The Star Tribune's 2024 Restaurants of the Year reflect an incredible year of dining

It's been nearly two decades since the Minnesota Star Tribune awarded its highest culinary honor to multiple restaurants. On those occasions, in 2004 and 2007, the winning restaurants' ambitious yet vastly different efforts made them all deserving of the award.

Fast forward to 2024. This year we honor three restaurants — Bûcheron, Diane's Place and Vinai — as the Minnesota Star Tribune's Restaurants of the Year. While all unique, each of them is decidedly Minnesotan: the way Bûcheron embraces and elevates provenance; the unmatched sense of hospitality that Diane's Place brings via her precise, passionate takes on Hmong comfort food; and Yia Vang's mission to highlight this very cuisine with dishes that speak loudly, while quietly paying tribute to his parents.

Tying the three together doesn't undermine the value of the award; it amplifies the restaurants' excellence. It truly has been a banner year for food.

Bûcheron

In early January, during the howls of winter, Bûcheron, a small 38-seat restaurant, quietly opened in a site once occupied by another that served fried chicken and pulled pork sandwiches. It may have looked like a modern Parisian bistro, as it would from its worldly operators — Adam Ritter, a chef de cuisine from Demi; his partner, Jeanie, who managed Bellecour — but it somehow felt grounded.

For every dish that felt like it could emerge from the "bistronomy," on which much of Bûcheron's menu is modeled, something else would tether it to terroir. The creamy, silken slab of foie gras juxtaposed against a warm scone that tasted like it was baked by a proud, homesick relative residing in French wine country; along with that sweet-enough fall jam coaxed from fruit picked off a tree in the Ritters' family farm near St. Cloud. The acorn stock Ritter used for last winter's tortellini, from that very farm. The veiled attempts at creating accessible bar food: a wildly complex pastrami sandwich, airy pommes dauphine, kabocha squash wontons. His gift of making boring staples like steak and potatoes intensely craveable. And his craft of making vegetables the protagonists of their own wildly inventive plays.

Many of these dishes deliver elemental pleasure, and on culinary merits alone, Bûcheron now belongs to a small cadre of legacy establishments around the Twin Cities.

But the restaurant goes further, courting regulars and out-of-town gourmands alike, thanks to hospitality that's both studied and genuine. Does the kitchen ever skip a beat? On the rare occasion it does, blame the team for tinkering on a thought-provoking dish that you needed to try anyway. The ones that start conversations and almost always end with the same consensus: that there is hardly a better restaurant to have dined at this year.

Diane's Place

Beyond the name on the door, Diane's Place feels like home. When Diane Moua announced that she was opening her own restaurant, the same thought likely crossed everyone's mind: viennoiseries and desserts will set the standard, but how about savory fare?

Yes, the pastries here are unrivaled, riffing on what she did so well at Bellecour. Her intensely fragrant, frilly pandan croissant routinely haunts me; the Thai tea French toast, toweringly thick, is one you must eat alone; and the chicken croissant sandwich is a salve for the many mediocre cold deli sandwiches I've slogged through all year. Yet some of the best dishes on her menu, like the Hmong sausage — the one against all other Hmong sausages will now be compared — are savory. Starting with a brunch this flawless would have pegged everyone's expectations on what dinner could be, and Diane has exceeded them.

At dinner, you'll find dressier takes on Hmong comfort classics. My favorites include steamed pork rolls in their thin, satiny drapes; duck stew fortified with Thai eggplants, with a heft and depth that tastes like it was labored by a doting Hmong grandmother; sour pork ribs, deeply caramelized and only mildly sour. It may not look like it, but there's intricate technique behind it all — like in the chicken stuffed with bean thread noodles, the soft yet snappy bamboo shoots that accompany cabbage, and the deft seasoning that Moua applies across her entire menu.

Home is where dishes perennially feel like they were made just for you. It's where you convene with family and friends to laugh and — should the spirit move you — weep, best over a bowl of her gelatinous and deeply-flavored chicken soup. Above all, it's a place where you would return to every day.

Vinai

Frequent visits aren't the only markers of quality. Vinai, it turns out, may be better described as a destination. The one that was four years in the making. The one that colored our expectations. The one that reflects those feral but gentle sensibilities of its chef, Yia Vang, and his desire to capture the culinary ethos of a cuisine due for a renaissance. The intricate details woven throughout the interior of the restaurant, down to the design of servers' aprons, to the patterns embossed on the ice cubes: it's Vang's way of priming diners for what comes next, like the pork chop. It's as thick as a pin cushion, ferociously charred, meltingly tender. The other dishes that make you go quiet include a soul-affirming braised beef rib soup (a tender braise, a clear but potent broth); the grilled lamb hearts (smoky, gently chewy) that you pair with lettuce and rice noodles, ssam style; the precious array of sauces, or "kua txob" that range from bright to funky to throttle-you spicy.

The best thing about Vinai, though, is that it doesn't really make concessions. The heady notes are all there, as is the fire that roars from the beast of a grill that flanks the open kitchen, producing dishes that (compellingly) telegraph the moment of what it means to be Hmong-American — and proud.

"It's like the different stages of a dinner party," my colleague tells me about our three winners. You'd stay for a bit in the kitchen with someone close (Diane's Place), venture out to the backyard for a barbecue (Vinai), and return to the dining room where the table is set (Bûcheron). Thank you for inviting us all.

Past winners

2024: Bûcheron, Diane's Place, Vinai

2023: Oro by Nixta

2022: Mara

2021: Owamni

2020: None

2019: Demi

2018: InBloom*

2017: Young Joni

2016: Upton 43*

2015: Spoon and Stable

2014: Brasserie Zentral*

2013: Burch*

2012: Butcher & the Boar**

2011: Bachelor Farmer*

2010: Piccolo*

2009: Bar la Grassa

2008: Manny's

2007: Brasa, Heidi's,* Saffron**

2006: Midtown Global Market, Mill City Farmers Market, Town Talk Diner,* Chambers Kitchen,* Masa,* Copper Bleu*

2005: 112 Eatery

2004: Al Vento,* Corner Table,* A Rebours*

2003: Solera*

*Now closed

**Original location closed, a new version open or forthcoming