Barbette is an Uptown dining legend--the fries consistently win awards as the best in town, the wine list is shockingly affordable and well chosen, the food has tended to showcase fine-dining sourcing at everyday prices. Seriously, this has long been the place wine and dining professionals go... More >>
Step right up, ladies and gents, see the miracle material molded into a hundred different spine-tingling shapes. You've seen it before, it's pasta, but you've never seen it like this: Thrill to the sight of trenette (thin noodles) dancing with hand-ground pesto. Gape at exquisite preparations of... More >>
Reborn from the ashes of former fine-dining standard-bearer Restaurant Levain, Café Levain is a T-shirt casual, safe and sound little French-oriented bistro, with the emphasis on safe and sound. The French onion soup is the best in town--beefy as a steak, comforting as a quilt, and... More >>
Café Maude debuted in 2007 with a simple idea: Be as chic as Chanel, as hip as a San Francisco DJ, and as affordable as T.G.I.Fridays. Sound good to you? Yeah, you and everyone else in town. If you do ever get in, some of the highlights youll find: creative cocktails (try the... More >>
Most of food-oriented Minneapolis was reeling when three of our biggest of our big-name restaurants closed, namely Auriga, Five, and Restaurant Levain. What to do? Where to go? Who would carry the locally sourced, local-talent train forward? Luckily, the answer was right in plain sight, at the... More >>
The first really nice, upscale, celebration-destination dinner restaurant in the recent history of East Lake Street combines an American Arts and Crafts decorating scheme, a lovely outdoor patio, an over-ambitious menu, and a wonderful bar that serves a number of imaginative, well-executed, and... More >>
The white vintage oven at the Grand Cafe has been there for more than 60 years, baking basic sugar cookies for the Grand Bakery and, in more recent years, delicate scones for the Bakery on Grand. The quaint little storefront, with its multi-paned windows and scuffed hardwood floors, seems... More >>
Pilot yourself over to Heidi's, the new restaurant by Stewart Woodman, and try to get a table in the first dining room, against the east wall. From there you can turn your head to the left at any given moment and see Chef Woodman, onetime New York City power player at such restaurants as Alain... More >>
A snazzy, five-table little deli right in the middle of the sweet spot of Eat Street, the Jasmine Deli is the sweet spot of choice for much of the Vietnamese community. They make the special boiled cakes necessary for Vietnamese New Year and Full Moon celebrations, sticky rice coconut loaves... More >>
Sea Salt is a consternating force in the life of Twin Cities fish lovers. On the one hand, it's got the best fresh fish in town, like oysters shucked as you watch, which taste chilly, silky, fresh, and briny as ocean mornings. Like fried haddock baskets offering fish fillets so crisp they snap;... More >>
Let the British have their gastropubs, for here in the Midwest we are taking it to the next level: Meet the Town Talk, the world's first gastro-diner. Pancakes? Check. Milkshakes? Check. A glossy, stainless-steel lunch counter straight out of a 1960s pop culture museum? Double check. But there... More >>
Think of Harvey McLain’s Tosca as the Italian version of his Café Levain (he also owns the Turtle Bread empire): both hit the sweet spot between upscale and casual, restaurants that feel special enough to celebrate a birthday, but not too extravagant for a weeknight supper. Levain’s former chef,... More >>
A neighborhood sweetheart of a corner shop with a catfish salad to die for, True Thai is another jewel in the crown of Seward, that academic haven with Mississippi views. The pad thai is light and fresh, topped with the traditional chives and sweet radish, instead of the scallions and nothing... More >>