Myriel

Where the Midwest Larder Meets Nordic Restraint

The dining room at Myriel, on Cleveland Avenue in St. Paul's Mac-Groveland neighborhood, sets its terms early. Soothing neutrals, minimalist lines, and a scattering of vintage china plates communicate a particular aesthetic stance: warmth without sentimentality, precision without coldness. That tension is the defining character of the New Nordic-adjacent cooking that has emerged across northern American cities over the past decade, and Myriel sits at the serious end of it. The room does not announce itself. It waits for you to adjust.

St. Paul has long played the quieter counterpart to Minneapolis in the Twin Cities dining conversation, and that relative modesty has allowed certain restaurants to develop without the noise that accompanies a trendier zip code. Myriel is the clearest evidence that the city's more measured pace can produce cooking of real consequence. For a broader sense of what else is worth your time across the city, our full St. Paul restaurants guide maps the scene by neighborhood and format.

The Philosophy on the Plate

New Nordic cooking, when it works, is not about scarcity or austerity for their own sake. It is about editing the larder down to what the season and the specific place can actually provide, then trusting those ingredients to carry the meal. Myriel operates on that logic. Chef Karyn Tomlinson sources whole animals from local farms and forages for wild ingredients, integrating both into a tasting menu format where restraint is a structural principle, not a stylistic flourish.

The approach places Myriel in a recognizable tier of American restaurants that have built a serious reputation around land-to-table sourcing and low-intervention technique. Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Tarrytown made that argument at large scale and institutional weight. Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg applies it through a Japanese kaiseki lens. Myriel's version is quieter and more domestic in register, its Scandinavian-inspired framing grounded in what Minnesota's particular landscape and farming community can actually supply rather than in the projection of a European ideal.

Food & Wine named Tomlinson a Leading New Chef in 2024, citing her work with whole animals, foraged ingredients, and a cooking sensibility that one editorial description framed as "grandma chic" — a phrase that lands accurately. The food has the quality of something deeply considered rather than technically demonstrative. The duck breast that has drawn critical attention arrives crispy-skinned and rosy, sliced and set over a gloss of sauce, scattered with herbs, and presented on vintage china. The image is composed but not theatrical. That distinction matters: tasting menus at this price tier in American cities have increasingly moved toward spectacle, and Myriel moves in the opposite direction.

The Award Tier and What It Signals

The 2025 James Beard Award for Leading Chef: Midwest is the highest formal recognition Myriel has received, and it arrives in the context of a region that has produced increasingly serious cooking over the past decade. The James Beard regional categories are competitive precisely because the Midwest now has a deep bench: Chicago alone includes addresses like Alinea, which operates at the technically progressive end of American tasting-menu cooking and draws national comparison with Lazy Bear in San Francisco, The French Laundry in Napa, and Providence in Los Angeles.

Tomlinson's award was preceded by Esquire naming Myriel among its Leading New Restaurants in 2021, placing it at number fourteen on that list. That earlier recognition established the restaurant's national profile before the James Beard confirmation arrived. The sequence — Esquire 2021, F&W Leading New Chef 2024, James Beard 2025, reflects a trajectory rather than a single moment of attention, which tends to be the more reliable signal about a kitchen's consistency.

For reference, the James Beard Foundation's Leading Chef regional awards sit alongside the national Outstanding Restaurant and Outstanding Chef categories. They are awarded to chefs who demonstrate sustained excellence rather than debut novelty, and winning them places a restaurant in a peer conversation that extends nationally. Other award-tier restaurants in that conversation include Le Bernardin in New York City, Atomix in New York City, Addison in San Diego, Albi in Washington, D.C., and The Inn at Little Washington. Myriel's placement in that tier is now formally documented.

The Tasting Menu Format in Context

Tasting menus have bifurcated across American cities into two distinct propositions. One end runs toward performance: projection mapping, tableside theater, a succession of one-bite compositions designed to read as technique-forward. The other end runs toward conversation: a sequence of dishes that builds a coherent argument about a kitchen's sourcing philosophy and seasonal position without demanding the diner acknowledge the effort. Myriel belongs to the second category. The format here is a vehicle for the ingredients rather than a stage for the kitchen's ambitions.

That positioning is not universal across the Midwest's serious tasting-menu tier. Alinea in Chicago operates at the theatrical end with intention and consistency. Emeril's in New Orleans and 8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana in Hong Kong each represent other national and international traditions within the award-tier format. Myriel's restraint-led approach is a deliberate choice within a spectrum, and it narrows the likely audience to diners who want engagement with provenance and season rather than sensory spectacle. That is not a limitation. It is a positioning.

The Neighborhood and the Planning Logic

Cleveland Avenue South in Mac-Groveland is a residential corridor, not a dining district. The neighborhood's character is domestic and unhurried, which amplifies rather than contradicts Myriel's register. Getting there is direct from either downtown Minneapolis or downtown St. Paul, both within a short drive, making the restaurant a practical destination for visitors staying in either city center.

Given the award profile, reservations at Myriel require advance planning. James Beard recognition in 2025 will increase booking demand significantly, and the restaurant's tasting-menu format limits covers per service by design. Booking ahead is the practical requirement at this tier, and the same logic applies to comparable addresses like Lazy Bear and Single Thread, where the small-format commitment means seats are finite.

For those building a broader trip around the Twin Cities dining scene, our full St. Paul hotels guide covers where to stay, and our St. Paul bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide map the broader visit.