In August of 2024 I posted the first version of this list of “fine dining” restaurants in the Twin Cities, organized by the number of times in a year we—as in the missus and I—would like to eat there if opportunity allowed. You can go read the introductory paragraphs of that post to see in more detail what the logic is and to see why I have “fine dining” in quotes. Or you can read the compressed version here. Basically, this is not a comprehensive survey of the Twin Cities’ “fine dining” scene or a ranking of those restaurants per se. It is rather an ordering of the places we’ve eaten at in recent years in terms of the maximum frequency at which we would be likely to eat there given the constraints of time and budget. This determination is made not merely in terms of the quality of the food on offer but also price/value and the likelihood of novelty on the menu. And “fine dining” is in quotes because no one knows what that term means anymore. Since posting the first version of the list, we’ve eaten at a few newer restaurants and have also gone back to others. And some of the restaurants on last year’s list have since closed. This means there’s been a fair bit of movement on the list. Read on to find out how I see things this year. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Twin Cities Dining
Oro IV (Minneapolis)
We first ate at Oro in late 2023, not too long after they opened. We liked that meal very much. Our second dinner there was in the summer of 2024. And we liked that meal even more. Accordingly, I listed them in the “Twice a Year” category in the first edition of my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation last year. But then our second meal there last year was not so great. This was largely due to some service missteps but none of the dishes got us quite so excited either as those at our first two meals there had. As a result, they were not high on our list for this year’s dining out in the Cities. But as I get ready to issue Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation 2.0, I figured we should go back and see how things stand a year later. And so we descended on them last week for dinner on Saturday night. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Vinai 2 (Minneapolis)
Over the last year, a few people have written in to the blog to ask why I did not include Vinai in the first edition of my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation last year. Well, the answer is very simple: at the time I posted that list, I had not yet eaten at Vinai. We ate there for the first time at the end of October last year. And we really liked that meal. We’d expected to go back in just a few months but it didn’t end up happening; partly because of travel and other constraints, but also partly because their menu didn’t change much for those first few months after our first meal. After we got back from our summer travels I eventually got around to making a reservation for early October to celebrate the missus’ birthday but we ended up having to give those seats up just a few days prior. Luckily, I managed to snag a table for four for just about a month later and so this past weekend we descended on them again for dinner with our boys in tow. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
All Saints (Minneapolis)
All Saints opened in North East Minneapolis just about four years ago. They received acclaim from the local press almost immediately. Cynics—not me, of course—might say that it’s hard to find a high-end restaurant in these parts that hasn’t received high acclaim from the local press. But in this case the acclaim from the press was matched by a number of regular readers of this blog who wrote in behind the scenes to recommend I eat there or to ask why I hadn’t already eaten there. The answer to that question is partly that the thing that had impressed itself on my mind from the early press was that this was a restaurant with not much meat on the menu. Now, I like my vegetables but when I go out to eat I do like to have a number of fleshly options. And so they receded from view a bit. When I looked at their website again recently I noted that the menu is described as “veg forward, meat friendly”. Perhaps this slogan has always been on the menu but I’m not sure what it means right now when 50% of the menu comprises meat dishes. Well, one of the things it means is that I made a reservation and we finally descended on them this past weekend, accompanied by a couple of friends we eat out with often. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Tenant XIV (Minneapolis)
We ate a very good dinner at Tenant in June before heading off on our summer travels. At the end of my report on that meal I said that we hoped to be back later in the summer to eat the current version of their tomato water course. That tomato water course—more a genre than a specific dish—is one of our two favourite culinary ways to mark the transition from late-summer to fall in Minnesota; Alma’s chilled corn soup is the other. We ate the corn soup at our dinner at Alma in August; and I’m happy to say that when we did make it back to Tenant a couple of weeks later there was indeed a tomato water dish as part of the proceedings. I’m even happier to say that both it and the menu as a whole were excellent, surpassing our previous dinner. Here are the details. Continue reading
Restaurant Alma XVI, Summer 2025 (Minneapolis)
When summer in Minnesota begins to edge in the direction of fall, our thoughts begin to turn to two of our favourite restaurant dishes in the Twin Cities: the tomato water course at Tenant, and the chilled corn soup at Alma. Soon after our return from our summer travels, I pestered Alma’s executive chef, Maggie Whelan to find out when the soup would make a return to the menu. After the 20th of August, she said. And so I made a booking for Saturday, August 23 and arrived with my lawyer’s number ready to dial in case it (the soup, not my lawyer’s number*) was not in fact on the menu. I think you will agree that I would have ample grounds for a lawsuit if that were to be the case, my friendly relationship with the restaurant** be damned!. I am happy to inform therefore that there was no need for legal shenanigans: the soup was on the menu and we ate the soup; the soup was excellent but so was everything else we ate. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Tenant XIII (Minneapolis)
It doesn’t fully feel like summer in Minnesota till we’ve eaten dinner at Tenant. It now feels like summer in Minnesota. We went back to one of our favourite restaurants in the Twin Cities this past weekend and enjoyed another excellent meal.
We arrived a little early for our 8 pm reservation and decided to begin proceedings in their Next Door space. I am pleased to say that the vibe there is still chill and the cocktails still both priced and mixed very well. The missus got the current incarnation of their Collins (with rum, pineapple etc.) and I got their Martini. We enjoyed both drinks very much. We hadn’t gotten very far into them before we were summoned to the dining room through the interconnecting door. We were seated at the counter and it wasn’t too long before proceedings were underway. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Hyacinth IV (St. Paul, MN)
I wasn’t sure last week if we were going to end up going out to eat this past weekend but, as it happens, we did. The younger boy has just finished middle school and the older boy is headed to 11th grade and we decided to take them out to a nice dinner to celebrate (it’s also the case that we haven’t taken them to a nice meal out in a while). They got to pick the cuisine and they asked for a place with pasta on the menu. 112 Eatery is always a good bet for our family—and their stringozzi with lamb ragu is one of our favourite pasta dishes in the Twin Cities—but we decided finally to go with Hyacinth. The boys had enjoyed our dinner there in 2022 and we decided to give them another go. The only tables they had at short notice were at 5 pm or quite a bit past the boys’ dinner time and so we ate very early. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Bucheron (Minneapolis)
Bucheron opened last year on the corner of Nicollet and 43rd in South Minneapolis and quickly garnered local and then national acclaim. They are currently up for a James Beard award for Best New Restaurant (in the entire country). That they should have gotten all this attention is not surprising. While the restaurant is not directly a part of the Gavin Kaysen Restaurant-Industrial Complex, the owners and other key figures are graduates of it, having worked at Spoon & Stable, Demi and Bellecour (and doubtless other properties as well). When you have a certain pedigree, attention is guaranteed. But a restaurant still has to deliver on the promise of that pedigree. One year on, on the basis of our dinner there this past weekend, I can say that the promise is being kept. We had a very fine meal. Details follow. Continue reading
Myriel II (St. Paul, MN)
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
Restaurant Alma XV, Spring 2025 (Minneapolis)
In my post, The Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation, which ranked restaurants by how many times in a year we’re likely to eat there, Alma was the only restaurant I had in the “Several Times a Year” tier. And so it should be no surprise that with less than four months gone in the year, I am posting my second report on a meal eaten there in 2025. The first was of an excellent dinner in January. That meal featured a change in how Alma’s presentation of both pricing and the menu structure. Last year a meal cost $95/head with an obligatory 21% hospitality charge added to the bill. Now a meal costs $115/head but this is an all-inclusive price with no further expectation (or ask) of tipping. And while you’re still paying for a set number of courses, the opening course of “snacks for the table” and the closing dessert courses are now the only ones in which no choices are made by diners. The three larger intervening savoury courses feature a choice of two dishes. This is a distinction without a difference for the missus and I when dining there as we share everything anyway. Which means we ate the entire menu on this occasion as well and so I can tell you from direct experience that the current early spring menu—which we were told will continue for another 2-3 weeks—was excellent as well. Continue reading
Diane’s Place (Minneapolis, MN)
2024 was the year in which the Twin Cities went from having zero high-end Hmong restaurants to having not one, but two. The second of those to open was Chef Yia Vang’s Vinai. We ate there in late October and thoroughly enjoyed our meal. It was tempting to make plans to go back to Vinai very soon after that meal to try more of their menu but we decided to first try the other restaurant, Chef Diane Moua’s Diane’s Place, which had opened earlier in the year, serving brunch, and expanded to dinner in November. Those plans—and at one point, reservations—kept getting pushed back for one reason or another but we finally got there this past weekend. We’d taken our boys with us to Vinai and they joined us at this meal as well. We were all looking forward to the meal a lot. Did it live up to our hopes and expectations? Read on. Continue reading
Restaurant Alma XIV, January 2025 (Minneapolis)
[A reminder: my regular restaurant reports are now being posted on Wednesdays, not Tuesdays.]
My first restaurant report of 2025 was of a couple of lunches at Hoa Bien in St. Paul. Those meals were, however, eaten in 2024. With the missus off in Los Angeles by herself through the first week of the year, we didn’t go out to eat in Minnesota for the first time till this past weekend. I am glad to report that we managed to start the year off very well in gastronomic terms, with dinner at our favourite fine dining restaurant in the Twin Cities: Alma. As it happens, Alma is also doing something new in 2025 and we ate a very early iteration of it. Read on to find out more. Continue reading
112 Eatery V (Minneapolis)
Here is my second report this year on a meal at 112 Eatery. No, I have not promoted them from the “Once a Year” tier in my Twin Cities fine dining rotation; After our meal there in the summer we’d expected to next eat there again a year later. But as it happened, a combo of a friend’s birthday dinner and a mini-grad school reunion brought us back there in mid-September. Two of the friends we were eating with were in the Twin Cities for the first time and while I don’t think it had been picked for that reason, 112 Eatery is really a very good way to introduce people to the Twin Cities dining scene. It was a nice meal again, on the whole, though it is probably fair to say that we were reminiscing and laughing a little too much to be able to pay close attention to the food. Once again, 112 Eatery is the perfect restaurant for that kind of a meal: the food is good if you pay attention to it; but it’s not striving to be a temple of haute cuisine and you don’t feel out of place if your table gets a little too loud. Here’s a quick look at the meal. Continue reading
Petite Leon III (Minneapolis)
I placed Petite Leon in the “Once a Year” tier in my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation, along with112 Eatery, Hai Hai and Spoon and Stable. We’ve eaten at all three of those restaurants this year and so to keep up appearances it was necessary that we eat at Petite Leon as well before the year runs out. Accordingly, after a bit of reservation shuffling, we ate there this past weekend with the same friends who’d joined us for dinner there in May 2023. I think we all enjoyed this meal at least as much as we had the previous and I am glad to say it did not make me think I’d been overly generous in my estimation of them in my rankings. Though not everything we ate got us equally excited, we enjoyed every single thing we ate, as we did our cocktails; and the meal turned out to be very reasonably priced as well. Hmm maybe we should eat at Petite Leon more than once a year… Continue reading
Vinai (Minneapolis)
Chef Yia Vang’s long-planned, long-awaited formal restaurant, Vinai finally opened in Minneapolis this summer. Along with Diane Moua’s Diane’s Place (which opened in the spring), it immediately became the standard-bearer for high-end Hmong food in the state. Vinai’s opening got a fair bit of positive press, both locally and nationally. Along with Oro, they were included in The New York Times’ 2024 list of 50 best restaurants in the US (or whatever that list is supposed to be about). Well, we’ve been disappointed before by Twin Cities restaurants that have received both local and national acclaim and so it was not without trepidation that I made a reservation in September for dinner at the end of October (by which point I figured the restaurant would have worked out any kinks). We descended on them for that dinner this past weekend. I am very happy to tell you that it was one of the most enjoyable meals we’ve had in the Twin Cities this year. Here are the details. Continue reading
Spoon and Stable V (Minneapolis)
I put Spoon and Stable in the “once a year” tier in my Twin Cities Fine Dining Rotation a couple of months ago. It was then drawn to my attention offline that it had been two years since my last report on a meal there. To address this situation I made a reservation for dinner there to celebrate the missus’s birthday earlier this month. We descended on them with a couple of friends we have eaten there with before and had a meal that was both very good and simultaneously an illustration of why I have them in the “once a year” tier in the aforementioned rotation and not at a higher frequency. Allow me to explain. Continue reading