We ate at Myriel for the first time almost exactly three years ago. They had then been open for just about a year and had already received rave reviews locally. We liked our meal fine but it did not blow us away (and there were some aspects of the meal we found a little cloying). This, by the way, was also the experience of the friends we had originally been supposed to eat there with. Our original reservation had been scuppered on account of a positive covid test at the restaurant and we ended up eating instead at St. Genevieve. And then we ate separately at Myriel a couple of months apart. We had both independently set them aside in our minds as “decent enough but nothing we need to go back and try again in a hurry”. And when I posted the first edition of my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation last year, I put Myriel in the “Once Every Few Years” tier. Well, three years is certainly a few. In the intervening period their local reputation has become even stronger and they’ve also picked up a fair bit of national recognition, including a finalist nod for Chef Tomlinson in the “Best Chef: Midwest” category in the 2025 James Beard Awards (I guess results will be announced soon). We checked with our friends to see if they were available and interested to finally go back and eat there together. They were and so we did. Did we like this meal better? Read on to find out. Continue reading →

Myriel opened just about a year ago in St. Paul and has quickly garnered a strong reputation. The chef-owner is Karyn Tomlinson who was previously the head chef at Corner Table in Minneapolis. I have to admit we were not hugely impressed by our one dinner at Corner Table (which closed before the pandemic) but given the acclaim for Myriel we were looking forward to eventually eating there. We were first set to do so in May but those plans were scuppered by a late-breaking positive test among the staff (we ended up at Saint Genevieve that evening where we had a very nice dinner). We got rescheduled to early-mid June and when our friends couldn’t make it on that date we decided to take our boys along for another fine dining outing (which is a development they are hugely enjoying). Here is how it went. Continue reading →