This is my attempt to define Minnesota dining on a state-wide level. There will be a companion map, THE MAP, to go along with it. You\u2019ll hear more about that next week. Here\u2019s my methodology behind my list, because I think this stuff matters!<\/p>\n
This is a list of my favorite restaurants, not the best restaurants. Every critic has different \u201cbest\u201d lists in the same city and I think that favorite leaves space for me to have more fun! When I was thinking of this as \u201cbest,\u201d it felt so serious and final. \u201cFavorite\u201d gave me space to put great restaurants on here that I go back to again and again. I want to see the tide turn away from the idea that there is some universal best restaurant out there and so I\u2019m doing that myself.<\/p>\n
Every list makes editorial choices, they normally just don\u2019t tell you what they are. I made some editorial choices here that are significantly different from our local presses. Here are mine:<\/p>\n
It was important for me to eat broadly at restaurants coming from any immigrant group with over 5,000 immigrants living in the state. That\u2019s Minnesota. You\u2019ll see that reflected in this list. I genuinely tried to include all populations from that list on this one, but I did not find a German, Russian, or Canadian restaurant I wanted to place here, as examples, and used it as a guide for where to eat, not a mandate for list inclusion.<\/p>\n
I wanted to build a list that was by a Minnesotan for Minnesotans, with a focus on restaurants I think that people in the state should go to, not some imaginary diner who comes to visit.<\/p>\n
It was also important for me to eat at at significant amount of the following types of restaurants: rural food, restaurants in popular cabin towns, affordable restaurants, food in grocery stores\/gas stations, pop-ups, pizza farms, Southside punk spots, dives, and street food (cheese curds and corndogs are street food\u2013Minnesota is a street food state). Again, that was a guide of where to eat, not a mandate of inclusion.<\/p>\n
Consistency matters a lot to me. My favorite restaurants, on the whole, are consistent. Some very beautiful restaurants that are inconsistent did not make this list.<\/p>\n
It must fit within my code of ethics.<\/p>\n
There are only two 2025 opening on this list and only four openings from 2024 appear on my list, too. That\u2019s not because I did not love many 2025 openings. I did! I\u2019ve written at length about how our local lists value newness. 20% of my list is restaurants that opened before 2000 and over 50% of my list is restaurants that are over 10 years old. This is a departure from most \u201cbest\u201d of lists from the majority of writers across the country. Legacy matters when I make choices on where to send you for dinner.<\/p>\n
Every writer has a bias. Even though food critics try really hard to be neutral, food is deeply personal. You\u2019ll see my bias here. When I want to go out to eat, I\u2019m likely not choosing sushi, smash burgers, another New American small plates spot, fancy brunch, or gastropubs. I\u2019m likely going to a taqueria, grabbing really spicy noodles, hunting for soup, or hitting up one of our spots tucked into a grocery store. Did I eat a lot of sushi, expensive burgers, (bad) truffle fries, and $18 waffles for this piece? I did! But in the end, you won\u2019t see them as the stars of this list (though you will see your fair share of affordable burgers, one sushi spot is in the top 10, and I did fall in love with one expensive brunch place begrudgingly).<\/p>\n
None of our local presses has worked on a ranked list. I believe Minnesota deserves one. Everyone gets access to the top 50. Paid subscribers get an additional 20 restaurants and my \u201c5 to watch in 2026 list.\u201d The \u201c5 to watch\u201d is a series of restaurants that opened in 2024, 2025, or are changing their format\/chef in 2026, but that I am seriously considering for the 2026 list.<\/p>\n
The New York Times released their 100 Best Restaurants in New York City list this year with no affordable restaurants in the top 10. I was determined not to have that bias. Ranking a $150+ tasting menu against a $2.50 taco is a challenge for any writer. I started with a rather complicated ranking structure and ended up going off of the following: deliciousness, consistency, value, experience, novelty, and Minnesota-ness.<\/p>\n
Minnesota-ness does not equal whiteness. Lake Street and Central are Minnesota food landmarks that are predominantly full of amazing tacos. Hmong Village and Hmongtown are as Minnesotan as it gets. University is a goldmine of Asian restaurants. A quintessential experience of being Minnesotan is eating Ethiopian and Somali food. To me, Minnesotan often means of diaspora, as Minnesota has a long history of taking in a large number of refugees. Our food scene reflects that. In addition, some Minnesotan ingredients have been adopted by restaurants to create uniquely Minnesotan fusion in ways that are exceptionally exciting, like the multiple Asian restaurants across the state that have made walleye their signature.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I call this my list of favorites and not \u201cbest,\u201d because I know you have your own list of favorites, too! If you trust me and my palate, you will love the restaurants on this list. I\u2019ll be honest and tell you that my list has some spots that appear on most \u201cbest\u201d lists, but it also has significant departures and \u201csnubs.\u201d <\/p>\n
I spent countless hours staring at this list, reworking it, and asking if it felt representative of the state. When I thought I was finished, I would go and re-review restaurants just on the edge of the list head-to-head with ones I put on the list. In November alone, I revisited 42 restaurants. Sometimes, those margins between on and off the list were razor-thin. I went to over 600 restaurants to make this list, so if you haven\u2019t been to them all, eat at a few before lamenting that I left your favorite one out!<\/p>\n
Unlike other local lists, this list is my starting point for my 2026 list, making a list more akin to Chicago Mag or Houston Chronicle. Next year, you\u2019ll have transparency around what has come on and off the list. I\u2019ll be eating at all of these restaurants, restaurants I removed for significant consistency errors, restaurants on the cusp of this list and a list of restaurants I didn\u2019t get to over the past two years, especially in the Western part of the state.<\/p>\n
I went to over 600 restaurants over the span of two years in the process of making this list. That\u2019s a massive undertaking. You can access my list of 600+ restaurants here. I am sure I forgot some on this list, but it\u2019s relatively comprehensive. Ignore any typos or duplicates, this is really for the nerds who just want to get behind the scenes on my process.<\/p>\n
In future years, I\u2019ll be following a less intensive regimen, because the point of eating everywhere in two years was a baseline. For 2026, I will eat at all 50 of these restaurants as my starting list, with 100 other restaurants in contention to be added to the list. This includes new restaurants in 2026, restaurants that opened in 2023-2025 that I think deserve another look as they mature, restaurants on the edge of the top 50 (I have mapped the list up to 75), and restaurants I wanted to get to in these two years, but didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
This was a massive undertaking. If you are excited for this and want to help support indie restaurant criticism, becoming a paid subscriber helps me do more intensive work like this. But also, if you subscribe now, there\u2019s a secret below this button.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is my attempt to define Minnesota dining on a state-wide level. There will be a companion map, THE MAP, to go along with it. You\u2019ll hear more about that next week. Here\u2019s my methodology behind my list, because I think this stuff matters! This is a list of my favorite restaurants, not the best<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[4075,4073,4071,4074,4072],"class_list":["post-33856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-dining","tag-minnesota-food","tag-minnesota-grocery-stores","tag-minnesota-restaurant"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117342988148279982","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}