James Beard Award-winning chef to open indigenous food lab

Chef Sean Sherman, whose Minneapolis restaurant Owamni was named the Best New Restaurant for 2022 by the James Beard Foundation and whose cookbook The Sioux Chef also won a JBF Award, has his sights set on a new venture in the Twin Cities that he is hoping to expand across the country. In conjunction with his nonprofit NATIFS, the chef plans to open an Indigenous food lab, “a casual, counter service restaurant” that he hopes can serve as a model for additional labs in other states. The lab will be housed at Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis, and will feature Indigenous products for sale in addition to a community classroom where visitors can learn more about Indigenous peoples’ culture and tradition, possibly including pottery and language classes. This opening is planned for June despite a setback for the chef that happened in April, when an electrical fire shuttered Owamni.

When Sherman recently attended a gala hosted by Time Magazine in New York City (he was named to Time’s list of 100 most influential people for 2023), he was reminded of the lack of restaurants in the US that celebrate native cuisine. “I saw the invisibility around anything Indigenous out there, especially in the food space. There were no Native restaurants to go to,” Sherman said. “Having cities like New York where you can get food from all over the world, any corner. Just not food from the land you’re standing on.”

Sherman is hopeful that in addition to the lab opening soon, Owamni will also reopen in a few weeks; construction to repair the fire damage has already begun and the chef says that when the restaurant returns it will feature a brand new menu.