How to Spend a Food-Fueled Weekend Sightseeing in Minneapolis

Where to stay

At the Hewing Hotel in the North Loop, the heated rooftop pool and sauna are a draw for both guests and locals, particularly in the winter months, when you can watch the windows of the city sparkle against the night sky from the vantage point of the hot tub. For an even more boutique stay, book one of Alma’s seven rooms and wake up to a tray of pastries delivered to your door from the bakery on the ground floor. Or get the best of both worlds at Nicollet Island Inn, whose riverside location means that you get a view of the skyline and the Mississippi as it rushes through the city.

FRIDAY

Minneapolis is the proud home of the Minnesota Lynx, four-time WNBA Champions whose games regularly draw crowds to downtown’s Target Center. Grab a casual pre-game (or concert) dinner at Union Hmong Kitchen in the North Loop, just a quick 15-minute walk from the arena. Or head to the Seward Neighborhood for arepas and criolla fish tacos at Cafe Racer Kitchen; or nearby Himalayan Restaurant, where vegetarians and vegans will find plenty of options spanning Indian, Nepalese, and Tibetan cuisines.

A burrito to fuel the day

Start off your morning by grabbing a scallion pancake breakfast burrito stuffed with smoky, thick-cut bacon or coins of sweet Chinese sausage, fluffy scrambled eggs, and creamy American cheese from the aptly named Saturday Dumpling Co. The website opens for orders on Wednesdays, with pickup anytime from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays at Dots Gray Kitchen. Or, as a breakfast alternative, head to the Dripping Root, a juice and smoothie bar in South Minneapolis where the smell of fresh fruit and abundant plants will make you feel like you’re stepping directly into a ray of summer sunshine.

Spend the morning outside

Speaking of the weather — rain or shine, there’s no better place for getting outside than Minneapolis’s Theodore Wirth Regional Park. With more than 740 acres of land, the park offers activities for all seasons: birdwatching in the spring, fishing in the summer, hiking in the fall, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in the winter. Visitors can rent bikes, skis, and other outdoor equipment at the Trailhead, a 4,200 square-foot recreational building in the park that also houses a restaurant, a fitness center, locker rooms and restrooms, and even a mobile sauna to warm up in the winter.

Lunch and people-watching

After a park wander of your choice, head to Cedar-Riverside for lunch. One of the few cooperatively-owned restaurants in the Twin Cities, Seward Cafe offers a wide array of diner-style classics, many of them made vegan: biscuits and gravy, loaded hash browns, fluffy pancakes measuring almost a foot in diameter. For those looking for something heartier, head north to Kramarczuk’s, a restaurant, market, and bakery serving Eastern European specialties like homemade pierogi and cabbage rolls stuffed with housemade sausage. At Dinkytown’s shoebox-sized Kimchi Tofu House, a clay pot of the eponymous stew and a sizzling plate of bulgogi, plus banchan, costs less than $20.

Visit artists’ studios at Northrup King

After an active morning, make your way to the Northrup King building for a leisurely afternoon. Home to more than 300 artists and creative small businesses, the building is a cornerstone of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. All artists’ studios are open from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays, so visitors have a chance to purchase locally made treasures and meet the artists who created them.

Happy hour at the Walker Art Center

With a captive clientele, museum restaurants aren’t usually much to speak of, but Cardamom, located on the ground floor of the Walker Art Center, sheds that stereotype. Claim a seat on the patio for a view of the Walker’s iconic sculpture garden, which is only eclipsed by the quality of the people-watching: art students heading towards Sky Pesher, sketch pads in hand; children playing tag around the Spoonbridge and Cherry pond; well-heeled young professionals gathering at the Walker Cinema. The rooftop golf course, featuring 10 new artist-designed holes every year, is a summer must-do.

I scream, you scream, we all scream!

Minneapolis is an ice cream town, through and through. Milkjam is the place to go for classics with a twist, with house favorites including the titular “milkjam” a creamy, delicate caramel churned from sweetened condensed milk. Sebastian Joe’s is a 30-year stalwart of the scene and the affectionately named Nicollet Avenue Pothole is a fudgy perennial favorite. For ice cream maximalists, there’s Bebe Zito: Here, everything from ghost peppers to strawberry Nesquik finds a home in a sweet cream base. Lactose-intolerant folks won’t miss out either: At MN Nice Cream, oat milk soft serve is as smooth and silky as its dairy-containing counterpart (always ask for the swirl).

Saturday night splurge

Though you’d be hard-pressed to find a Minneapolis restaurant with a formal dress code, there are a number of scene-y restaurants where getting fancy is part of the fun. In South Minneapolis, Laotian restaurant Khâluna was designed to evoke a resort atmosphere, kitted out in cream linens, patinated bronze, and greenery. If you’d rather explore further north in the city, head to Oro, a full service masa kitchen in Northeast, where an unassuming exterior belies one of the most creative menus in the city; or visit the Camden Social in North Minneapolis, a restaurant and cigar lounge whose burgers have made a surprising splash in an otherwise canon-loyal town (heard of the Juicy Lucy?).

See what’s on at an independent theater

There’s nowhere quite like the Trylon Cinema, a 90-seat movie theater in Longfellow whose film series have included everything from a celebration of Alfred Hitchcock’s 125th birthday to a series featuring Laurence (formerly Larry) Fishburne’s greatest early-career hits. Get the Trylon Five Admission Discount Card, which drops each ticket’s price to $6. The card can also go toward Take-Up Productions screenings at the Riverview Theater, a classic wood-paneled 1940s-style theater in Howe, as well as the Heights Theater in the Minneapolis suburb Columbia Heights, where a live organist plays before every weekend evening screening. If you’re headed to the Heights, make sure to stop by the Golden Nuts, whose sweets and snacks make for the perfect movie treat. (Bonus, they’re entirely halal.)

Pastries and an indie bookseller tour

Minneapolis is also home to a robust literary community, with independent bookstores dotting every neighborhood of the city. Magers & Quinn, Birchbark Books, and Wild Rumpus are conveniently located along the chain of lakes, so take a walk and stop by for a detour through the shelves (or rent a bike from the Tangletown Bike Shop). For those truly dedicated to the hunt, the Book House in Dinkytown is a treasure trove of secondhand books; and for romance readers, newly opened Tropes & Trifles in Standish is an essential stop. For lunch, grab a bite somewhere you missed on Saturday — or, if it’s summer, head to Sea Salt Eatery at Minnehaha Falls for great food and an even better view.

Chase the aurora

While the northern lights are more reliably visible in northern Minnesota, solar storms have brought the aurora as far south as the Twin Cities multiple times in the last few years.