9 BEST PLACES TO EAT
ACROSS THE MIDWEST
We get the question all the time: What restaurant should I try? It comes from friends looking for the latest and greatest, family visiting from out of state and readers who trust our expertise. • As journalists, it’s a question we love, a point of pride. We know our communities. From the Detroit Free Press to the Des Moines Register, we’re embedded across the Midwest, always in search of the next best bite. • That’s why when we set out to spotlight the USA TODAY Restaurants of the Year, we didn’t select the places you would find on your average best restaurants roundup. Because we’re not spending a few days passing through a city in search of what it has to offer. We’re here. We know. • Out of the 47 restaurants selected, nine are in the Midwest. They’re the places we love – a mix of old, new and in between. They’re places with stories to tell, places that should be on your dining bucket list and, lest we forget, places serving craveable dishes we can’t stop talking about. • Here they are, the nine Midwestern USA TODAY Restaurants of the Year for 2024.
Ardor Breads and Provisions | Peoria, Illinois
Details: 301 SW Water St., Peoria, Ill.; 309-4317801, ardorbp.com
Food cooks over the crackling flames of a livefire hearth at Ardor Breads and Provisions. The idea of fire and burning is carried into the restaurant’s name. Ardor has roots in the Latin word for burning and describes an intense passion. Founder Cody Scogin opened the business as a “small, humble bakery” in 2020. As community support grew, though, Scogin said it became evident that “Peoria wanted more.” So Ardor melded its original bakery with a new, full-service restaurant. The business continues to offer its staple baked goods and pastries, but now has a seasonal menu for dining. Don’t miss the woodgrilled swordfish, corned beef tongue and a kimchi fried chicken sandwich. – Cassidy Waigand, Peoria Journal Star (Ill.)
The Elm | Bloomington, Indiana
Details: 614 E. Second St., Bloomington, Ind.; 812-407-4339, elmbloomington.com
Nestled in the Elm Heights neighborhood next to a 70-plus-foot American elm that gave the restaurant its name, owners Martha and David Moore created a gathering space that invites guests to sit for a cup of coffee and pastry, a cocktail and small plates to share or a meal crafted to excite. Photographs of worldwide adventures adorn the walls while plates are filled with seasonal fare presented in unique ways, from the small plate of Araratroasted carrots with chickpea hummus to the pork dish with crispy pork belly and cochinita pibil with orange corn grits, braised and crispy kale and pickled red onions. – Carol Kugler, Bloomington HeraldTimes
Tinker Street | Indianapolis
Details: 402 E. 16th St., Indianapolis, Indiana; 317-925-5000, tinkerstreet restaurant.com
Head chef and owner Tom Main brought more than two decades of restaurant experience when he opened Tinker Street in 2015, but it’s Main’s lifetime of loving food that shines through. The twinkling lights of Tinker’s patio entrance welcome diners to a celebration of food, starting with flutes of complimentary champagne dubbed the Tinker Toast. Where a lesser restaurant might call good enough good enough, Main and company fastidiously experiment and, fittingly, tinker with every dish until it’s meticulously crafted to delight. Be it crunchy hazelnuts dotting the fried Brussels sprouts or pickled cranberries bursting amid whipped butternut squash, every forkful is a loving ode to all things wholesome and delicious. – Bradley Hohulin, The Indianapolis Star
Harbinger | Des Moines, Iowa
Details: 2724 Ingersoll Ave., Des Moines; 515-244-1314, harbingerdsm.com
Five-time James Beard Foundation semifinalist for Best Chef: Midwest Joe Tripp opened his vegetableforward small plates me
nu restaurant Harbinger in Des Moines in 2018 with an emphasis on advanced cooking techniques and Asian influences. Tripp takes yearly trips, often with staff, to Asia – specifically Vietnam, Korea and Thailand – and brings back ideas to create new seasonal dishes that incorporate farm-to-table ingredients from Iowa. Chef Ryan Skinner makes dishes such as soured farm carrots with a house-made lemongrass sausage, a duck breast roasted with hoisin, and three varieties of steam buns.
For a taste of what’s to come, order the tasting menu, seven experimental courses that may end up on the next iteration of the frequently changing menu. — Susan Stapleton, Des Moines Register
The Webster | Iowa City, Iowa
Details: 202 N. Linn St., Iowa City, Iowa; 319-800-0720; thewebsteric.com
Less than a mile away from Iowa City’s crowded bars catering to college students is the Webster, providing downtown diners an elevated dining experience in the city’s historic Northside neighborhood. Chef and restaurateur Sam Gelman, whose culinary experience includes years with the Momofuku group established by chef David Chang, operates his restaurant at the site of what was a drugstore he visited with his father and grandfather for lunch as a youngster. The Webster, named after his grandfather, offers guests a menu reflective of the seasons with a focus on sourcing products from the Midwest. Small portions encourage diners to order several plates for the table – and to steal a bite from every dish. – Paris Barraza, Des Moines Register
Selden Standard | Detroit
Details: 3921 2nd Ave., Detroit, Mich.; 313-438-5055, seldenstandard. com
When it opened in 2014, Selden Standard brought a fresh culinary perspective to midtown Detroit, a neighborhood better known for its fast-casual spots and takeout joints than upscale dining establishments. In the decade that followed, the New American restaurant has become a pillar in midtown, which is now a hotbed for some of the city’s most popular restaurants, and a beacon for Detroit’s culinary scene at large. The Selden Standard team has racked up six James Beard nominations and in 2015, the restaurant was named the Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers Restaurant of the Year. The space’s modern aesthetic serves as an ideal backdrop for a rotating menu of simply prepared seasonal ingredients, housemade pastas and breads and Michiganraised meat charred in a wood-fired hearth. – Lyndsay C. Green, Detroit Free Press
Owamni | Minneapolis
Details: 420 South First Street, Minneapolis, Minn.; 612-444-1846; owamni.com
Owamni overlooks its namesake on the Mississippi — Owámniyomni is the Dakota name for the only waterfall on the river, known as St. Anthony Falls in English. At the downtown Minneapolis restaurant, chef Sean Sherman provides a vision of what modern Indigenous food can be. It’s not about re-creating traditional dishes but rather removing colonial ingredients and supporting Indigenous food producers through delicious, healthful menus featuring food native to North America. That looks like tepary bean dip, pheasant tacos and a smoked bison ribeye dripping with flavor that shouldn’t be missed. Go ahead and order a selection of the tasty sauces to take everything to the next level. By its nature, much of Indigenous food is plant-based and friendly to restricted diets. Sherman has won multiple James Beard awards and and is executive director of his nonprofit that seeks to build an entire economy around Indigenous foods. – Liz Schubauer, The Tennessean (Nashville)
Fyr | Columbus, Ohio
Details: 404 N. High St., Columbus, Ohio; 614-484-5286, www.fyrshortnorth.com
Don’t expect dinner at Fyr to arrive at your table with deep, dark grill marks. Although Chef Sebastian La Rocca estimates that at his Latin American-inspired restaurant fire touches 90% of the food, it’s not cooked like food at 90% of other open-fire restaurants. Instead, Fyr serves up dishes using locally sourced ingredients that are cooked with techniques he learned in his native Argentina. That includes six types of fire: direct or indirect, in embers or on them, in a wood-fired oven or smoked. The result is dishes such as a 45-day dry-aged tomahawk steak, cooked for three hours near indirect flame and finished on the grill. Even Fyr’s popular chilled tomato is first oven-roasted; it’s served with panela honey, goat cheese, charred onions and sumac. – Bob Vitale, The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
Odd Duck | Milwaukee
Details: 939 S. Second St., Milwaukee, Wis.; 414-763-5881, oddduck restaurant.com
For more than a decade, this vibrant small-plates restaurant has effortlessly blended a crafty, globe-trotting menu with pure Midwestern charm. You see it in the handwritten notes left at your table on a special-occasion dinner. You feel it in the vibrant dining space filled with perky potted plants and dozens of duck figurines tucked into the decor. You taste it in the ever-evolving menu, where dishes like Filipino-style pork belly lechon kwali with peanut karekare, Haitian beef short rib joumou and chicken-fried oyster mushrooms with Nashville hot sauce share space in artful cohesion.
A 2022 James Beard Award semifinalist for outstanding restaurant, the eatery effortlessly doubles as an afterwork hangout or a celebration spot where everyone can feel at home. – Rachel Bernhard, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel