RESTAURANTS >>

• BEST BREAKFAST
  The neon flames on the sign make the St. Clair Broiler, located on the corner of St. Clair and Snelling avenues, hard to miss. Inside, find all the comforts expected of a Ma and Pa diner: bouncy brown leather booths, historic St. Paul scenes decorating the walls, and a jam caddy. Breakfast items... More >>
• BEST CHEAP EATS
  With its brightly colored '50s diner feel and convenient location (Cleveland Avenue and Ford Parkway), the Highland Grill is a terrific budget destination. Stop for a snack after watching a movie across the street or fuel up after a bookstore-browsing marathon. This family-owned restaurant... More >>
• BEST CHINESE RESTAURANT
  China is a big place with lots of flavors and about a billion people. Yummy isn't all that big, but boy, oh boy, does it have a lot of flavor, and about a billion dishes. Like what? Like tankfuls of critters fresh and flipping in one of the live-fish tanks. Like lobsters bright orange with... More >>
• BEST COFFEEHOUSE
  Of the hundreds of coffee shops in the metro area, there are at least a dozen high-quality establishments we could choose as the best. After all, like Laundromats and hardware stores, where you go for your daily fix is largely determined by where you live. That said, we're very comfortable... More >>
• BEST DIM SUM
  The loose translation of the Chinese term dim sum is "dot the heart," an apt description of what this feast of all things savory, sweet, crispy, and chewy promises to do both figuratively and literally. On weekends the narrow spaces between the massive tables become congested with carts carrying... More >>
• BEST DINER
  American as apple pie? Hey, how American is that? Even the French have tarte Tatin. You want American, try this: In the shadow of downtown sits the Band Box, a rail-car-diner made by a grain-bin manufacturer--the place is so significantly Americana, it's a registered historic landmark. More... More >>
• BEST FRENCH RESTAURANT
  Robust, rollicking, and romantic, Cavé Vin delivers everything you love about the land of liberté, égalité, and frites--namely, the food, the wine, the sense of style, and the good times. Come here for the keenest, simplest pleasures: that good loaf of crusty French... More >>
• BEST GREEK/MEDITERRANEAN RESTAURANT
  No dark paneling or red leather booths, no heavy oregano or cigar smoke, this place glows with Mediterranean light. An open kitchen, white walls, and elegant black-and-white photos of the Greek isles welcome you in. The menu is traditional Greek/Cypriot turned out with a light hand and careful... More >>
• BEST HANGOVER BREAKFAST
  So you woke up once again on Sunday with a dry mouth, vibrating head, and painfully empty stomach. A jeans search reveals you've squandered most of your money on the hangover you're currently experiencing. It's past noon but the only refreshment that sounds appealing is basic, greasy breakfast... More >>
• BEST INDIAN RESTAURANT
  One of the most extravagant foodie experiences in the Twin Cities is to be had during the weekends at Udupi's lunch and brunch buffet, when some 30 dishes are spread out for your sampling pleasure. Try the fluffy, polentalike casserole of "special rava kitchadi" and vegetables, which just bursts... More >>
• BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT (CHEAP)
  Every nation that has wheat has some kind of pasta--Japanese udon, Polish pierogi, Tibetan momo. But the Italians love it the most. Some say that the word macaroni comes from an expression of spontaneous love for pasta, something like "ma, che carini!" or "my, what cuties!" Nowhere in the Twin... More >>
• BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANT (NOT CHEAP)
  Looking into a bowl of adeptly tender pappardelle con funghi the other night at Ristorante Luci, we were struck by the agile playfulness of the dish. It was merely a bowl of pasta, but in among the al dente swaths of pappardelle, grassy tips of asparagus nipped happily, herbily, at peppery... More >>
• BEST JAPANESE RESTAURANT
  Tanpopo is counterintuitive, Tanpopo is intuitive. The little Lowertown full-service restaurant is counterintuitive because many of its defining qualities, such as being light, elegant, healthy, and serene, seem completely, completely incompatible with many of its other qualities, like being... More >>
• BEST KOREAN RESTAURANT
  Keep it a secret, but we are developing an almost cultish faith in the powers of King's soups to destroy colds: The pork kim chee soup is hearty, spicy, and cuts through a winter head cold like a sword through butter; the soybean hot pot with vegetables sets any sniffly soul quickly on the road... More >>
• BEST LOCAL CHEF
  Great chefs are, unfortunately for the thousands of kids flooding ham-handedly into cooking schools, born, and not made. Even more unfortunately, for them, they usually tend to be born into hot, stressful, unappreciative, frankly ridiculous kitchens where they must spend years toiling in... More >>
• BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT
  You know that thing about computer speed, how it doubles every six months? So it is with Mexican restaurants in Minnesota. It seems that every six months the Mexican restaurants around here are twice as good, in twice as many ways, as they just, just were. We never had any Mexican places with... More >>
• BEST MEXICAN TAKEOUT
  We like Chipotle, really we do. For a suddenly ubiquitous chain, they provide decent food at a good value. There's an undeniable allure to moving cafeteria-style through a line while you pick out items for a custom-made burrito ultimately rolled as fat as the top of a baseball bat. But that's... More >>
• BEST MIDDLE EASTERN RESTAURANT
  Nestled in between a Dunn Bros and a Jamba Juice on the super-busy intersection of Snelling and Grand Avenues, Khyber Pass, with its soothing yellow lighting, quiet decor, and sweetly strumming sitar sounds is an oasis from the bustle of the everyday commute. There's a certain calm to the place;... More >>
• BEST NEIGHBORHOOD CAFÉ--MINNEAPOLIS
  Downtown Minneapolis has been wiped clean, reimagined, and recarved by the forces of money and politics so often that, like a too-face-lifted face, it has been in constant jeopardy of losing any and all of its recognizable character. Which is why we're so grateful for Vincent, a restaurant... More >>
• BEST NEIGHBORHOOD CAFÉ--ST PAUL
  You better get into Heartland while the getting's good, because this little can-do spot with the from-scratch-everything, all-regional menu has been for sale since January. Yes, it's been for sale since January! Seriously. Chef and owner Lenny Russo is looking to get out of his bucolic, gorgeous... More >>
• BEST NEW RESTAURANT
  Service has been in free fall in Minnesota over the last several years as the heavy-hitter, big-ticket restaurants of yore lost their luster, and their professional staffs were absorbed into the general population of the clueless. Decor hasn't had much to boast of either, as nouveau riche... More >>
• BEST PLACE TO EAT OUT WITH KIDS
  This sunny, cheerful, spacious St. Paul breakfast institution is so overrun with toys that we used to think that a pack of overachieving preschoolers ran it. Toys occupy every nook. They're in the waiters' stations, the menu holders, the bookcases, window ledges, and myriad other crannies. Only... More >>
• BEST POWER LUNCH
  Last summer we watched, a forkful of farm-raised rainbow trout halfway to our bemused lips, as none other than hizzoner R.T. Rybak, perched atop what appeared to be a teeny, folding bicycle not unlike those used by clowns, plowed into the front window of this veggie-friendly downtown Minneapolis... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR APPETIZERS
  They've made an art form and passion of appetizers over at Sapor, just check out their One Bite, Two Bite menu for proof. That's where you'll find a dozen snacks priced to move--the latest one had crispy wasabi potato cakes with roasted peanuts for $2.50, sausage-stuffed olive poppers for... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR DESSERT
  We can think of about a thousand reasons why Solera is the best restaurant for dessert in Minnesota--yes, a dozen: 1) The enormous sherry list; 2) the sexy lighting; 3) the after-work-to-very-late hours, perfect for post-work birthdays or don't-let-this-date-die nights; 4) the romantic rooftop... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR GLUTTONS
  Here you will find delicious dishes in obscenely plentiful quantities. If that isn't a recipe for gluttony, we don't know what is. Picture three islands plus of square metal pans brimming with fresh Chinese dishes, from marinated duck to sautéed string beans to sweet little walnut shrimp.... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR LATE-NIGHT DINING
  Years ago it used to be that post-midnight dining around here involved either trying to squeeze in at overcrowded, overdressed Figlio or undertaking the adventure that is standing in line at White Castle. While those options are still available, smart diners looking for a meal after the show now... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR OUTDOOR DINING
  Located in St. Paul's historic Cathedral Hill neighborhood, W.A. Frost recalls an era when dining out was an elegant event deserving of top hats and elbow-length white gloves. In the winter, brick fireplaces warm rooms lined in Victorian paintings. On the patio in the summer, twinkling white... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT FOR ROMANCE
  What goes on in those little tatami rooms off to the side of the main Fuji-Ya dining room? The ones with the paper screens, the doors that close, and the low tables on the floor, at which you sit on cushions and low-backed chairs? Glad you asked. Sometimes, sometimes celebrities hide in them,... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
  It's true that one night a City Pages writer and her hot date drove around the sticks for an hour trying to locate Lindey's. But once they accidentally found it (they'd given up and were on their way to Nye's), they were glad to have put in the effort. The place is old-style, with lots of wood... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT TREND
  Wine prices have been falling. Constantly. Everywhere. And not just on the half-price bottle nights, which, of course, are lovely. No, prices are falling at almost every restaurant, in every price level and service level of dining. At W.A. Frost there's now an elaborate under-$30 list. At Chet's... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT WHEN SOMEONE ELSE IS PAYING
  Restaurant Levain. Opened with big plans--five-star cooking in the neighborhood. But you know how it goes with the best-laid plans of mice and Levain... Started life with a big-name maître d', but lost him before the paint on the sign out front had time to dry. Built its reputation on a... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT--MINNEAPOLIS
  The main thing that sets apart a great work of art, be it a novel, a painting, or a movie, from some crap at the mall is that it should be a fully realized vision, a completely thought-through, whole, interrelated, and complete event in which all the physical details serve the overall vision of... More >>
• BEST RESTAURANT--ST. PAUL
  Ever since chef Russell Klein, veteran of the famed Danube kitchen in New York City, took over Frost's, the place has been marvelous. And not just better than it's ever been, but better than we ever imagined it could be. Out with the creamy old country club dishes, in with strikingly elegant... More >>
• BEST SEAFOOD RESTAURANT
  Ever had shad roe? Honestly, the closest we ever got to it before was in the Cole Porter song. Then one night we saw it on the Oceanaire menu, alongside Florida sushi-grade black grouper, Alaskan dayboat halibut, Columbia River spring king salmon, diver-caught Maine scallops, Chesapeake Bay... More >>
• BEST SERVICE AT A RESTAURANT
  After thinking and thinking and thinking about it, we have concluded that the main problem with service in this town is a blind-man-and-the-elephant one. Follow along: Servers are raised in TV rooms in various suburbs and small towns, going out once in a great while to restaurants they don't pay... More >>
• BEST STAR CHEF EXPERIENCE
  The weirdest trend of the last year has been the way so many of Minnesota's name-brand, swoon-inducing, best-reviewed chefs just vanished into thin air for months and months at a stretch. Where do they go? Whom do they feed? Wasn't it weird the way Steven Brown was totally MIA for like a year,... More >>
• BEST STEAK HOUSE
  While it's true that you might get a slightly better steak at some fancy place like Morton's, you will never--we mean never ever--find a better steak-house atmosphere than you will at Little Jack's. The place is stuck in the '60s, with just a touch of the '50s thrown in for good measure. The... More >>
• BEST STEAK HOUSE ON A BUDGET
  Whatever the Twin Cities have lost in terms of quality-of-life points due to budget cuts and transit strikes, we should be gaining back thanks to the sheer volume of good, cheap steak available within a 10-or-so-mile radius of downtown Minneapolis. From the Eisenhowerrific Ike's to Dinkytown's... More >>
• BEST SUNDAY BRUNCH
  Trying to satisfy wholesome churchgoers, bleary Saturday-night partiers, regular customers, and once-a-month restaurant diners with finicky kids--such is the thankless task of the Sunday brunch chef. Anyone who can do it deserves thanks; anyone who can do it really well (and without employing a... More >>
• BEST TAKEOUT
  For anyone whose cubicles and dashboards often double as dining tables, a carryout meal from this longstanding St. Paul lunch hub offers loads more home-style comfort than its stir-fried or tortilla-wrapped counterparts. Granted, the average Atkins disciple would likely run screaming at the... More >>
• BEST THAI RESTAURANT
  Here's a word to the wise: If you aren't prepared to participate in a sunrise duel, then don't ask a Twin Citian what the best Thai restaurant in town is. Yes, feelings run just that high. For us, though, when we're off the clock, there's only one place we head to: Chiang Mai Thai, the elegant... More >>
• BEST VEGETARIAN-FRIENDLY RESTAURANT
  Although French Meadow isn't exclusively a vegetarian restaurant, it's very veggie friendly and, dare we say, even vegan-friendly. There's a rotating vegan soup of the day; sometimes it's black bean chili, sometimes it's a stew. If you do dairy, do the roasted vegetable sandwich, overflowing... More >>
• BEST VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT
  Tucked away at the south end of Eat Street, facing both the railroad tracks and the car wash, is a gem of an eatery. An electric incense shrine greets guests at the door and a host of authentic Vietnamese dishes grace the table. A full selection of banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) starting at $2... More >>
• BEST WINE BAR
  The dreams of the domestically minded tend to be fairly simple: An Ikea within driving distance, a really good wine bar--no, not like the kind we had two years ago. A really, really good wine bar. Like, well, like brand new, dream-fulfilling Cesaré's, a place where the wine selection goes... More >>
• BEST WINE LIST
  What makes a great wine list? Ideally, it would be one that you couldn't assemble yourself, this afternoon, at the liquor store. No. It should reflect some committed, thoughtful buying. It should have things on it that you could not get at the liquor store today, nor, possibly, ever. Because... More >>