Original owners Maria and Tomas Silva, originally of Aguascalientes, Mexico, opened St. Paul’s El Burrito Mercado as an 800-square-foot market in 1979. In ’95, they moved to Cesar Chavez Street and renovated the historic, 13,000-square-foot Henly’s Furniture building, which today includes a restaurant and cantina. The tender molcajete Mexicano, birria tacos, tamale platters, and fresh ceviche — not to mention the remarkable deli and bakery, stocked with everything from barbacoa to fluffy conchas — make El Burrito Mercado an essential St. Paul restaurant.

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 emulates a Parisian dining ambiance. Sample oysters at the crescent bar; sip a glass of champagne infused with an absinthe-soaked sugar cube. Chef Russell Klein’s menu, which changes often, always features a seasonal preparation of Au Bon Canard foie gras. The Magret duck breast a l’orange is worth the $46 price tag.

iPho by Saigon, a standout in a city stacked with great pho restaurants, is famous for its 10-pound jumbo pho, so big it toes the line between huge soup bowl and tiny bathtub. iPho offers every kind of meat combo imaginable, from a seafood medley to brisket and flank steak. This broth runs a little on the sweet side and is laced with anise and cloves. Families coalesce here all nights of the week (except Mondays, when iPho is closed), giving the space a warm, convivial feel.

Chef Leah Raymundo makes it clear that her food is “not your lola’s cooking” — she favors creativity over narrow expectations of authenticity but roots Kalsada’s menu in essential Filipino flavors and dishes. The kinilaw features coconut and citrus-marinated ahi tuna tartare; the chicken adobo gets a little added truffle funk. Don’t overlook the day menu either. The best brunch move is to share dishes: the tender tocino with eggs and garlicky rice, the royal purple ube pancakes, and the truffled chicken adobo. Prepare to battle for the exquisitely fatty bits of chicken skin left in the bowl.

Karyn Tomlinson’s Myriel — a name that nods to Les Miserables — is at once rustic and refined. The a la carte menu isn’t available online because it changes often, but expect dishes like beef, pork, and lamb sausage (sourced from local farms) with white bean ragout and fermented pepper with pink celery leaves. Tomlinson also makes an infamous crust. If apple pie appears on the menu, order it without hesitation, and pair dessert with a Scandinavian egg coffee. Myriel’s interior, all European silhouettes and shades of cream and sand, is stunning.

Al’s Breakfast is the Twin Cities’ greatest old-school breakfast diner. As Dinkytown’s dining scene has shifted throughout the decades, Al’s 10-foot-wide storefront has barely changed since 1950. Grab a seat at one of the 14 bar stools for an iconic American breakfast: a salami scramble, poached eggs over corned beef hash, or blueberry-walnut pancakes with pure Minnesota maple syrup. Al’s opens at 6 a.m. most days, but plan to wait a while for a seat during the breakfast rush.

First opened in 1999, Restaurant Alma has a longstanding reputation as one of Minneapolis’s finest restaurants. Chef Alex Roberts’ prix fixe menu changes regularly, but expect elegant — though never ostentatious — dishes like foie gras bread pudding, red beet farrotto, and caramelized tiramisu. The restaurant has an extensive wine list and is known for its accommodating vegetarian menu. Dim and intimate, it’s far and away one of the Cities’ most romantic restaurants.

A beloved Ukrainian bakery, delicatessen, and restaurant, Kramarczuk’s first opened in Northeast Minneapolis near the Nicollet Island bridge in 1954. Anna and Wasyl Kramarczuk came to Minnesota from Ukraine as refugees in the late 1940s — several years after settling in Minneapolis, they bought one of the city’s oldest butcher shops and made it their own. Today, Kramarczuk’s is beloved for its vast array of savory sausages and its restaurant menu, which features favorites like pierogi, borshch, and hefty Krakowska and pastrami brisket sandwiches. The James Beard Foundation named it an America’s classic in 2013.

This tiny roadside restaurant is the Twin Cities’ finest purveyor of Chicago dogs. Get one run through the garden, topped with tomatoes, peppers, onions, and a zippy, jewel-like relish. (Hold the ketchup for a traditional Windy City bite, or add it — this is Minneapolis, after all.) Uncle Franky’s also serves a great Reuben and a noteworthy Juicy Lucy, if it’s a burger kind of day.

Chef John Wipfli’s Animales serves exceptional barbecue out of a food truck at Bauhaus Brew Labs in Northeast Minneapolis. These ribs don’t come slathered in sweet sauce — they’re dry-rubbed, a bark of crushed peppercorns and salt stealing nothing from the meat’s oak-smoked flavor. The menu changes often, adding pork shoulder congee bowls, beef cheek banh mi, and hot beef sandwiches to the mix. Get there early, as Animales often sells out.

In 2017, James Beard–nominated chef Christina Nguyen and co-owner Birk Grudem expertly transformed a divey neighborhood strip club into a lush Southeast Asian restaurant. Hai Hai’s deep teal walls, ferns, and paper lanterns make the space hum with tropical charm, even in the dead of winter. The cocktails are excellent — think lychee slushies and espresso martinis with Vietnamese coffee and coconut — and the menu features dishes like delicate water fern cakes, beef larb lettuce wraps, and a tender Balinese chicken thigh with macerated kale and bean sprout salad.

There’s 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 (including cocktails bubbling over with liquid nitrogen). The latest iteration of the restaurant is an expansive three-level building in Robbinsdale. Buy a ticket for the tasting menu (think delicata squash tempura, nitro passion fruit fluff, and celery root mezzaluna) or sip a curated cocktail flight at the basement bar.

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 or cheeseburger meatloaf). Sammy’s was even featured in Season 6 of Hulu’s Small Business Revolution.

Chef Yia Vang first started Union Hmong Kitchen as a roving pop-up around the Twin Cities. When he 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 was a 2022 James Beard finalist for best chef Midwest. The menu standouts at UHK are the Zoo Siab meals — which means “happy meals” in the Hmong language — made with proteins like chile-glazed pork shoulder and Hmong sausage, all served with purple sticky rice, pickled veggies, and sides like chilled khao sen noodles. Vang’s much-anticipated restaurant, Vinai, is on the horizon, and his noodle pop-up Mee-Ka is now open in Uptown.

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.

Chef Gavin Kaysen worked as an executive chef for Daniel Boulud before leaving New York for Minneapolis, his hometown, in 2014. His list of restaurants — three Bellecour Bakery locations, Demi’s intimate tasting menu experience, opulent Mara at the Four Seasons Hotel — is long, but there’s something essential and enduring about Spoon and Stable. This North Loop restaurant, which dates to 1906, was once a horse stable. The menu changes often, keeping pace with Midwest seasonality, but still manages to feel timeless. Expect dishes like cappelletti with butternut squash, striped bass with collard greens, and a delicate strawberry and sorrel mille-feuille.

Owamni won the intensely competitive James Beard Award for best new restaurant in 2022. Here, chef Sean Sherman and co-owner Dana Thompson have brought Indigenous cooking to the forefront of the national restaurant scene. The decolonized menu is built on foods that are indigenous to North America — meaning no flour, dairy, beef, pork, or refined sugar is used in the kitchen. In their place are game tartare with duck fat squash, smoked lake trout tostadas, and Labrador tea custard. Owamni started as a kickstarter campaign, breaking a site record in 2016 by 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, a sacred site of peace and well-being.

Pimento is a pillar of Jamaican cuisine in the Twin Cities, and a popular resident of Nicollet Avenue’s Eat Street. Chef Tomme Beevas and his neighbor Yoni Reinharz started Pimento as a pop-up in 2012, carting Beevas’s backyard grill around the city; in 2013, they won Food Network’s Food Court Wars. During the social uprisings of 2020, Pimento operated a robust mutual aid network out of its restaurant space. Today, Beevas continues to serve as a community leader with Pimento Relief Services, a nonprofit he runs that supports healing and long-term rebuilding in Black communities. The menu features entrees like Kingston-style jerk chicken, slow-roasted jerk pork, curry veggies, and braised oxtail, all served on a bed of seasoned rice and beans with slaw and plantains, dressed with a selection of house-made sauces. Make sure to try the sweet, pillowy coco bread, too. The rum bar often hosts live music and other events on the weekends.

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. The baguettes crackle beautifully around the tender grilled pork, and the zippy vegetables balance the savory meats. The classic grilled pork banh mi is one of the best in the city, but options like the Special Ham, made with Vietnamese meatloaf and pork belly, or the pork meatballs (marinated Shanghai-style) are also great bets. Lu’s operates three Minneapolis locations and a food truck, but its cafeteria-style space on Nicollet is the original spot.

James Beard Award-winning chef Ann Kim’s Sooki & Mimi is perhaps the most exciting restaurant to open in Minneapolis’s Uptown neighborhood in recent years. A sibling to other Eater favorites like Pizzeria Lola and Young Joni, Sooki & Mimi recently transitioned from a prix fixe to an a la carte menu. Look for dishes like mushroom birria tacos and a butcher’s cut with morita au poivre. The cocktail menu, formulated by veteran bar lead Adam Gorski, is equally notable, including items like tepache fermented on-site. Kim also has a thing for hidden bars, so look for the light in the alleyway on the building’s west side and slip into the basement speakeasy, where the vinyls are always on rotation.

Las Cuatro Milpas is said 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.

Chef Matthew Kazama left his gig as ramen chef at Fuji Ya, one of the Twin Cities’ first Japanese restaurants, to open Ramen Kazama in 2015. A drummer and singer in the Minneapolis punk rock group Birthday Suits, Kazama brings a bit of punk flair to his work as a ramen chef, infusing his cooking with the same passion that drives him as a musician. The ramen menu plays to classics like rich tonkotsu and shoyu ramen, though the karamiso ramen, made with a spicy pork miso broth, is a standout. The Ramen Kazama space is casual but cozy — there are few better spots to enjoy a steaming bowl of ramen on a snowy winter evening.

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. (To distinguish its Lucy from other Twin Cities versions that have since proliferated, Matt’s spells its burger without the “I.”) 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!” The restaurant has maintained its exquisitely divey interior: Slide into a pleather booth or grab a seat at the roomy, unadorned bar.

Chef Facundo DeFraia learned the secrets of Argentinian cuisine in his grandmother’s Buenos Aires kitchen, and after a stint on the west coast, he landed in Minneapolis, where he helped his friend Danny del Prado open Martina. In 2018, DeFraia struck out on his own and opened Boludo in south Minneapolis. The tiny Nicollet Avenue restaurant, styled with black and white tile and Argentinian mementos affixed on the walls, really does feel like a pizza and empanada shop straight from the avenues of Buenos Aires. The menu is succinct: DeFraia’s empanadas are crispy and densely flavorful, and the chewy pizza crust has a touch of sweetness that makes a dreamy complement to the tangy tomato sauce.

Chef Jorgé Guzmán impressively managed to open Petite León a year into the pandemic. Not long after, the restaurant earned him a James Beard nomination for best chef Midwest. Guzmán draws on his Yucatán peninsula roots with this menu, like the pollo al carbon, for example, or the Bavettee in piquillo sauce. The piquillo peppers, stuffed with tangy goat cheese, are a must; as are the fresh tuna agua chile and the creamy tamale. 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 Ann Ahmed’s latest restaurant is an enchanting homage to Laotian and Southeast Asian cooking, and one of Eater’s best new restaurants of 2022. After opening Lemongrass in Brooklyn Park and Lat14 in Golden Valley, Ahmed’s debut of Khâluna on Lyndale Avenue is perhaps her most ambitious yet — and another step down the path she’s paving for Southeast Asian food in the Twin Cities. Try the mieng paa — a small plate made with puffed rice, banana blossoms, and peanuts — the duck laab, or the whole fried red snapper with mango tamarind slaw. Ahmed’s rainbow rice, when sprinkled with lime, turns from delicate blue to lavender. The bar menu offers cocktails with flavors of passionfruit, persimmon, and makrut lime.

Co-owners Nick Rancone and chef Thomas Boemer helped kickstart a fried chicken renaissance in the Twin Cities when they opened Revival in 2015. Since then, they’ve expanded to St. Paul and St. Louis Park, and combined Revival Smoked Meats, their Carolina-style barbecue operation, with their fried chicken menu on Nicollet Avenue. The Southern-style offerings range from Tennessee hot half-bird, its fatty skin expertly crisped, to classic brisket and pork shoulder. Save room for a slice of not-too-sweet banana cream pie.

Chef Danny del Prado is one of the Twin Cities’ most celebrated chefs, and his Linden Hills restaurant Martina is an elegant platform for his Argentinian and Italian cuisine. (Sister restaurants include Rosalia, Colita, and as of summer 2022, Macanda.) 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 corn puree, or the parillada for two, made with bavette, sweetbreads, chorizo, and bone marrow.