It may seem an odd place to pick. Minneapolis is far from the biggest tourist destination in North America. But a few aspects made it appealing. Firstly, I haven't been her, nor flown through MSP airport. Adding another airport to my list (now up to 128) is not meaningless. Maybe 5% of the reason. Second, again I haven't been here. This isn't the biggest metropolis in the country, but it is far from the smallest, and has an interesting vibe from what I heard. Third, they have a great beer culture from everything I read. Fourth, they have a burgeoningly great food scene. And while they didn't have the amount of outdoor mountainous beauty that the last three all had, it has great lakes, rivers, parks and so far (a day in as I write this) about as Green a major city in America.
Day 1
My first day in Minneapolis was defined by parks and beer (until dinner at Alma, which is to come). I'm not trying to be funny when saying that, as I largely think this trip will be defined by that. Minneapolis is a very green city, reminding me much of Calgary. There are parks everywhere, as are the lakes surrounding the Mississippi River that runs through it. The first stop was close to my AirBNB, a part of a larger park called the Eloise Butler Wildflower Reserve. It was about a 1-mile loop through lush Minnesota forest and plains, flowers and trees everywhere. Apparently the best time to visit is either Spring or Fall, but even in Summer it was a calm 80 degrees and beautiful - a calming, if not incredible, way to start my trip.
Then came the Sculpture Garden, a park right in the heart of the city, a coupel blocks away from the Mississippi, befit with the famous Cherry over Spoon sculpture. That is the main event, but the rest of the Sculpture Garden is quite beautiful as well - my favorite being the deep blue tall rooster sculpture pefectly placed with Minneapolis's very photogenic skyline behind it.
The Sculpture Garden is free, but in a way it isn't as the parking lot for the Garden had a minimum 12-hour meter charge. It was only $4.50, but still - Minneapolis is definitely making it up on the backend.
After a stop at the first brewery of the trip - Clutch Brewing, in St. Paul's Warehouse Market, a picturesque spot that is still being filled out - I went to Mills Ruin Park, a long swath of green park hugging the Mississippi River, right around the famous (for Minneapolis) Stone Arch Bridge. The park had some nice views, though I was somewhat disappointed that it is a bit low and the city skyline was blocked which if not would've provided a great photo opportunity.
The breweries on Day 1 were all uniformly very good and very well laid out. Clutch was basically the entire second floor of the Warehouse Market, with the middle open to a view of the market down below. It was well adorned, and the beer was surprisingly good for what was by far the most "commercial" spot I went to, with both an IPA and a Nitro Milk Stout being quite good.
The second was Arbeiter (by the way at this and the rest of the spots I only had one each...) which was a bit mroe traditional in set-up, taking up half a warehouse with the brewing area the other half. Their Hazy IPA was great, the crowd was probably what you would expect, a lot of dogs, a lot of youngsters out of work early on a Friday, and the works. The third was Sisyphus Brewing, which is really high rated and probably the most "chill" set-up, with table games, pinball machines, a group of people having a surprisingly deep and all-over-the-place philosophy conversation, and the like. The final one was a quick stop after diner to HeadFlyer, which was another classic warehouse style craft brewery, but with a large outdoor space that everyone was taking advantage of
Dinner at Alma was excellent, if a tad confusing at the start. They call themselves a restaurant that serves a prixe fixe menu. But the menu reads like a tasting menu. When I sat, I first wondered if I had to pick from one of the antipasti, one of the first course, main course, etc., but then the waitress came around and said that I would get all of them. I was confused again, but quickly realized that the restaurant is going to serve all the plates of a course together. The antipasti were largely all one bites, but all great - especially a breaded squash in dashi that you just slurp up. The first courses were an sesame heirloom tomato salad, which I surprisingly ate a decent amount of, and a prawn fritter. The best part were their three mains, a chili oil lamb sausage orecchiette, a pepper crusted sea bass in tom yum broth, and a lightly grilled quail. Alma's dishes were a perfect mix of hominess and quality. Very much recommend.
After dinner and the stop at HeadFlyer, the night ended at The Loft at Skyway Theater, which is an EDM space that was rocking. The drinks were bad, but cheap. They gave out water bottles for $2 a pop which were a hit. The place had far better air conditioning than most similar places I've been to and was just a great time.
Day 2
My Saturday in Minneapolis had a few planned items that would shape the schedule of the day. First being a 4pm tour of Paisley Park, Prince's estate. I'm not that much of a Prince fan, knowing truly few songs of his beyond the very famous ones (i.e. Little Red Corvette or Purple Rain), but I can't come all the way to Minnesota and not pay my respects. The other was a 7:45 dinner at Travail, a modern tasting menu joint that is listed as one of Minneapolis's best restaurants. That didn't leave a whole lot of time to do other things, but I was still able to make good use of the day.
The first stop after a quick grab and go chorize biscuit breakfast sandwhich (very good) was the Minneapolis Institute of Art - i.e. their Art museum. I have to say, this was one of the better art museums I've ever been to aside from truly major cities (your Parises or New Yorks). It is large, it touches upon basically all types of historical art from all over the world, from a lot of European Art from 1200 to 1900 (including a handful of French impressionist masters), to American art, to most of the 2nd floor being taken up by Asian art from all parts of Asia (including India and Southeast Asia with is often overlooked). The only real downgrade I can give is the place is so sprawling that is incredibly easy to get lost and incredibly difficult to carve out a logical way to see everything without retracing steps.
The museum took a good 90 minutes to 2 hours, but I was never bored or tired. It was constant in the quality of its exhibits and the differences of each area - this coupling as both an art museum and a anthropological one. Some of the pieces were truly stunning. It is free to enter (though donations are requested), but they make it up charging basically an entrance fee like charge for their special exhibits, the one I went to was a Van Gogh exhibit about art specifically from his time at a psychiatric hospital.
After a truly pleasant experience at the museum, I ventured to a part of the city I hadn't been before, the now being gentrified industrial area around the baseball stadium. This area is a facsimile, in a good way, of Denver around Coors Field in a sense. Lunch was at Union Hmong Kitchen, which was good if a bit standard being a really well grilled skirt steak and asian slaw salad, but the place was housed in a warehouse turned mini food hall. These places are not unique to Minneapolis but are more and more just such a standard offering in a great city like this. After lunch was a trip a couple blocks away to Inbound Brewing, which had maybe the best set-up of any brewery I've been to so far. Huge open warehouse, rows of long community tables, an outdoor area, good beer. Honestly, Minneapolis is up there in terms of beer cities - which is not a surprise in the least admittedly.
Paisley Park was an experience. I honestly didn't know much of the background, the fact that he first built it in 1987, but it was a great experience. Annoyingly they have a strict no photos rule for the first 75% of the tour - which goes through the main parts of the facility, from an atrium and little office rooms, to his main studio, to a second studio and a room full of his shoes. The entire thing was surreal, with so many purples, so many shoes, so many great pieces of art and artifacts of the genius he was.
In the recording studio they even play a little clip of a recording session soon before he died. It was an uncut, unfinished snippet, but even in that you could feel that something amazing would've come out of it. The last bit of the tour was on the sound-stage, a 12,000 sq.ft. performing space where they played concert clips and then turned the lights on and finally let us take pictures of some Prince memorabilia, gear, a collection of 8 of his outfits, some of his classic cars and other paraphernelia. It was a great end to a pretty great tour all things considered given I still don't know too many of his songs.
After Paisley Park I took in a few brews at Sisyphus (main advantage here is the location is pretty close to my AirBNB), before heading to Travail, which deserves its own post.
Post the great dinner was another quick stop to Inbound, which was nicely showing the UFC Card PPV, they charged a $5 cover, but fair enough. Quite a great setting to watch a UFC card sitting in a really great taproom, and being on CT it didn't end at 1:30am like it normally does. After that I went to Meteor, finding little of interest in the heard of downtown with The Loft closed for the night replaced with a show at their sister space that was more punk rock. Meteor was a great scene, with a really lively crowd and further great cocktails. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, it largely works.
