plate was the Lechon Prensado, a terrine of suckling pig. This was also tasty but the least successful of the larger dishes in my view, with the terrine drier than I would have liked. Everything else on the plate was very good.

And so to dessert. We once again ordered the Mole. This audacious dessert that features a whole pasilla chile stuffed with chocolate mousse was one of the stars of our first dinner and there was no way we were not getting it again. It did not disappoint. Along with it we ordered the Tamal de Piña, a tamal with pineapple and carrot inside and carrot sorbet alongside. This is not what showed up at first though. As we were talking when the desserts were set down we didn’t register till two of us had taken bites of it that the second dessert brought to us was actually the Tarta de Limon (with a masa pastry). We ended up eating this as well while they brought us the tamal. It was very good but not a patch on the tamal which was excellent. Indeed, the carrot sorbet by itself would have been one of the better desserts I’ve had in the Twin Cities in a while.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and what we ate and drank, click on an image below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down for thoughts on service, to see how much it cost and for my take on the meal as a whole.

If you re-read my review of our first meal at Oro you might remember that an aspect of the service is what I had the most reservations about. Our server at that meal had been very solid on the whole but the food had come out at an extremely rapid rate, making for both an overcrowded table and a much faster meal than the food deserved. At this meal, things were, on the whole, much better on that front. The first round of food did show up very quickly again but there was an appropriate gap between that and the second wave. The third wave also did not come out before we’d finished the second course but it did show up before those plates had been cleared. This is not a knock on our server—who was very good—but maybe there’s some ironing out to still be done in communication with whoever is expediting in the kitchen. The dessert confusion was taken care of very smoothly by our server and even though we wanted to pay for the tarta de limon (which we’d not ordered but demolished anyway), he refused to charge us for it.

Speaking of paying, the total—including tax, an 18% service charge, an extra gratuity to raise that to 20% and $12 for two packs of Nixta tortillas to go—came to $396. Subtract the tortillas and that’s $384 for dinner. We ate a lot of food and had seven drinks and the total was just about $96/head. Now, that’s not cheap, of course, and I will note that prices have gone up since November, but in the current Twin Cities dining scene it is a screaming deal for the quality of the meal (and we were stuffed as well). As far as the missus and I are concerned, on the strength of our two meals Oro is now our second favourite Twin Cities fine dining restaurant (behind Alma). We will certainly be back here as soon as the next menu turnover happens (I believe the menu changes every 2-3 months), assuming, of course, that we can get a reservation. And we might try to walk in before that with the boys to eat their tacos on the patio (we skipped that section of the menu entirely on this occasion). Meanwhile, if you have not yet been, I highly recommend trying to get a table or just walking in.

Alright, what’s next on the food front? Later this week I will post my penultimate Seoul report and probably also my last report from New York in May. Both those meals were also absolute highlights of my year in dining so far. Let’s see how it goes.