When Oprah asked Prince in 1996 why he still lives in Minneapolis rather than, say, anywhere else on the planet, the self-proclaimed Purple Yoda said, “It’s so cold, it keeps the bad people out.”
That’s not to say that hospitality is lacking: The city has a 200-year history of embracing newly arrived immigrants and, over the past decade, burnt-out bicoastals lured by that Midwest Nice. Among them have been intrepid, talented chefs, undeterred by the cold, who have slowly but surely created a remarkably diverse food scene, using the agricultural bounty that defines the region. As early as 2011, Anthony Bourdain flagged the city’s up and coming chops saying that it “just gets better every year”.
So when, in December 2025, thousands of ICE agents descended upon the Twin Cities, initiating two months of unrest and violence, restaurants were not at the forefront of the headlines, but acutely absorbing its impact. Employees felt unsafe coming to work; customers were scared to leave their homes. Three months later, after ICE has largely withdrawn from the city and left a traumatized community in its wake, restaurant owners are eager to revive what they’d been in the middle of: cultivating a dining culture that celebrated both immigrant and native culinary traditions, in spaces that made everyone feel at home. They also, frankly, need business back.
Having traveled to Minneapolis dozens of times, I returned to check in on some of my favorite restaurants, and to find new ones, with one question leading the way: What does it mean to eat in Minneapolis right now?
A diversity of influences
Minneapolis is demographically unique, but it wasn’t always as varied as it is now—there was a time when lutefisk, a Scandinavian lye-treated cod dish, was its defining immigrant dish. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, large numbers of Laotian and Hmong emigrants arrived, fleeing the persecution that followed the Vietnam War. Then, the Somali Civil War drove in a large community starting in the ‘90s, creating what is now the diaspora’s largest in the country. As with many cities in the United States, there is also a sizable population of people from Mexico and other parts of Latin America, representing roughly 10% of residents.
The contributions of these communities to the dining scene have been notable. Somalis have opened up traditional restaurants—Hufan, or Quruxlow, both on E. Lake Street, serve staples like goat and rice as well alongside milky Somali tea spiced with cardamom and ginger—and Oro by Nixta, perhaps the most celebrated Mexican restaurant in the city right now, is joined by a sprawl of taquerias from downtown to the suburbs (Mercado Centro also on E. Lake counts 11 food vendors serving dishes like heaping barbacoa tortas and cheese bolillos with jalapenos). Most recently, the area’s Hmong, Vietnamese, and Laotian populations have begun opening dynamic Southeast Asian restaurants that offer creative spins on ancestral dishes. It makes Minneapolis the kind of place where the hottest table or most cravable dish often has origins thousands of miles away. It’s the kind of city where you never have to eat the same dish twice.
