MIDWEST
The Minneapolis and St. Paul Michelin Guide
If inspectors come to the Twin Cities, these are the 16 restaurants that deserve recognition.
By Jamie Dutton | Dec. 4, 2025
Bûcheron
AUTHOR BIO: With family spread across the Midwest and a job that has her in airports almost daily, Jamie Dutton finds herself across the center of the U.S. regularly. She’s partial to BPTs a Bell's.
If the Michelin Guide ever lands in Minneapolis–St. Paul, the arguments will start before the inspectors even finish their first walleye.
Over drinks and way too many bar snacks, I have debated with friends about whether a tiny diner in a former alley should count as “Bib Gourmand cheap” or “historical monument.” I have listened to chefs insist that they do not care about stars, then proceed to outline, in detail, exactly how many they deserve. I have bothered more than one food writer with late-night texts about whether a Hmong restaurant, a decolonized tasting menu, and a 14-stool breakfast counter can all belong in the same Michelin universe.
Somewhere along the way, this stopped being a hypothetical parlor game and turned into a running list I updated every time a new tasting counter opened or another local chef came back from Chicago with a James Beard medal. What follows is that list: the Twin Cities restaurants that feel closest to Michelin territory, from white-tablecloth tasting rooms to noisy noodle joints and a breakfast spot roughly the width of a mid-size SUV.
If the inspectors ever show up, these are the 16 restaurants that have earned recognition by the Michelin Guide.
Bûcheron
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In a warm South Minneapolis space, chef Adam Ritter and partner Jeanie Janas Ritter lean into “Midwest French,” which means proper technique wrapped around local things like wild rice, lake fish, and raspberry jam. There’s also the now-famous foie terrine plate that could probably win its own award, served with amaretto gel, raspberry jam, warm scone, and marcona almonds. With Bûcheron now crowned James Beard’s Best New Restaurant, a Michelin star here would be the least surprising thing to happen to this neighborhood in years.
What it deserves: One Michelin Star
Demi
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Demi is Gavin Kaysen’s smallest, most personal stage: a 20-seat counter where a multi-course tasting menu unfolds a few feet from your wine glass. The team builds entire menus around a place or idea, like Minnesota farms in early spring; then they push the idea to intricate little compositions, like chestnut tagliarini with black truffle or guinea hen with yuzu and crisped skin. It is polished, intimate, and obsessively choreographed, exactly the sort of room Michelin tends to circle on the map.
What it deserves: One Michelin Star
Diane’s Place
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Chef Diane Moua takes the warmth of her Hmong family table and filters it through a pastry chef’s precision. You might start with scallion croissants or Thai tea French toast, then move into sour pork short ribs, duck stews scented with lemongrass, and noodles made for cold Minnesota nights, much of it tied back to the vegetables and herbs her parents grow in Wisconsin. Food & Wine already named it Restaurant of the Year; Michelin would almost certainly notice the combination of story, hospitality, and deeply personal cooking.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Gai Noi
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Gai Noi is the loud, rooftop sibling in chef Ann Ahmed’s universe, a Lao restaurant that sits above Loring Park and cooks like the night is young and the beer is cold. The menu leans into northern Lao flavors—sticky rice, grilled meats, funky dips, bright herbs—served as shareable plates that practically demand a big table and no early bedtimes. It is the sort of high-energy, deeply regional spot Michelin has been warming up to lately, especially when the cooking is this confident.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Hai Hai
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At Hai Hai, chef Christina Nguyen turns Southeast Asian street food into something that still feels casual, still feels like a party, but hits with a level of detail that earned her a James Beard for Best Chef: Midwest. The room glows neon over plates of turmeric-and-dill fish, Balinese-spiced chicken, taro and shrimp fritters, and enough fresh herbs to start a small garden, all calibrated so you can eat vegan, go extra spicy, or bounce around the menu with friends. Michelin could go a couple of ways here, but the price point and repeatability make this a prime candidate for a Bib.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Hyacinth
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Hyacinth is a narrow Grand Avenue room that feels like a neighborhood Italian spot until you look closer at the cooking. Chef-owner Abraham Gessesse, a recent James Beard semifinalist, sends out fried Castelvetrano olives, housemade flatbread with burrata, and pastas like textbook bucatini cacio e pepe alongside seasonal mains such as risotto al salto and dry-aged duck à l’orange. It is cozy, loud in a good way, and precise enough that you can easily imagine a Michelin inspector hoarding the last forkful of pasta.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Joan’s in the Park
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Joan’s is the definition of a neighborhood fine-dining restaurant that quietly outperforms half the white-tablecloth spots in bigger cities. In Highland Park, owners Susan Dunlop and Nancy St. Pierre run a four-course menu that might include crab toasts, corn dumplings, lobster, and a steak that shows up exactly as rosy as promised, with a wine list that feels thoughtful rather than showy. The room is small, the service is warm, and the cooking is consistent enough that a Michelin inspector could sneak in three times and leave with the same conclusion.
What it deserves: One Michelin Star
Kado no Mise
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From chef Shigeyuki Furukawa, Kado no Mise brings Tokyo-style Edomae sushi to a North Loop corner that feels far removed from the usual roll-and-sake routine. Guests choose from a trio of omakase paths, then settle in as precise cuts of fish, still-warm rice, and small seasonal dishes flow across the counter with almost no wasted movement. Furukawa’s James Beard win for Best Chef: Midwest only underlines what the regulars already knew: this is a one-star omakase just waiting for a tire man to sit down.
What it deserves: One Michelin Star
Khâluna
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Khâluna is Ann Ahmed’s vacation fantasy rendered in glass, plants, and curry—part restaurant, part daydream of hopping a flight somewhere warm in February. The menu crosses Southeast Asia, with shrimp rolls wrapped in mint and herbs, tapioca dumplings in peanut sauce, and rich curries that somehow stay light enough you still think about dessert. It may be too relaxed and too big-tent to land a star, but as a polished, transportive dining room, it fits perfectly in Michelin’s “you should absolutely eat here” category.
What it deserves: Recommended
Mucci’s Italian
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Mucci’s is where you go when you want red-sauce comfort that does not feel like a cop-out. The dining room is low-lit and cheerful, the pizzas arrive with that just-greasy-enough fry on the crust, and the pastas—think ricotta-stuffed shells, bolognese, carbonara—land with the kind of balance that explains its James Beard semifinalist nod for Outstanding Hospitality. It is not trying to be a temple of cuisine; it is trying to be the restaurant you wish you had down the block, which is precisely why Michelin would likely pin a Bib on it.
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Myriel
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At Myriel, chef Karyn Tomlinson cooks like someone who knows every farmer by their first name because, in many cases, she does. The menu leans hyper-seasonal and deeply Minnesotan—pork and rye, lake fish, carefully braised vegetables—turned into quietly astonishing dishes that helped her win the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest. It is fine dining in feel but intimate in reality, the kind of place where a single plate of braised meat and perfect potatoes can rearrange how you think of dinner.
What it deserves: One Michelin Star
Oro by Nixta
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Oro by Nixta is what happens when chef Gustavo Romero takes his heirloom corn obsession and builds an entire restaurant around it. Every part of the menu, from tetelas and sopes to elaborate moles and wood-roasted vegetables, starts with nixtamalized masa that tastes wildly more alive than the average tortilla. It is modern Mexican cooking that is rooted in Indigenous technique and small farms, and the execution is polished enough that a star here would feel not just possible, but deserved.
What it deserves: One Michelin Star
Owamni
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Chef Sean Sherman and the Owamni team have already changed the way people talk about Indigenous food in America, which is not something you can say about many restaurants anywhere. The kitchen works from a decolonized pantry: no wheat flour, dairy, cane sugar, or beef. Instead, they build tasting menus and brunches around elk, bison, walleye, wild rice, berries, and corn in dishes that feel both ancient and entirely new. It has the awards, the point of view, and the level of execution that would justify Michelin going beyond the usual and awarding two stars to something genuinely singular.
What it deserves: Two Michelin Stars, Green Star
Pizzeria Lola
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Pizzeria Lola is the wood-fired darling that made the Twin Cities take pizza seriously, a South Minneapolis corner spot from chef-owner Ann Kim. The pies start with a blistered, chewy crust and go a little wild from there, with toppings like the Lady Zaza (Korean sausage, kimchi, serrano, scallion) or the Sunnyside, where soft eggs spill over guanciale and pecorino. It feels casual—kids with crayons, dates splitting soft-serve in a metal dish—but the balance of smoke, char, and salt on those pizzas is dialed-in enough that a Michelin inspector would absolutely “just grab one more slice.”
What it deserves: Bib Gourmand
Spoon and Stable
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Spoon and Stable is the restaurant that first made Gavin Kaysen a local hero, the North Loop dining room that looks like it was built for date nights and big career announcements. The menu walks a line between French technique and Midwestern pantry—bison tartare, heritage grain pastas, precise fish dishes—backed up by serious pastry and a wine list that can get as nerdy as you want it to. It is hard to imagine Michelin skipping over one of the country’s most closely watched chef-driven restaurants when it finally prints a Twin Cities guide.
What it deserves: One Michelin Star
Vinai
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Vinai is chef Yia Vang’s love letter to Hmong home cooking, told through open-fire grilling, braises, and big, shareable platters meant to be passed around a crowded table. The menu might bring out flame-kissed chicken in coconut and ginger, long-simmered meat soups, bright vegetable sides, and sauces that prove “condiment” can be its own little universe of heat and funk. It is ambitious, rooted in story, and technically sharp enough that a Michelin star here would feel like overdue recognition for a cuisine that has long shaped the Twin Cities.
What it deserves: One Michelin Star
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