After a bitter winter of chaos, the thick heat of summer has slowed many of us to a crawl, hinting at a sweat-slicked semblance of peace, but everything is still in flux. Members of our community are still disquieted by the reverberations of Metro Surge, while some are still being taken off our streets, albeit in more covert ways. For many Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) individuals, this is a continuation of a story, and the coming-to-a-head of an ugly zit that’s been growing on the face of the United States since its inception. The decision by the government and its use of blatant racial profiling to carry out its work is one way we’ve seen the penalization of diversity. But this is nothing new on stolen land.
This may seem like a wild way to kick off a feature article about food and dining in the debut issue of a local queer magazine that’s working to evolve with the times, and as many of us under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella know, the personal is political. For those of us who are—or love—queer people, the sentiment is not new. The struggle for safety and liberation for all intersects with each of our overlapping identities, even in small, everyday ways. The reality of looking over one’s shoulder for overt or covert malicious intent can drain even the most resilient of us. For me, there is nothing radical about speaking of the realities of the ways sexuality, race, class, gender, ability, substance use, housing status, and more impact our daily lives and can enrich or diminish them. It’s simply seeking opportunities for healing in our communities, and the first step is seeing where the inequities lie, not as a means to mope, but more as a means to galvanize ourselves for necessary change that better serves us all.
As a trans-nonbinary person and a grandchild of immigrants, and I’ve written about food and drink, music, culture, the outdoors, and more in the Twin Cities and beyond for almost fifteen years. I love opportunities in my work to shine a light on the experiences of those on the margins. Despite my somewhat dour intro, I have been told I am, in fact, fun at parties. And, as someone who dates across the gender spectrum, when I go on my gay little dates, I’ve noticed that I have inadvertently considered our safety when suggesting restaurants. While I don’t expect to get blatantly bashed, I carefully consider the dining establishments and spaces where I won’t have to second-guess holding a hand or sneaking a smooch, of which there are bountiful options in the Cities.
As a person of color, I can’t ignore it when the front-of-house and back-of-house appear racially homogeneous, and when I don’t see a representation of gender diversity on staff. Now, not everyone is out, and many of us don’t necessarily read as queer, or trans, or even racially diverse at times. This isn’t about people who, for any number of reasons, don’t present in ways that signify their identities (not everyone even wants to show up that way at work!). But what I do notice is when I see people presenting their intersecting identities in authentic ways, and it signals to me that not only is it a safer place for me to court and dine, but also a safer place where people like us will be supported and respected as employees. Three restaurants come to mind immediately where I see obvious diversity not only in staff, but on menus, too.
Oro by Nixta
Chefs and restaurateurs Kate and Gustavo Romero have been strong advocates of community diversity and biodiversity. Gustavo is from Hidalgo, Mexico, and Kate is Polish-American, both with a front-row seat to the immigration process. “My family [is from Poland.] . . . They had asylum visas. When they came here, after the Berlin Wall fell, they wanted to go back home. My mom couldn’t see her life with two small children in Poland. So my grandmother had moved here to work for a family that she was working for in Chicago. They decided to relocate to Minnesota, and that’s why we came here.” Gustavo came to America when he was seventeen, and later made his way to Italy for culinary school. After returning to the United States, he reconnected with the beauty and variety of corn that reminded him of home in the bustling kitchens full of female family members. Years later, in 2020, he and Kate opened Nixta, a tortilla producer that showcases a few of the fifty-nine registered varieties of heirloom corn that grow in Mexico—and forty of them are from Gustavo’s hometown. Since then, they’ve expanded in the space they occupy in Northeast Minneapolis and have garnered several local and national accolades for their full-service restaurant, Oro.
For the uninitiated in corn culture, it may seem strange to see a restaurant that focuses on one ingredient standing out among national heavy-hitters, but the food Oro makes is nothing short of its namesake: gold. Gus and Kate’s shared cheffing knowledge features an ingredient many of us indulge in dipped in butter at the state fair, and calls back to the cultural significance—and versatility—of the ingredient in nearly alchemic ways as it’s included in drinks, mains, and desserts.
Indígena by Owamni
Raised in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Sean Sherman moved to Minneapolis at seventeen to continue pursuing his early kitchen career while considering art school. Although he didn’t attend, he says he found art through food. “I was able to learn how to do tasting menus and play around and make things look fancy and pretty. I didn’t go to culinary school. I was just curious, and I had an artistic eye, so I was able to grow there.” That curiosity expanded into an exploration of the lack of Indigenous restaurants in the United States. From there, his mission became to reestablish traditional foodways without colonial ingredients like wheat, dairy, and cane sugar, or animals like beef, pork, and chicken. Emphasizing the bounty of biodiversity of the lands around us, Sean’s work has led to cookbooks, the founding of his first restaurant in 2021, Owamni, and the establishing of the Indigenous Food Lab through his nonprofit NATIFS. NATIFS is a professional Indigenous kitchen working to create a center for Indigenous education and create more food access through programs like Meals for Native Institutions that provides ready-to-eat meals centering Indigenous ingredients to schools, healthcare centers, tribal colleges, and elder programs. Now, he’s moved onto a bigger stage with his new restaurant, Indígena, filling the void at the Guthrie Theater left by the shuttering of Sea Change at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It doesn’t make sense to do something just to do it, but it makes sense to do something because we have an opportunity to actually make some change.”
Sean Sherman, Indígena by Owamni
“We have a really unique food system because we’re a smaller city, but within the city, we’re massively [racially and ethnically] diverse. . . . Taking into account the Indigenous food systems that are here, they are diverse because you have a lot of farmlands in the south, and you have a lot of woodlands in the north with shorter growing seasons, but some really interesting products come out of there like the wild rice and some of the fresh fish, like walleyes and northerns coming out of some of the lakes. . . . But then you layer on just where we are with this massive mix of diversity, and we’re getting all these cool cuisines of people experimenting. I think people are taking a new turn, being even more creative with some of these ingredients around us and using a lot of these farm foods. And we have amazing farms all around us, and all these amazing products.” But products and passion alone don’t make a pretty plate of bouncy, savory pucks of housemade sausage on a bed of roasted turnip smear topped with floral, mild pickled pink peppercorns as you can find on their menu; it’s about intentionality. “I think restaurants with intention are really what we’re seeing right now because we challenge ourselves almost every step of the way. It doesn’t make sense to do something just to do it, but it makes sense to do something because we have an opportunity to actually make some change and to change the way people think about things.”
Vinai
Yia Vang was born in a Thai refugee camp after his parents met while fleeing the Vietnam War. In his childhood, he witnessed all of the hard work they put in to support him and his six siblings to give them lives they never imagined for themselves. Both parents had their cooking roles: his father exemplified the open-fire cooking Yia’s now known for at his Northeast restaurant, Vinai (named for the camp in which he was born), and at the State Fair with Union Hmong Kitchen; and the herby, lemongrass-laden, chili-flecked hot sauces are inspired by childhood memories, with the spiciest, the “Mama Yang,” named for his mother. His experience as a refugee who ultimately relocated to the Midwest created opportunities for him to explore holding the multitudes of his identity. “I love the fact that we here, especially in our food culture, have something that’s ours. I think that going through the ups and downs of accepting my Hmongness helped me accept my Midwestness.”
“I didn’t look at hunting and fishing as a sport. I looked at it as going to get groceries.”
Yia Vang, Vinai
Fortunately for diners at Vinai, the overlap between Hmong and Midwestern food and farming traditions shows up on the plate in local, seasonal ingredients with shared traditions of pickling, fermenting, and foraging that run parallel in both cultures. “Growing up, I didn’t realize that it was a Midwest thing. It was a Hmong thing, we always said. So we’ve had moments where we’d stop on the side of a country road, and dad’s like, ‘Oh, look, wild watercress.’ I didn’t realize that that was a thing called foraging. And again, it wasn’t a trend. It wasn’t sexy and cool. It was literally like, oh yeah, there’s free food here. And so it was that mentality. I didn’t look at hunting and fishing as a sport. I looked at it as going to get groceries.” These practicalities, paired with Minnesota’s ever-changing weather, have Yia reflecting on the finite beauty of things that don’t last forever, which leads to more appreciation for what we have.
Along with it comes hope: for the next growing season, for new ideas and collaborations, and for the future of our local dining scene. “Hope actually moves us forward. Restaurants are an echo of what’s to come. We get to set the tone. And that’s why I feel like restaurants are where people eat, where people gather, where people bring ideas together.”
While each of these chefs is rightfully celebrated locally and nationally for the beauty they craft on their plates and within our communities, I would like to champion their commitment to diversity in its many forms. Their work exemplifies not only cultural diversity, but also the diversity of our local food systems and cultural preservation. This year has shown us that diversity is what makes our communities a delicious delight in every way, and it’s been beautiful to witness, amid so much chaos, the kind of culture Minnesotans are committed to building together for the long haul.
Explore the diversity of our local food scene on your next gay little date. Visit their websites for reservations.
Oro by Nixta: 1222 NE 2nd St, Minneapolis, Wed.–Sat. 4–9 p.m.
Indígena by Owamni: 806 S 2nd St, Minneapolis, Tues.–Thurs. 11 a.m.–11 p.m., Fri. 11 a.m.–midnight, Sat. 10 a.m.–midnight, Sun. 10 a.m.–11 p.m.
Vinai: 1300 NE 2nd St, Minneapolis, Tues.–Thurs., 5–10 p.m., open until 11 p.m. Fri. and Sat.
