RESTAURANTS >>

• BEST BREAKFAST
  Ordinarily it's hard to think of someplace that serves hot meals just two mornings a week as a breakfast joint. But once you've fueled up at Mill City, it's hard to kick off a weekend anywhere else. The hot standards served here from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays include eggs,... More >>
• BEST CHEAP EATS
  This bustling indoor bazaar, crowded into an unassuming office building on East Lake Street, has more culinary options per square foot than anyplace else in the Twin Cities. While the half-dozen tiny restaurants clustered around the first-floor food court consist of little more than a menu and... More >>
• BEST CHINESE RESTAURANT
  In China, Chinese food is big: Banquets are thrown for every occasion (and lots of non-occasions), and no matter how they tried, Communist forces never managed to limit citizens' devotion to the complex web of interacting elements that make a good meal. Ideally every aspect of the meal must be... More >>
• BEST COFFEE HOUSE
  "The message today is internal sunshine," beams the man behind the counter at the Swede Hollow Café on a bitterly cold, desolate February morning. And he says it with such sunny conviction that you can't help but smile at the cornpone sentiment. Swede Hollow is that kind of place: It... More >>
• BEST CULINARY TIME WARP
  Admit it: You've always figured your grandparents lived in lackluster times. No cash machines, too many white gloves, and what-- mono sound, at best? But every once in a while, you find a place like Little Jack's, where the cocktails are cheap as hell and good as heaven, the steaks flop over... More >>
• BEST DIM SUM
  Every year we wonder: Does Yangtze have the best dim sum in town, or is it My Le Hoa? So every year we make the pilgrimages, and this year Yangtze just knocked our socks off, combining gorgeous food with we-only-have-eyes-for-you service. As soon as we sat in the (always) crowded dining room,... More >>
• BEST DINER
  Minneapolis and St. Paul make an odd couple: The former is an uppity, too-eager-to-please debutante, always putting on airs, while the latter is like an old man on a park bench, nodding bemusedly as the world goes by. Consider, as an example of our capital city's civic character, Mickey's... More >>
• BEST DRIVE-IN
  Ray Truelson was a man in tune with his times. After stints running a root beer stand and the Flattop drive-in in south Minneapolis, in 1953 Truelson opened Porky's drive-in on University Avenue in St. Paul. The signature item on the menu was a hamburger with an onion ring plopped on top of the... More >>
• BEST EAST AFRICAN RESTAURANT
  Since moving from its cramped Lyn-Lake home to more spacious new quarters on the West Bank, this beloved stalwart of the local restaurant scene has added a bar, a basement-level dance club, and a weird decorating scheme that suggests Tex-Mex by way of Addis Ababa. But what's best about the Blue... More >>
• BEST EASTERN EUROPEAN RESTAURANT
  The character of St. Paul's Cathedral Hill neighborhood is a throwback to the quiet River City of yore: elegant, genteel, and welcoming. As such, it's the perfect setting for the elegant, genteel, and welcoming Moscow on the Hill, a fusion of French style and Russian soul, which, like its... More >>
• BEST FRENCH RESTAURANT
  Frankly, the New French isn't all that French; the spare, light-filled warehouse dining room is more Soho than Seine, the menu is more modern than moules et frites. Still, until a thoroughly French restaurant manages to enchant us for more than a single course (Brasserie Zinc does lovely... More >>
• BEST GREEK RESTAURANT
  This category is always a horse race. The three perennial contenders--Christos, It's Greek to Me, and Gardens of Salonica--are all classy thoroughbreds, but none of them quite pulls ahead of the others. Gardens is the cheapest of the three: A complete meal for two, including wine, shouldn't run... More >>
• BEST INDIAN RESTAURANT
  Would you expect one restaurant to master Yankee pot roast, crawfish étouffée, San Francisco cioppino, and everything in between? Of course not--sheer foolishness. Yet hereabouts, that's exactly what we've been getting from our Indian restaurants, as they attempt to deliver... More >>
• BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT--CHEAP
  A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, nyah nyah nyah, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, nyah nyah nyah--all of southern Europe has us in its thrall. We're all supposed to come up with a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, some good Parmesan, a handful of escarole, a good summer tomato, toss it all together,... More >>
• BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT--NOT CHEAP
  The cliché about Italian cooking runs thus: French food is about technique, Italian merely about ingredients. In Minnesota, however, ingredients don't come easy: Tracking down the best prosciutto, filleting the freshest trout, making your own mozzarella, securing the most sought-after... More >>
• BEST JAPANESE RESTAURANT
  So just what is it that makes a great Japanese restaurant? Good sushi, a pretty dining room, tender noodles, light tempura, pleasant service, good bento boxes, and a good sake list. Yes, yes, Fuji Ya's new location on Lake Street has all of that, yes. To gild the sundae, they also have a couple... More >>
• BEST KOREAN RESTAURANT
  So, here's a secret we wouldn't tell a soul: In the middle of this past winter (you remember, the ten-month-long one?), in the depths of our greatest despair, our shrink looked at us and said: Do something for you. Something you enjoy. There must be something you enjoy? Half a box of Kleenex... More >>
• BEST LOCAL CHEF
  These Twin Towns are not gaga over chefs. There's no breathless charting of people's comings and goings, and the people to whom the first names of local chefs--Doug, Alex, Tim, Brenda, Lucia, Patrick, Zander--have any meaning whatsoever can probably be counted on two hands. That said, it's... More >>
• BEST MAD GENIUS
  Somewhere in Minneapolis, walking unremarked among us, is a woman to whom we all should be grateful: Patrick Atanalian's Minnesota-born beloved. Were it not for her, Atanalian surely would have flown this snowy burg, thus depriving us of his mad, mad, inspiring, sometimes terrifying, sometimes... More >>
• BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT
  It takes awhile for out-of-towners to fully grasp what the rest of us already know: It's almost impossible to get authentic Mexican food and booze in the same place in this town. Blame arcane zoning laws that make it tough to get a liquor license, blame our Scandinavian taste buds, but it seems... More >>
• BEST MIDDLE EASTERN RESTAURANT
  Every time we step into this Eat Street storefront we're thrust into a crisis of sorts: Do we forgo the spinach pie ($2.59)--a comforting creation of spinach, sumac, onion, lemon, and olive oil--for the baba ghannouj, a smooth dip of smoky roasted eggplant and tahini? Do we go for the daily... More >>
• BEST NEIGHBORHOOD CAFÉ--MINNEAPOLIS
  A recent Strib story noted that the good people of Maple Grove suddenly have a "dizzying" abundance of restaurant options. Why, there's a Timber Lodge, a Red Lobster, and an Olive Garden! Turns out chains are drawn by the "sweet spot" of high incomes and education levels. Pshaw! You want to see... More >>
• BEST NEIGHBORHOOD CAFÉ--ST. PAUL
  This peculiarly monikered gem on a quiet residential stretch of Randolph Avenue fits all moods and occasions. On Saturday mornings you can perch yourself on a stool at the counter with coffee and flip lazily through the Pioneer Press. You'll feel as comfortable as you would at Mickey's Diner or... More >>
• BEST NEW RESTAURANT
  Sometimes it's hard to remember what we like most about Chino Latino. Is it the way it gives the Lake Wobegon (go, be gone!) chino-clad neighbors fits? It's too much, they complain. Too loud. Too crowded. Too intimidating. And we thought we had better jerk chicken when we were in... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO EAT BEFORE YOUR ANGIOPLASTY
  Kramarczuk has a special place in our heart--in the artery just below the left ventricle, in fact, where years of pierogies and Polish sausage have coagulated into a little clot of warm nostalgia. No, Kramarczuk isn't for the health-conscious, the weight watcher, or the vegetarian. But to hell... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO EAT OUT WITH YOUR KIDS
  Sure, the Talbot's-clad mom at the next table is sporting a diamond the size of your incisor. And yes, the preschoolers who tumbled out of her cute-ute are dressed more for prep school then for Gymboree. But dollars to doughnuts, her kids are making just as big a mess as yours. And, like you,... More >>
• BEST POWER LUNCH
  Chessen's? That fluorescent blue box in the shadow of the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis? The one with the neon signs and Miller Genuine Draft banner across the front? The place better known for its pickled herring and chopped liver than its porterhouse steaks and dry martinis? Yep,... More >>
• BEST REBIRTH
  Pat Sukhtipyaroge always seemed forlorn in Royal Orchid's dingy old Nicollet Avenue location, and no amount of critical praise or loyal customer applause could really make him smile: The actual building had intractable problems, the block seemed forever on the wane, the unlucky aberration in a... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR A FIRST DATE
  Pigeonholes, snap dismissals, and the whiff of the uncool: These are all things you want to avoid on those all-important first dates. Thank heaven, then, for the new Warehouse District restaurant Sapor. The wide-ranging wine list lets you pick between showing off your internationalism and... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR APPETIZERS
  Appetizers? What a weird concept, when you think about it. They're the foods you eat, um...before you eat. That being the case, it would make the most sense for those tasty before-meal bits to be light and scarce in number. But too often, appetizer means a bottomless pile of chicken wings... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR DESSERT
  Spare us the fancy, dainty concoctions passing as desserts at many chichi restaurants around town. When it comes to sweets, we have no use for orange slices brightened by sprigs of mint. We want chocolate and custard and cream cheese. We want real whipped cream, and we want butter. Oh, and one... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR GLUTTONS
  If you are afraid of humans the size of cars, do not come to New King's Buffet. Because they are here, staked out in booths like bears in lairs, getting ready for an Alaskan winter, piles of king crab legs stacked up like firewood before them. Sometimes they take the entire gallon container of... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR LATE-NIGHT DINING
  There is life, and then there is life with oysters at midnight. Just a few weeks ago, Uptown Minneapolis was granted life with oysters at midnight ($16 a dozen), and it feels so right. Also, Gruyère caramelized-onion buckwheat crêpes with salad ($8.50), fancy macaroni and fromage... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR OUTDOOR DINING
  Yes, there are other places to sit outside while you're eating--if you like dining on a sidewalk, getting gassed by bus fumes, and being gawked at by passersby. But there's nothing like the patio at the Black Forest Inn. With its trickling fountains and the plush tangle of vines hanging... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR ROMANCE
  This renovated Stillwater storefront veritably whispers romance, from the brick walls to the dark wood to the table linens and place settings. The lighting is low but not distractingly so, the atmosphere suffused with quiet elegance, though not so much so as to intimidate: Whether you choose to... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT TREND
  There was a time when restaurants bit the dust, and the dust stayed bit: RIP, Loretta's Tea Room, RIP Azure. No longer! Sri Lanka Curry House disappeared for a couple of years, and then came back better than ever. Royal Orchid went bye-bye for almost as long, and then came back as shiny as a... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT WAY THE HECK OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
  It would be too much of a cliché to say that in Bayport there is no there there. But seriously, folks, in Bayport there isn't even any the there. There are a heck of a lot of windows there (headquarters of Anderson Windows, you bet), a speed-trap in the road, and no doubt a lot of... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT WHEN SOMEONE ELSE IS PAYING
  If you're buying, we're getting the $95 Aquavit tasting menu, paired with accompanying wines. A recent version of the six-course meal started with tandoori smoked salmon paired with fried wasabi sorbet and cilantro vinaigrette, progressed to serrano-chile-wrapped lobster with mushroom-corn orzo... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT--MINNEAPOLIS
  There are two basic things that define the best restaurant in Minneapolis--and make no mistake, this is a hotly, hotly disputed category. Basically, the two things are bliss and its necessary support, friendly pleasure. Bliss for what is on the plate or in the cup, and pleasure in the overall... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT--ST. PAUL
  There's a new chef working behind the lines at Zander, young chef de cuisine Matthew Bickford, and even though we had dubious feelings about that change at first, it seems Zander the café is just as good as ever. Bold, often counterintuitively combined flavors still dominate the menu,... More >>
• BEST SEAFOOD RESTAURANT
  Since it opened a little more than two years ago, Oceanaire has dominated the seafood dreams of seafood lovers. The fantasies start with $1.95 bluepoint oysters (opened by a few of the only people you can count on not to shatter the bivalves while shucking), work up through $4.25 cups of clam... More >>
• BEST SERVICE AT A RESTAURANT
  At the risk of sounding like one is fingering one's Eaton tie whilst the 21st Century whistles past one's gray-furred ears, what on earth has happened to service lately? It used to be that service was up and down, here and there, a missed water glass, a lengthy disappearance...what could you... More >>
• BEST STAR-CHEF EXPERIENCE ON A BUDGET
  All year it's been the strangest thing. Wander into Z Café, the quiet breakfast spot across the street from the more renowned Zander Café, and there he is, celebrated chef Alexander Dixon. Standing there. Behind the grill. Frying eggs. Toasting muffins. Sure, you're about to get... More >>
• BEST STEAK HOUSE
  Every once in a while some knucklehead stands up and makes his knucklehead opinion known, and that opinion is this: that Manny's is no better than one or another of the upscale chains. Now, why is such a person a knucklehead? Because if he were a meathead, he'd know that the specially dry-aged... More >>
• BEST STEAK HOUSE ON A BUDGET
  Saturday night a few weeks ago, and every table seemed to have a steak on it. Some filets, yes, but most often the sirloin, an under-$15 piece of meat with more flavor than one deserves for the price, especially considering the steak comes with all the best trimmings of an old-school supper... More >>
• BEST SUNDAY BRUNCH
  It takes a surprising amount of soul-searching to figure out what makes a good brunch. Some people want a buffet the size of a football field. Others feel that a pulpy mimosa is a necessity. Some want a simple atmosphere, others a swanky one. Knowing full well that brunch means different things... More >>
• BEST THAI RESTAURANT
  Sometimes when we nosh at this reborn Minneapolis treasure, we take our server's advice and order the gaeng (or curry) of the day, and are presented--as we knew we would be--with a complex and multilayered dish of meats, seafood, or tofu; vegetables; fresh, aromatic herbs; and a sauce redolent... More >>
• BEST VEGETARIAN-FRIENDLY RESTAURANT
  Brenda Langton was veggie-friendly when veggie-friendly wasn't cool. After first establishing a stellar reputation with her (now-defunct) St. Paul-based Cafe Kardamena, Langton crossed the river to open Cafe Brenda in the Minneapolis Warehouse District in 1986. Sure, there are other restaurants... More >>
• BEST VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT
  As Morrissey sang, we hate it when our friend become successful. "What," we start to wonder, "are they too good for us now?" If your friend is a restaurant, you're bound to feel the same proprietary interest. Take the case of Quang. The success of this Minneapolis perennial--they recently moved... More >>
• BEST WINE LIST
  How should one go about evaluating a wine list? How about this: Its scope should match that of the restaurant's menu, and its prices should be fair. While the planet boasts plenty of eateries that fulfill that first requirement, the second count is what truly separates the ordinaire from the... More >>