Casablanca’s moment of silence started as a way for Chef Youness Bojji to catch his breath. There were 42 people in his original restaurant’s tiny dining room and he was the only one in the kitchen.

Although Nyanyika Banda’s Duluth restaurant is just nearing its first birthday, the concept itself has been a lifetime in the making.

Fourteen years ago, a 26-year-old Ben Pratt was fresh off a cooking stint at the fancy Cosmos restaurant in downtown Minneapolis, and ready for his opening night as chef/owner at Ingredients Cafe in White Bear Lake.

Thirty-five minutes northwest of Minneapolis along I-94, Minnesota’s food culture comes into focus as corporate campuses and strip centers give way to the fields of farm country.

The Wilder Scratch Kitchen is a little off the main tourist thoroughfare of marinas, antique shops and shopping that the St. Croix River Valley is known for.

Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening since May 2001 Robert Tewes is on a different stage as chef and owner of Crescendo, his white-tablecloth restaurant in downtown Albert Lea.

Mari Harries didn’t call her full-service restaurant a “restaurant,” choosing instead to name it River City Eatery.

With the farm-to-table mantra still a common refrain and the often-whimsical names of those farms populating many restaurant menus, Scott Graden takes a different tack, one in which he eschews what he sees as marketing tools in favor of simply doing what makes sense for his business.

Kari Davi’s food says so much more about her than she does herself. While not shy, the co-head chef at Forager Brewery in Rochester is reserved.

Congratulations to Foodservice News' 2017 Top Chefs.

Heart of a Neighborhood

Modern Farmhouse Cuisine and Civility