16. Kings Wine Bar
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 354-7928
Address: 4555 Grand Ave.
Description: Located 15 blocks south of Lake Street, Kings is well off the beaten path—which is one of the things its regulars love about it, though there’s lots to love. Kings opened in 2009 in a cozy and stylish renovated corner space in Minneapolis’s Kingfield neighborhood, with a well-chosen wine list and a strong menu. It was quickly adopted as a favored retreat for writers and musicians—prominent music critic Jim Walsh tends bar, and HowWasTheShow.com editor David De Young curates the restaurant’s soundtrack of exclusively local music—which helped word of its virtues spread quickly. To see Kings in all its glory as a classy but unpretentious social hub, time your visit to coincide with one of the new-music listening parties it regularly hosts.
17. The Malt Shop
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 824-1352
Address: 809 West 50th St.
Description: The Malt Shop serves gourmet burgers and sandwiches as well as shakes and malts. Besides the standard cheeseburgers and Reubens, there are items like the Malibu chicken, a sautéed chicken breast with Swiss cheese, bacon, and avocado. Most important are the malts and shakes, available in almost 40 flavors. They range from strawberry and chocolate to black cherry and cookies ‘n’ cream.
18. Market Bar-B-Que
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 872-1111
Address: 1414 Nicollet Ave.
Description: Established in 1946 (although not always at this location), Market Bar-B-Que’s been a Twin Cities family tradition for years. The menu includes fabulous, lean spareribs and beef tips, barbecue beef sandwiches, and an amazing “dessert trough” including key lime pie and grasshopper ice cream pie. The extensive wine list is printed on the side of giant empty wine bottles set on the tables. The decor is simple and comfortable, with large carved wooden booths and tables and black-and-white photographs of celebrities who have dined at Market, including Jay Leno and Willie Mays. Each table is equipped with a small jukebox that carries popular music selections from the ’50s to the present. Both locations are open for lunch and dinner daily.
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Address: 3500 Cedar Ave. South
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Address: 337 13th Ave. NE
21. Psycho Suzi’S Motor Lounge
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 788-9069
Address: 2519 Marshall St. NE
Description: Psycho Suzi’s is the Twin Cities’ preeminent tiki lounge, which lends it a cachet that allows it to be regularly packed with customers despite prices somewhat higher than its passable food might otherwise command . . . but when you need to drink out of a steaming volcano bowl, you need to drink out of a steaming volcano bowl, and you know just where to go. Summer is high season at Suzi’s, with tiki torches (natch) illuminating a patio buzzing with the buzz of the buzzed. Suzi’s deliberately lowbrow appetizers, such as sliced pickles rolled in cream cheese and cold cuts, will allow you to taste some traditional Minnesota backyard BBQ fare if you don’t happen to be invited to a Maple Grove cookout while you’re in town.
22. Red Stag Supperclub
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Address: 509 First Ave. NE
Description: The Red Stag is the newest jewel in the small but beloved empire of restaurateurs (and sisters) Kim and Kari Bartmann, who also run Barbette and the Bryant-Lake Bowl. When the Red Stag opened in 2007, it made history as Minnesota’s first fully LEED-certified restaurant. Just because the toilets have variable-volume flush mechanisms doesn’t mean the joint is uptight, though: It’s as warm and cozy as its sister establishments, and hosts a range of fun events, live music, and dance nights. Chef Brian Hauke offers a superlative menu of contemporary American fare with tasty meat entreés and many vegetarian options as well.
23. Sapor Cafe And Bar
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 375-1971
Address: 428 Washington Ave. North
Description: Diners in search of a sophisticated and eclectic fusion cuisine will love the Sapor Cafe. Entrées meld together high-quality, seemingly disparate ingredients to create piquant culinary delights. The menu changes seasonally and emphasizes local, organic ingredients. Dinners include a miso-baked salmon and a pork chop in jerk spices. The restaurant features a comfortable bar, which is frequented by a hip crowd. Sapor is open Monday through Friday for lunch, and Monday through Saturday for dinner. Closed Sunday.
24. Seward Cafe
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 332-1011
Address: 2129 East Franklin Ave.
Description: Minneapolis’s riverside Seward neighborhood has the reputation of being progressive in the granola-and-Birkenstocks sense of that word, and the Seward Cafe is one of the emblematic reasons why. The cooperatively run diner is a favorite of artistically inclined families who bleed blue (Democratic blue, not aristocratic blue), but you don’t have to be a Nader voter to appreciate the delicious “earth breakfast” and the warm, funky atmosphere. Behind the counter there’s a closet conspicuously labeled “Makeout Room,” for reasons that even the staff don’t know (or have conveniently chosen to forget).
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Address: 2814 East 38th St.
26. Vera’S Cafe
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 822-3871
Address: 2901 Lyndale Ave. South
Description: Open until midnight seven nights a week, Vera’s is a popular late-night dining establishment in the Lyn-Lake neighborhood, serving homemade soups, huge sandwiches, six kinds of scrambled eggs, and European coffees. During the summer months the gated patio is a beautiful place to take in lunch or to hang out after a movie. Inside, Vera’s is outfitted with antique-looking tables, ice-cream-parlor chairs, and velvet and mohair couches. Vera’s is open daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
27. Harry Singh’S Original Caribbean Restaurant
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 729-6181
Address: 2653 Nicollet Ave.
Description: Great prices and tasty West Indies cuisine distinguish Harry Singh’s. The restaurant specializes in roti, a crepe-like Caribbean flatbread with your choice of more than a dozen curries. You can get roti with such ingredients as potatoes, chickpeas, cardamom seeds, curried beef, and jerk chicken. The servings are enormous here, often enough for two hungry diners. Harry Singh’s is open for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday.
28. 1St Wok
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 922-8883
Address: 3236 West Lake St.
Description: 1st Wok features an extensive menu of Hunan- and Szechuan-style Chinese food. Fine renditions of sesame chicken, kung pao chicken, lo mein, and pepper steak are served, as well as numerous seafood items. The restaurant features specialties such as sesame shrimp, Double Wonder, and princess chicken and shrimp. Daily lunch specials are a steal and include an entrée plus soup and fried rice. Vegetarian items include bean curd selections (kung pao bean curd and spicy bean curd Szechuan-style). 1st Wok is open daily for lunch and dinner.
29. Hong Kong Noodles Restaurant
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 379-9472
Address: 901 Washington Ave. SE
Description: Several excellent Chinese restaurants are in the vicinity of the University of Minnesota—this is arguably one of the best. The restaurant is rather small and seats no more than 50 people in an often-packed room. But it is the food that garners the restaurant accolades from its regular patrons and critics alike. With almost 300 menu items, Hong Kong Noodles offers plenty to choose from, but noodles are the restaurant’s specialty. The menu is divided into extensive soup, chicken, beef, fried rice, hot pot, seafood, pork, and vegetable choices. A few standouts are the Singapore-style rice noodles, seafood lo mein, and beef brisket fun. Hong Kong Noodles is open for lunch and is open for dinner late daily, which is relatively uncommon in the Twin Cities.
30. Rainbow Chinese Restaurant & Bar
City: Minneapolis, MN
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (612) 870-7084
Address: 2739 Nicollet Ave.
Description: Rainbow Chinese’s menu features exciting examples of Chinese cuisine prepared with fresh ingredients. Rainbow’s signature dishes include Szechuan wontons, honey walnut shrimp and Singapore chow mai fun, and fried walleye pike with black bean sauce. There are many other options, including vegetarian entrées. Alcohol is available with meals and at the lovely bar, where diners can feel free to bask in the comely decor of the restaurant, which is superbly decorated in greens and yellows. Try Rainbow’s custom-made ginger ale, which will knock your socks off! Reservations are accepted only for groups of four or more. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner daily.