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Cuts of crispy pork belly on a sheet of white paper with writing that says “Soul Lao.”
Soul Lao’s famous crispy pork belly.
Skylor Boualaphanh

The Hottest New Restaurants in Minneapolis and St. Paul Right Now, November 2023

Oxtail at the lake, sandwiches on Selby, and other noteworthy spots to try this month

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Soul Lao’s famous crispy pork belly.
| Skylor Boualaphanh

Welcome to the Eater Twin Cities Heatmap, a collection of exciting new restaurants that have opened or re-opened in the last six months or so. Despite the long-tail challenges of the pandemic, Minneapolis and St. Paul’s resilient restaurant community continues to find creative ways to introduce diners to fantastic food. Here’s a trail of the hottest restaurants around Cities right now, November 2023.

Note that these restaurants are listed geographically.

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Eater maps are curated by editors and aim to reflect a diversity of neighborhoods, cuisines, and prices. Learn more about our editorial process.

Mandalay Kitchen

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A new restaurant with roots in St. Paul’s Karen community just opened in Frogtown. Mandalay Kitchen weaves together Burmese, Thai, and Karen cuisines, throwing in a chapli Juicy Lucy for good measure. Chef and owner Chris Tunbaw knows Frogtown well — he grew up eating at the neighborhood’s wealth of Southeast Asian restaurants, after his family left Myanmar when he was 10. Now he’s finally opened his own. Come for tea leaf salad, Bangkok-style boat noodles, crispy samosas, and steaming bowls of mohinga (a peppery catfish chowder, the unofficial Burmese national dish).

A white bowl of rich red soup topped with sliced meat and halved hardboiled eggs on a round white table with a Coke bottle in the background.
Mohinga at Mandalay Kitchen.
Mandalay Kitchen

Sammy’s Avenue Eatery

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Sammy’s Avenue Eatery, a cornerstone sandwich spot on the Northside’s Broadway Avenue, has opened a second shop in St. Paul. The turkey pastramis, chicken melts, and simple, impeccable breakfast sandwiches are a few highlights on this menu — though Sammy’s is a place where people come as much for the juicy sandwiches as for the sense of community. Save room for chef Sammy McDowell’s banana pudding, too.

Two subs with bacon, turkey, provolone, lettuce and tomato in buns on a a green and white checkered paper.
Sandwiches on Selby.
Sammy’s Avenue Eatery

Soul Lao

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Soul Lao — the St. Paul-based food truck known for its pork belly baguette sandwiches, red curry-topped branzino, and fiery khaopoon — has opened a permanent location at Sibley Plaza. Owners Sabrina Boualaphanh and Eric Phothisanh’s new menu features khao gee pâté (a Lao sausage baguette sandwich), papaya salad, and Soul Lao’s super-popular crispy pork belly and wings, among other dishes, plus a beer collab with next-door Wandering Leaf Brewery. This winter, Soul Lao will offer a noodle soup menu, too, featuring khao poon and khao soi. 

Sliced pork belly on a sheet of white paper.
Soul Lao’s famous crispy pork belly.
Skylor Boualaphanh

Herbst Eatery & Farm Stand

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Angie and Jörg Pierach’s new St. Paul restaurant, Herbst, sources many of its ingredients from an Amish farm stand in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. Chef Eric Simpsons’ menu is hyper-seasonal, stacked with dishes like kabocha squash with creamed kale, chicken liver creste di gallo with burgundy truffles, and a salted nut tart for fall. Homemade pastas, maple syrup, and fresh eggs and vegetables are available at the “farm stand” section of the restaurant.

A sunny dinning area with chairs, a long booth, and tables, and a bar in the background with a large paper lantern hanging above it.
Herbst’s sunny dining area.
Herbst

Zhora Darling

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The headline for this new bar and restaurant on 1st Avenue NE? The kitchen stays open until 1 a.m. That’s a big deal these days, especially when the menu includes small plates like charred shishitos and green pea falafel served with citrus yogurt and spicy carrot and sultana salad; bigger plates like watermelon salad with shrimp; and sandwiches like a grass-fed burger with grilled pineapple, pickled beet, and a sunny side up egg. Eric Odness and partners, who also own neighborhood dive bars in Brooklyn, opened Zhora Darling at the end of September, bringing a cool, promising spot for food, cocktails, pool, and live music to town.

La Boulangerie Marguerite

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This is the second location for St. Paul’s popular La Boulangerie Marguerite, a friendly, family-owned spot from Francois Kiemde and Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde. Equally popular for both croissants and old-fashioned doughnuts, the bakery’s offerings reflect Kiemde’s French training with baguettes, patisseries, and viennoiseries, but the effect at the new location next to The Anchor Fish & Chips is pure Northeast.

Oro by Nixta Tortilleria

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Nixta’s dine-in space, Oro, is now open. Chef Gustavo Romero’s Mexican menu preserves and celebrates heirloom corn varieties, which have suffered in recent decades due to hybridization and industrial tortilla production. As tasty as Romero’s dishes are for takeout, they shine in a plated, dine-in format. Tender hunks of pollo rest in a chocolatey pool of mole; pork belly is served with a tangy pastor adobo. On Oro’s menu, masa takes a number of unique forms: chochoyotes (potato-requeson dumplings), tetelas (triangular nixtamal cakes), and tlayudas (large, crunchy tortillas) alongside the usual tacos, sopes, and tamales.

Chochoyotes in a rich orange sauce on a white plate.
Chochoyotes at Oro.
Justine Jones

The Camden Social

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Visit this new north Minneapolis hotspot for elevated bar bites and cocktails — or puff on a cigar from a selection curated by Kathryn and Alfonso Mayfield, the couple behind Allure Cigars. The Mayfields have teamed up with Brittany and Gerard Klass of Soul Bowl for the gathering spot and restaurant, with a kitchen led by Antonio Murray. Sleek and stylish, a menu of collard greens dip, charred broccoli Caesar salad, Guyanese filet tips, and smoked salmon croquettes is served late.

Porzana

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Chef Dani del Prado’s new steakhouse, Porzana, serves an array of Argentinian and classic American cuts (think pincanha and vacio alongside ribeye and flat iron) in the former Bachelor Farmer space. In the States, del Prado says, tender, melt-in-your mouth steak tends to be the most sought after — in Argentina, having a little “bite” and denser flavor is appreciated. The menu spans from $19 hangers to $290 44-ounce tomahawks, and also includes pastas, snack-like small dishes, vegetable sides, salads, and a seafood cold bar. The Flora Room is Porzana’s adjoining, low-lit cocktail bar.

A sliced steak on a black plate next to a black cup of au jus.
Porzana serves both Argentian and classic American steaks.
The Restaurant Project

LITT Pinball Bar

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LITT Pinball Bar is finally open in the old Liquor Lyle’s space on Lyndale Avenue. Out with the jukebox and red vinyl booths; in with 40-some pinball machines, from a circa 1981 Eight Ball Deluxe to a Stranger Things-themed machine. There’s a menu of bar bites, too: smoked onion dip and Bavarian pretzels, chili cheese dogs, chicken tinga nachos, etc., plus beer and cocktails.

Hi Flora!

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Hi Flora is a new vegan restaurant and temperance bar by chef Heather Klein of Root to Rise. The restaurant takes an innovative approach to THC, offering it not only in canned beverage form but also as a five-milligram tincture that can be added to drinks or sprinkled over food, infusing dishes like mushroom street tacos, fried maitake sandwiches, or avocado cacao mousse with a touch of cannabis. The restaurant’s fajitas and lion’s mane mushroom steak (marinated in a beet sauce that’s a tangy, peppery approximation of traditional steak sauce) are favorites.

A dropper of pink liquid above a clay dish of chocolate mousse on a table.
Hi Flora’s avocado cacao mousse, topped with the proprietary THC tincture.
Justine Jones

Pimento Jamaican Kitchen & Rum Bar

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Chef Tomme Beevas’s Jamaican favorite, Pimento, is now open at the Bde Maka Ska pavilion. There’s a covered patio with heaters, so sneak in Kingston-style jerk chicken, curry veggies and braised oxtail before the snow returns. Make sure to try the coco bread — a sweet, pillowy Jamaican milk bread — too.

Chef Ann Kim’s Korean American restaurant, Kim’s, is open in Uptown. Start with snacks — fluffy hotteok, bubbling egg soufflé, beef and kimchi mandu — before moving onto a main course (stone bowl bibimbap, gochujang grilled prawns, sakura pork belly, etc.). Grab a seat at the bar for corn tea whiskey highballs and lychee tinis — or head downstairs to Bronto Bar, which opens Thursday November 9. Bronto’s cocktail list is divided into three sections (savory, bright, and spirited) with full, low, and no-proof options for each. Order a burger, a scratch-made Spam patty, or egg custard on a pillowy hotteok bun.

A large, vibrant mural of a Korean woman in a bright yellow hanbok intertwined with a green dragon and a blue phoenix, all on the side of a brick building.
Kim’s is open in Uptown.
Kim’s

Mi Mexico Querido

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Mi Mexico Querido is finally open on Minnehaha Avenue, serving buttery camarones zarandeados, chilaquiles verdes, tall glasses of agua jamaica and horchata, and burritos with fries. For something sweet, try the sugar-dusted concha, split open and stuffed with whipped cream and strawberries. 

El Sazon Cocina & Tragos

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El Sazon, known and loved for its tacos, salsa verde-smothered enchiladas, and five-course dinner series (all served inside an Eagan gas station) has opened a second restaurant in Tangletown. Owners Karen and chef Cristian de Leon are serving all the El Sazon taco classics, plus plated dishes in the evening and a full cocktail menu. But it might be the birria — birria ramen, birria fries, quesabirria — winning the most hearts so far.

Ceviche topped with avocado and chili flakes in a black bowl.
Ceviche at El Sazon.
El Sazon Cocina & Tragos

South Lyndale Liquors & Market

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New sandwich alert: South Lyndale Liquors hopped a few blocks south to a new location with a full cheese and charcuterie shop and deli. There are 12 sandwiches on this menu — think roast pork with broccoli rabe, smoked turkey, butter brie studded with radishes and golden beets — and they’re getting rave reviews so far. Wine on tap is in the works.

Mandalay Kitchen

A new restaurant with roots in St. Paul’s Karen community just opened in Frogtown. Mandalay Kitchen weaves together Burmese, Thai, and Karen cuisines, throwing in a chapli Juicy Lucy for good measure. Chef and owner Chris Tunbaw knows Frogtown well — he grew up eating at the neighborhood’s wealth of Southeast Asian restaurants, after his family left Myanmar when he was 10. Now he’s finally opened his own. Come for tea leaf salad, Bangkok-style boat noodles, crispy samosas, and steaming bowls of mohinga (a peppery catfish chowder, the unofficial Burmese national dish).

A white bowl of rich red soup topped with sliced meat and halved hardboiled eggs on a round white table with a Coke bottle in the background.
Mohinga at Mandalay Kitchen.
Mandalay Kitchen

Sammy’s Avenue Eatery

Sammy’s Avenue Eatery, a cornerstone sandwich spot on the Northside’s Broadway Avenue, has opened a second shop in St. Paul. The turkey pastramis, chicken melts, and simple, impeccable breakfast sandwiches are a few highlights on this menu — though Sammy’s is a place where people come as much for the juicy sandwiches as for the sense of community. Save room for chef Sammy McDowell’s banana pudding, too.

Two subs with bacon, turkey, provolone, lettuce and tomato in buns on a a green and white checkered paper.
Sandwiches on Selby.
Sammy’s Avenue Eatery

Soul Lao

Soul Lao — the St. Paul-based food truck known for its pork belly baguette sandwiches, red curry-topped branzino, and fiery khaopoon — has opened a permanent location at Sibley Plaza. Owners Sabrina Boualaphanh and Eric Phothisanh’s new menu features khao gee pâté (a Lao sausage baguette sandwich), papaya salad, and Soul Lao’s super-popular crispy pork belly and wings, among other dishes, plus a beer collab with next-door Wandering Leaf Brewery. This winter, Soul Lao will offer a noodle soup menu, too, featuring khao poon and khao soi. 

Sliced pork belly on a sheet of white paper.
Soul Lao’s famous crispy pork belly.
Skylor Boualaphanh

Herbst Eatery & Farm Stand

Angie and Jörg Pierach’s new St. Paul restaurant, Herbst, sources many of its ingredients from an Amish farm stand in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. Chef Eric Simpsons’ menu is hyper-seasonal, stacked with dishes like kabocha squash with creamed kale, chicken liver creste di gallo with burgundy truffles, and a salted nut tart for fall. Homemade pastas, maple syrup, and fresh eggs and vegetables are available at the “farm stand” section of the restaurant.

A sunny dinning area with chairs, a long booth, and tables, and a bar in the background with a large paper lantern hanging above it.
Herbst’s sunny dining area.
Herbst

Zhora Darling

The headline for this new bar and restaurant on 1st Avenue NE? The kitchen stays open until 1 a.m. That’s a big deal these days, especially when the menu includes small plates like charred shishitos and green pea falafel served with citrus yogurt and spicy carrot and sultana salad; bigger plates like watermelon salad with shrimp; and sandwiches like a grass-fed burger with grilled pineapple, pickled beet, and a sunny side up egg. Eric Odness and partners, who also own neighborhood dive bars in Brooklyn, opened Zhora Darling at the end of September, bringing a cool, promising spot for food, cocktails, pool, and live music to town.

La Boulangerie Marguerite

This is the second location for St. Paul’s popular La Boulangerie Marguerite, a friendly, family-owned spot from Francois Kiemde and Melissa Borgmann-Kiemde. Equally popular for both croissants and old-fashioned doughnuts, the bakery’s offerings reflect Kiemde’s French training with baguettes, patisseries, and viennoiseries, but the effect at the new location next to The Anchor Fish & Chips is pure Northeast.

Oro by Nixta Tortilleria

Nixta’s dine-in space, Oro, is now open. Chef Gustavo Romero’s Mexican menu preserves and celebrates heirloom corn varieties, which have suffered in recent decades due to hybridization and industrial tortilla production. As tasty as Romero’s dishes are for takeout, they shine in a plated, dine-in format. Tender hunks of pollo rest in a chocolatey pool of mole; pork belly is served with a tangy pastor adobo. On Oro’s menu, masa takes a number of unique forms: chochoyotes (potato-requeson dumplings), tetelas (triangular nixtamal cakes), and tlayudas (large, crunchy tortillas) alongside the usual tacos, sopes, and tamales.

Chochoyotes in a rich orange sauce on a white plate.
Chochoyotes at Oro.
Justine Jones

The Camden Social

Visit this new north Minneapolis hotspot for elevated bar bites and cocktails — or puff on a cigar from a selection curated by Kathryn and Alfonso Mayfield, the couple behind Allure Cigars. The Mayfields have teamed up with Brittany and Gerard Klass of Soul Bowl for the gathering spot and restaurant, with a kitchen led by Antonio Murray. Sleek and stylish, a menu of collard greens dip, charred broccoli Caesar salad, Guyanese filet tips, and smoked salmon croquettes is served late.

Porzana

Chef Dani del Prado’s new steakhouse, Porzana, serves an array of Argentinian and classic American cuts (think pincanha and vacio alongside ribeye and flat iron) in the former Bachelor Farmer space. In the States, del Prado says, tender, melt-in-your mouth steak tends to be the most sought after — in Argentina, having a little “bite” and denser flavor is appreciated. The menu spans from $19 hangers to $290 44-ounce tomahawks, and also includes pastas, snack-like small dishes, vegetable sides, salads, and a seafood cold bar. The Flora Room is Porzana’s adjoining, low-lit cocktail bar.

A sliced steak on a black plate next to a black cup of au jus.
Porzana serves both Argentian and classic American steaks.
The Restaurant Project

LITT Pinball Bar

LITT Pinball Bar is finally open in the old Liquor Lyle’s space on Lyndale Avenue. Out with the jukebox and red vinyl booths; in with 40-some pinball machines, from a circa 1981 Eight Ball Deluxe to a Stranger Things-themed machine. There’s a menu of bar bites, too: smoked onion dip and Bavarian pretzels, chili cheese dogs, chicken tinga nachos, etc., plus beer and cocktails.

Hi Flora!

Hi Flora is a new vegan restaurant and temperance bar by chef Heather Klein of Root to Rise. The restaurant takes an innovative approach to THC, offering it not only in canned beverage form but also as a five-milligram tincture that can be added to drinks or sprinkled over food, infusing dishes like mushroom street tacos, fried maitake sandwiches, or avocado cacao mousse with a touch of cannabis. The restaurant’s fajitas and lion’s mane mushroom steak (marinated in a beet sauce that’s a tangy, peppery approximation of traditional steak sauce) are favorites.

A dropper of pink liquid above a clay dish of chocolate mousse on a table.
Hi Flora’s avocado cacao mousse, topped with the proprietary THC tincture.
Justine Jones

Pimento Jamaican Kitchen & Rum Bar

Chef Tomme Beevas’s Jamaican favorite, Pimento, is now open at the Bde Maka Ska pavilion. There’s a covered patio with heaters, so sneak in Kingston-style jerk chicken, curry veggies and braised oxtail before the snow returns. Make sure to try the coco bread — a sweet, pillowy Jamaican milk bread — too.

Kim's

Chef Ann Kim’s Korean American restaurant, Kim’s, is open in Uptown. Start with snacks — fluffy hotteok, bubbling egg soufflé, beef and kimchi mandu — before moving onto a main course (stone bowl bibimbap, gochujang grilled prawns, sakura pork belly, etc.). Grab a seat at the bar for corn tea whiskey highballs and lychee tinis — or head downstairs to Bronto Bar, which opens Thursday November 9. Bronto’s cocktail list is divided into three sections (savory, bright, and spirited) with full, low, and no-proof options for each. Order a burger, a scratch-made Spam patty, or egg custard on a pillowy hotteok bun.

A large, vibrant mural of a Korean woman in a bright yellow hanbok intertwined with a green dragon and a blue phoenix, all on the side of a brick building.
Kim’s is open in Uptown.
Kim’s

Mi Mexico Querido

Mi Mexico Querido is finally open on Minnehaha Avenue, serving buttery camarones zarandeados, chilaquiles verdes, tall glasses of agua jamaica and horchata, and burritos with fries. For something sweet, try the sugar-dusted concha, split open and stuffed with whipped cream and strawberries. 

El Sazon Cocina & Tragos

El Sazon, known and loved for its tacos, salsa verde-smothered enchiladas, and five-course dinner series (all served inside an Eagan gas station) has opened a second restaurant in Tangletown. Owners Karen and chef Cristian de Leon are serving all the El Sazon taco classics, plus plated dishes in the evening and a full cocktail menu. But it might be the birria — birria ramen, birria fries, quesabirria — winning the most hearts so far.

Ceviche topped with avocado and chili flakes in a black bowl.
Ceviche at El Sazon.
El Sazon Cocina & Tragos

Related Maps

South Lyndale Liquors & Market

New sandwich alert: South Lyndale Liquors hopped a few blocks south to a new location with a full cheese and charcuterie shop and deli. There are 12 sandwiches on this menu — think roast pork with broccoli rabe, smoked turkey, butter brie studded with radishes and golden beets — and they’re getting rave reviews so far. Wine on tap is in the works.

Related Maps