There is no party like a Travail party: This trail-blazing chef collective specializes in creating an atmosphere of delight and wonder — Travail made its name subverting the traditional restaurant model, eliminating servers and bringing chefs table-side to dish out an intriguing tasting menu (think lobster eggs made with truffle, brown butter, and tarragon, and cocktails bubbling over with liquid nitrogen). The latest iteration of the restaurant, an expansive three-level building, has opened in starts-and-stops thanks to the pandemic. Buy a ticket for the tasting menu (beet-cured hamachi with kumquat, New Caledonian shrimp ravioli, and an intriguing beverage described only as “SODA - POP!”) or sip a curated cocktail flight at the basement bar.

James Beard–nominated chef Christina Nguyen’s Southeast Asian restaurant Hai Hai is one of Northeast Minneapolis’s most compelling restaurants for upscale dining. In 2017, Nguyen and co-owner Birk Grudem expertly transformed a divey neighborhood strip club into a lush patio space and interior: Hai Hai’s deep teal walls and canopy of ferns and paper lanterns make the space hum with tropical charm, even in the dead of winter. The cocktails are thoughtful and creative — think lychee slushies and espresso martinis with Vietnamese coffee and coconut — and the menu has standouts like Thai banana blossom salad, beef laab lettuce wraps, and a tender Balinese chicken thigh with macerated kale and bean sprout salad.

Sandwiched between Monroe Street and the BNSF train tracks on an old industrial corner of Northeast Minneapolis, Vivir is an all-day Mexican cafe and bakery with. Led by chef Jose Alarcon and general manager Jami Olson — the same team behind Centro and dear-departed Popol Vuh, two other standouts in Minneapolis’s canon of Mexican cuisine — Vivir hones in on small plates like duck tacos, chorizo tortas, and savory, hand-formed empanadas made with ground beef, raisins, and onions. (Also of note are chocolate mole cupcakes and conchas from pastry chef Ngia Xiong.) Food is served cafeteria-style in the airy cafe, and a funky agave lounge called Escondido is open every Saturday evening.

Chef Gustavo Romero uses heirloom corn varieties to create hearty, delicately flavorful tortillas at this tortilleria and Mexican takeout operation in Northeast Minneapolis. Romero grew up on a farm in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo, where he played in fields of Oaxacan heirloom corn — since opening Nixta in 2020, his mission has been to preserve and celebrate heirloom corn varieties, which have suffered in recent decades of hybridization and industrial tortilla production (though they’re making a culinary comeback in Mexico City). The result is hand-shaped and fried tortillas in shades of slate blue, pale yellow, and brown — an ideal canvas for a rotating family-style takeout menu featuring dishes like chicharron, camote frito with escabeche relish, and guajillo beef birria tacos.

Back in 2012, chef Sammy McDowell pooled his personal savings and opened Sammy’s Avenue Eatery, a sunny, casual sandwich spot in North Minneapolis. Ten years later, the restaurant is a cornerstone of Broadway Avenue — a place where people come as much for the juicy sandwiches as for the sense of community. Catch the teacher’s union gathering there for turkey melts and tuna clubs, or come on a day when McDowell is collaborating with local chefs on a soul food menu (think smothered chicken and rice and cheeseburger meatloaf). Sammy’s is featured in season six of “Small Business Revolution,” which recently aired on Hulu. A second Northside location is forthcoming.

Gavin Kaysen is one of the Cities’ most-lauded chefs: the winner of two James Beard awards, Kaysen opened Demi in 2018 as a tasting-menu only restaurant. The atmosphere is refined, but intimate: the walls are cloaked in a deep emerald color, the space softly lit by a constellation of lights embedded in the ceiling. Diners sit at a U-shaped table, while at the center, chefs prepare plates of rohan duck with braised endive and cara cara orange purée, and frozen labneh with sunflower seed mousse. Prices for the tasting menu start at $125; note that Demi is reservation-only.

When chef Yia Vang first began cooking and serving foods from Hmong culture made with the fine-dining skills he had gained working in area kitchens, Hmong food wasn’t a familiar cuisine in the Twin Cities restaurant world. Years later, his pop-up Union Hmong Kitchen is now a permanent restaurant in the North Loop’s Graze food hall, and Vang is a 2022 James Beard finalist for best chef Midwest. The menu standouts at UHK are the Zoo Siab meals — which means “happy meals” — made with proteins like chili-glazed pork shoulder and Hmong sausage, all served with purple sticky rice, pickled veggies, and sides like chilled khao sen noodles. (Saturdays only, try the Hilltribe fried chicken sandwich, tossed in chili oil, and for Sunday brunch, don’t miss the hangover noodles made with minced beef and peanut sauce.) Vang’s much-anticipated restaurant, Vinai, is on the horizon in 2022.

Chef Gerard Klass and Brittney Alise Klass started Soul Bowl as a pop-up in 2018 with a mission to celebrate the culture and community of North Minneapolis: for two days, they served bowls of black-eyed peas, cornbread dressing, and barbecue-braised beef out of New Rules on Lowry Avenue, and ran a line around the block. The Klasses have since expanded Soul Bowl to two permanent locations at Graze Provisions and Libations in Minneapolis’s North Loop, and on Chicago Avenue in Richfield (plus a stand at Target Field). The restaurant is beloved for its customizable soul food bowls: diners can start with bases like mac and cheese (eminently creamy and well-seasoned) or yellow rice, add veggies (think sweet plantains, smoked mushrooms, and candied yams) and finish with meats like barbecue chicken and Cajun salmon.

At first, it was Chef Billy Tserenbat’s sushi food truck that became a sensation. Now, it’s his glam North Loop restaurant, Billy Sushi, which he opened in the middle of the pandemic. Tserenbat is known for his larger-than-life presence, both as a host and as a chef: the sushi menu runs a little pricey, but the fatty cuts of sashimi and creative rolls like the Toro Mania — a kakiage mix topped with bluefin tuna, scallion, and yuzu sauce — make it well worth the cost, around $19 - $35 for specialty rolls. (Pay a small premium for the Oh Em Gii, a tempura and spicy tuna roll topped with a sheet of 24-karat gold.) Fair warning, Billy Sushi is typically quite busy — a reservation is a wise move.

First opened in 1999, Restaurant Alma has built a reputation as one of Minneapolis’s finest restaurants. In 2016, chef Alex Roberts and Margo Roberts expanded Alma into a boutique hotel, all-day cafe, and fine dining restaurant: tucked into an elegant brick building on University Avenue. The prix fixe menu runs at $85: enjoy delicate starters like white corn griddle cakes with red sorrel, and entrees like crispy arctic char and lemon orzo with king crab. Restaurant Alma has an extensive wine list, and offers a pairing menu — a series of three-ounce glasses plus dessert wine — for an additional cost. The restaurant is also known as one of the most accommodating spots for dietary restrictions: a complete vegetarian prix fixe menu is available, and gluten-free, dairy-free, pescatarian, and vegan adaptations are possible upon request.

Chef Sean Sherman’s restaurant Owamni — which has earned him two 2022 James Beard nominations, for best chef Midwest and best new restaurants — is the most exciting restaurant to have opened in the Twin Cities in recent years. Here, Sherman and co-owner Dana Thompson have brought Indigenous cooking to the forefront of the national restaurant scene. The decolonized menu excludes foods that “did not exist in America before white people stepped onto this soil” — meaning, no flour, dairy, or refined sugar is used in the kitchen. In their place are bison tartare with duck egg aioli, maple-baked tepary beans with cedar, and wild rice sorbet. Owamni started as a kickstarter campaign: it broke a record in 2016, bringing in $150,000 in a month. Today, it’s a modern, full-service, Indigenous restaurant, stationed in a white stone building on the banks of the Mississippi River, not far from St. Anthony Falls — or, in the Dakota language, Owámniyomni, which means whirlpool or eddy.

Brunson’s is a stellar neighborhood bar in St. Paul’s Payne Phalen neighborhood, an area with a rich immigrant history. Named for Benjamin Brunson, a land surveyor who built what’s believed to be the oldest standing brick house in St. Paul near Payne Avenue, the pub is the work of owners Thomas and Molly LaFleche, who met working in the local industry. Chef Torrance Beavers adapts the menus seasonally, but it’s an ideal stop for quality bar food like loaded fries, wedge salads, hefty braised beef sandwiches, and burgers. (The “No Payne No Gain” burger, stacked with pulled bacon, blue cheese, and blackberry vidalia jam, is worth sampling.) Brunson’s patio is a hidden gem, set back from the street for a reprieve from busy Payne Avenue.

Bebe Zito is a brilliant mishmash of flavors, eye-popping design, and a healthy dose of merriment. With spots in Minneapolis’s Wedge neighborhood and the Market at Malcolm Yards, co-owners Ben Spangler and Gabriella Grant made waves in the Cities’ ice cream scene with an inventive roster of flavors: their “classics” menu features a citrus vanilla base topped with caramelized Fruity Pebbles, a Brazilian brigadeiro chocolate, and a maracuja, with passionfruit and a cream cheese base. “Dad’s Coffee” takes an intensely flavored bourbon base, spikes it with coffee, and takes all the edge off with chocolate chips. On the weekends, Bebe Zito serves skinny-smashed burgers layered with American cheese.

One of the cornerstone restaurants of Nicollet Avenue’s Eat Street corridor, Quang was founded by matriarch chef Lung Tran 30 years ago. Today, it’s run by her five children. The original Quang was a four-table bakery across the street from the present location, where Tran and her kids sold Vietnamese pastries and food: The restaurant grew in popularity as news of Tran’s fragrant, hearty dishes traveled by word of mouth. Three decades later, it’s a go-to for enormous bowls of pho — aromatic and balanced, the beef sliced into delicate sheets — classic stir fry and noodle dishes like pad thai, and banh mi with red roast pork and pâté. Quang’s space is casual, and bustling on any weekend evening.

Chef Manny Gonzalez is a legendary figure of Midtown Global Market, Lake Street’s international food hall.  Gonzalez first opened Manny’s Tortas in Mercado Central in 1999: now, he and his sister Victoria run the MGM location together, where they sell an impressive selection of tortas. Try a simple one like the Cubana, made with pork tenderloin, ham, and cheese — or the Manny’s special, made with steak, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and jalapeno, grilled together and topped with ham and cheese. Manny’s warm greeting from behind the counter makes this restaurant a real Minneapolis standout.

Tucked into a petite stone building on University Avenue in St. Paul, Cheng Heng is a mainstay of the Frogtown neighborhood’s food corridor. Cambodian restaurants are relatively few and far between in the Cities’ robust Southeast Asian restaurant scene, and Cheng Heng, which has won a slate of awards from local newspapers and magazines, takes up the mantle well. Try the kor koo noodle soup, brewed a fiery red in Cheng Heng’s kitchen, or the machu angkor, made with winter squash, pineapple, and lotus stems. Save room for the thuck kaw chuew: beans nestled under sweetened condensed milk and crushed ice.

Las Cuatro Milpas is reputed to be the first restaurant to introduce birria to the Twin Cities restaurant scene, when chef Hector Hernandez, originally of Mexico’s Zacatecas state, moved to Minneapolis. Twenty-some years later, birria tacos and quesabirria are among the nation’s hottest culinary trends — and Hernandez is still selling Minneapolis’s finest birria dishes under an emerald-green awning on East Lake Street. Stop in for lamb, goat, and beef birria tacos, cups of hot, brothy birria stew, or pizzabirria, loaded with cheese and served in an aluminum tin. Las Cuatro Milpas is a cornerstone restaurant on East Lake Street’s bustling stretch of Mexican restaurants and groceries.

Lu’s serves the pre-eminent banh mi of the Twin Cities. A casual spot on Nicollet Avenue’s Eat Street, Lu’s serves generous banh mi that are expertly balanced in their crusty/chewy and pickled/roasted ratios — try the special ham, made with Vietnamese meat loafs and pork belly, the mock duck, or the meatball, stuffed with four pork meatballs marinated Shanghai-style. Lu’s operates three Minneapolis and a food truck, but its cafeteria-style space on Nicollet is the original spot.

Meritage, tucked into an elegant, glass-paned storefront in downtown St. Paul, is one of the Cities’ most romantic dining destinations. More than anywhere else, it successfully mimics a Parisian dining ambiance: Before your meal, sample oysters at the crescent bar — ask the bartender to drop an absinthe-soaked sugar cube into your champagne glass. Chef Russell Klein’s menu features a daily preparation of Au Bon Canard foie gras, and a stunning braised leek salad topped with Fourme d’Abert cheese. As an entree, try the Minnesota duck breast à l’orange or the Maine sea scallops — both are worth the price.

Matt’s, stationed in the first floor of a simple stucco building on Cedar Avenue, is one of the most legendary dives in the Twin Cities. (Former president Barack Obama ate here in 2014.) It claims to be the home of the original Jucy Lucy — that iconic, gooey, cheese-stuffed burger: according to local legend, in 1954, a Matt’s customer requested two beef patties with a slice of cheese in the middle. After his first oozy bite, he declared “That’s one juicy Lucy!” and thus, the Jucy Lucy was born. (To distinguish its Lucy from other Twin Cities dupes that have since proliferated, Matt’s spells its burger without the “I.”) The restaurant has maintained its exquisitely divey interior: slide into a pleather booth or grab a seat at the roomy, unadorned bar.

DeGidio’s, a mainstay of St. Paul’s West Seventh neighborhood, is the legacy of Joe “Kid Bullets” DeGidio, a prolific bootlegger of the 1920s and ‘30s, the era when mobsters operated quite lucratively — and with impunity — in the organized crime haven of St. Paul. DeGidio’s was once a favorite haunt of notable gangsters, though no longer: its website notes that “all mob ties were severed many decades ago.” These days, the restaurant is a go-to for classic, indulgent Italian fare like stromboli, blackened shrimp alfredo, and tortellini bolognese, made with Italian sausage and a plum tomato sauce. It’s still owned and run by Kid Bullets’ grandchildren.

This sunny corner at 38th Street and Grand Avenue has been a neighborhood gathering space for decades. In the 1920s, the building that currently houses Victor’s 1959 Cafe was a Shell gas station — after that, it was a Dairy Queen, then a bustling all-American breakfast restaurant. Owner Niki Stavrou bought the building in 1959, and transformed it into the Victor’s of today: a stout, turquoise-blue establishment with hand-painted decals and, in the summer months, an assortment of umbrellas on the tropical-themed patio. Inside, the walls and booths are adorned with years’ worth of graffiti and art. Stop in for breakfast and order the ropa vieja or the bistec criollo, served with yuca frita — or grab a cafe con leche from the pick up window.

Owners Maria and Tomas Silva, originally of Aguascalientes, Mexico, opened St. Paul’s El Burrito Mercado in an 800 square-foot market in 1979. In ‘83, they added a kitchen and started making to-go items like carnitas, tamales, and pan dulce — and in ‘95, they renovated the historic Henley’s Furniture building on Cesar Chavez St., and remain in their 13,000 square-foot space today. The Silvas also run a successful wholesale Mexican grocery distribution business in the Cities, but it’s their tender molcajete Mexicano, tamale platters, and fresh ceviche — all served in a vast dining and cantina space — that makes them an essential restaurant. Daughters Milissa and Suzanne and granddaughter Analita run El Burrito Mercado today.

Chef Jorge Guzmán has had a rollercoaster ride in Minneapolis’s food world. The former head chef of Surly’s Brewer’s Table —which debuted an ambitious beer-pairing menu, gained national renown, and abruptly shut down — he rolled out a charcoal-grilled chicken pop-up, Pollo Pollo al Carbon, then somehow managed to open Petite León in the middle of the pandemic. A year later, the restaurant has earned him a James Beard nomination for best chef Midwest. Guzmán draws on his Yucatán peninsula roots with this menu — try the steak bavette with black garlic adobo, or the escabeche, made with creamy garbanzo and white fish. Bar lead Travis Serbus’s cocktail menu is notable as well: look for citrus-forward pours like the Moon Dog, made with mezcal, tamarind, and lime.

Chef Sheila Brathwaite and her husband Frederick Brathwaite opened Mama Sheila’s on the corner of Bloomington Avenue and 38th Street in south Minneapolis in 2018. In the years since, the restaurant has established itself as one of the Cities’ premier destinations for exceptional Southern cooking — a tricky cuisine to track down in this chilly northern landscape. The soul food buffet is stocked with Southern classics like catfish, smothered chicken, salmon croquettes, candied yams, and black-eyed peas — but leave room for banana pudding and peach cobbler. Mama Sheila’s always has soul music playing; the restaurant’s gilded interior, hung with portraits of Prince and other Black musicians, is a go-to gathering space for events, parties, and community meetings. 

Chef Danny del Prado is one of the Twin Cities’ most celebrated chefs. Martina, del Prado’s wood-fired Linden Hills restaurant, is an elegant platform for his Argentinian and Italian cuisine — it’s the most formal of his restaurant trio, which includes Colita and Rosalia elsewhere in Minneapolis. The well-designed (and well-lit) dining room makes for an Instagrammer’s dream of lighting and composition. Order the potato churros to start, which balance a soft, creamy interior with craggy, crispy fried edges — from the grill, try the pork chop with parsnip puree, or the parillada for two, made with bavette, sweetbreads, chorizo, and bone marrow. 

Cecil’s is the Twin Cities’ most-loved and longest-established Jewish deli. Cecil and Faye Glickman opened their delicatessen on St. Paul’s Cleveland Avenue in 1949: More than 70 years later, Cecil’s is still serving hearty matzo soup, potato latkes with applesauce and sour cream, and a whole array of popular hot sandwiches: try the Sasha, made with hot brisket pastrami and the “bird sauce” the deli has been making in-house for 40 years. Cecil’s is also stocked with grocery items — it carries handy Passover items like gefilte fish and matzo.

Doug Flicker was a longtime fine-dining chef who influenced a generation of Minneapolis chefs, but he walked away from the world of white linen to open a neighborhood bar alongside his wife, Amy Greeley. The two have created a watering hole with all the best of the corner bar: a jukebox, pulltabs, and a menu loaded with fantastic things from the fryer and the grill. Stop by for the famous pickle brined chicken: tangy, juicy meat wrapped in a crusty shell.