Myriel

Myriel sits in Macalester-Groveland doing the kind of quiet, serious fine dining that doesn't need a gimmick to hold attention. The James Beard Foundation named it a semifinalist for Best Chef in the Midwest two years running, which isn't the kind of nod a kitchen gets by accident or on a hot streak — it takes sustained, deliberate cooking to land there twice.

Local press has kept it on the radar too, and it's landed on a national list built around the country's better restaurants. That's three separate rooms of scrutiny arriving at the same conclusion, from three different angles, in consecutive years.

None of that recognition substitutes for a plate of food, but it's hard to fake across that many judges over that much time. This is a restaurant built for people who take fine dining seriously, not for a night of spectacle. Go with that expectation and it holds up.