I’m supposed to post my Twin Cities reports on Wednesdays and it’s still Wednesday, dammit. This week’s report is not of a single meal but of two meals eaten a month and a half apart at the same restaurant: Animales. Those who follow the Twin Cities food scene closely know that Animales started out as a food truck, winning acclaim over the next few years for their barbecue. The chef-owner, Jon Wipfli is a veteran of the Twin Cities fine dining scene. After some years cooking in New York, he spent time in the kitchens at Meritage and The Bachelor Farmer. He then had a stint at Famous Dave’s before launching the aforementioned food truck. And then in October 2025 Animales opened as a restaurant in the Harrison neighbourhood, just west of Downtown Minneapolis. The restaurant is a far cry from a food truck. It’s massive, with a lot of seating, indoors and out, a huge play area for kids, and a dining room with a stage that features live music for local bands. After a lunch in early-July and dinner in late-August I can confirm that it is a great space to gather, especially for families. Is the barbecue great as well? Well, at the risk of angering the local populace, I think I would say it falls more than a bit short of greatness on that front. Read on for details.
Lunch, July
My first visit was in early July. The missus was out of town for a week and the boys and I decided to go out for barbecue lunch on the weekend. Animales, by the way, is open for lunch only on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s closed on Mondays and Tuesday and is only open for dinner on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. The restaurant was not super-busy that Saturday morning. We got there around 12.30 and were seated right away. The outdoor seating was completely empty as was the part of the large dining room that faces the stage for live music. That’s not to say that there very few people there, but when a restaurant is that cavernous it’s easy for it to feel emptier than it is.
We were seated at one of the long tables opposite the bar and quickly got down to business. There was a bit of disappointment at first. If I had bothered to read any of the reviews of the place closely I would have realized that they don’t actually serve their barbecue menu at lunch. That’s only available from 4-9 (or until it sells out). But because I’m an idiot, we only discovered this after we sat down and looked at the menu. The lunch menu features some snacks and sandwiches and a few brunch dishes, but they do also serve some smoked meat from 11-2 (or until they sell out). We decided to order only from this end of the menu. Ordering and paying is by QR code on your phone, by the way.
We got the following: Thai Sticky Ribs; Dr. Jon’s Smoked Ham; Birria de Res; and an order of the Memphis Fries from the sides menu. Of the three meats, we all loved the Thai-style ribs. The smoked ham and the birria were fine but nothing to get very excited about. The birria is served just by itself in a bowl, by the way. As there are tortillas elsewhere on the menu, I asked our server if it would be possible for us to get some. She kindly brought us out a plate of very nice corn tortillas and we liked the birria more scooped up in them. Also on the table were their Memphis Fries which were quite excellent. The boys washed all this down with sodas; I stuck with water.
Launch the slideshow for pics of the restaurant, the lunch menu and everything we ate. Scroll down to see how much this meal cost and to read my account of our dinner there when we did in fact eat their bbq offerings.
Service was very friendly and mostly on top of things. Cost? $75.89 with tax and the included 20% service charge. $25/head is reasonable value. We’d had a 50% hit-rate with the things we ordered (though the other two dishes were far from bad) and so we decided we’d come back for dinner once the missus was back and take the full measure of their bbq offerings. As I left for Delhi not too long after she got back, that didn’t end up happening until late-August.
Dinner, August
We ended up hitting them up for dinner a couple of weeks after my return from Delhi in August. We were once again there on a Saturday. We got there at about 6 to find the outdoor seating full and a long line out the door. It is a massive place, however, and the line moved very quickly. We were seated by about 6.15. The dinner menu also includes snacks and sandwiches (the burger and the turkey blt from the lunch menu are joined by two others) and there are also a few salads. But our attention was entirely on the bbq section of the menu. There was no beef to be found here on the night. It was mostly pork plus some chicken. (Are there plans to add brisket or beef ribs at some point? Or does smoked beef cycle on and off the menu?). Rather than quarrel over which of their smoked meats to get, we decided to get their Pitmaster Platter, which features some of all of them (though it didn’t seem to feature quite as many things as the platter pictured in Raphael Brion’s review in the Star-Tribune in April). And we got some sides to go with the meats as well.
The platter included the following: two large smoked Andouille sausages, a whole rack of their St. Louis-style pork ribs, a pound of their chopped pork shoulder, a pound of their smothered chicken, and a double order of their smoked pork belly. It’s billed as feeding 4-6 people and that’s pretty accurate. After adding on sides of mac and cheese, cole slaw and more of those Memphis fries, we could not finish all the meat—we took the leftovers home and ate them a couple of days later.
But what did we make of the meat at the dinner itself? Well, the ribs were excellent; the sausage was very good (but also extremely salty); the smoked pork belly (with a sweet tea and pepper glaze) was fine but nothing very special, and the same was true of the chopped pork shoulder; alas, the smothered chicken (in poblano gravy) did nothing for us. And I fear we found the mac and cheese and cole slaw to be quite ordinary as well. The fries were once again excellent.
I had a beer, the boys and the missus had sodas.
For a look at the food at this meal, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much this dinner cost and for some thoughts on the experience as a whole.
Despite the restaurant being completely full, service was not a mess. There were times when our server was hard to find but it was understandable given the crush. Cost? $208.20, all-in. Certainly there was a lot more meat (plus a beer) but I have to say that $52/head felt like it was on the high side for the quality across the board. Of course, it’s possible that our hit rate would have been quite different if we’d got some of the sandwiches and salads, and I’m not opposed to coming back at some point to put that to the test. But based on the local buzz I was expecting revelatory barbecue and that’s not what we found. The pork ribs were excellent in both incarnations at both meals but the rest of the smoked meats were nothing extraordinary. And, on the whole, we didn’t find most of the meats to be very smoke-forward.
What’s not in doubt, of course, is that it’s not just a barbecue restaurant. It’s a great family restaurant—both with the massive play area for younger children and the live music (the band on the night, Doug Collins and the Receptionists, were pretty good). If you’re looking for a fun night out with good food and music, it’s a very good bet. But if you make a long drive just with the expectation of eating excellent barbecue, you might not be quite as satisfied. At least that was true of us. Your mileage may literally vary.
Alright, two more restaurant reports to come this week. Another from Seoul on Friday and then my last report from the aforementioned July/August trip to Delhi—that’ll go up on the weekend.