and Cherry” at the Walker Art Center’s Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
Photograph by Mike Krivit
WHEN THE 2024 James Beard Awards were announced, the winner for Best Chef: Midwest was Christina Nguyen of Hai Hai. Her Southeast Asian street food eatery isn’t alone in being nationally acclaimed. A parade of restaurants have made Minneapolis/ St. Paul a hotbed for top-tier dining.
Sean Sherman of Indigenous restaurant Owamni by The Sioux Chef and education center Indigenous Food Lab is a past winner of Beard’s Best Book award for The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen. Gavin Kaysen of Spoon and Stable is a former Best Chef: Midwest. The area is peppered with Beard award finalists, including the English pub George & The Dragon (ganddpub.com) and the Italian sister restaurants Bar La Grassa and 112 Eatery. What to do in between meals when in the Twin Cities—besides napping? Loads.
The Minneapolis Institute of Art is a first-class yet free museum packed with familiar names (Vincent van Gogh, Joan Miró, and Ai Weiwei, among others) as well as contemporary exhibits to discover. Upcoming is At the Moulin Rouge featuring works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his circle. For an outdoor experience, the Walker Art Center’s Minneapolis Sculpture Garden surrounds you with creativity both bold (like Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s landscape-defining Spoonbridge and Cherry) and refined (like Ta-coumba T. Aiken, Rosemary Soyini Vinelle Guyton, and Seitu Jones’ Shadows at the Crossroads.)
Throw your hat in the air at Nicollet Avenue and 7th Street. You’ll find plenty doing the same near the Mary Tyler Moore statue celebrating her Minneapolis-based sitcom and its iconic opening credits sequence.
Photograph by Lane Pelovsky
If You Go
CHEER Catch the Twins at Target Field, conveniently located near its own public-transit train station.
APPLAUD The Tony award–winning Guthrie Theater opens its season with The Lehman Trilogy. Take a tour of the costume and scene shops.
EXPLORE An aquarium, 500 stores, 50 restaurants, a roller coaster, and mirror maze make up the Mall of America.
