Minneapolis’ Khâluna named in Eater’s 2022 ‘Best New Restaurants’

South Minneapolis restaurant Khâluna has been named one in all Eater’s 15 finest new eating places of 2022.

The Laotian-style eatery positioned at 4000 Lyndale Ave. S. was opened in October 2021 by Chef Ann Ahmed. 

The restaurant gives a dinner menu with small plates that includes hen samosas, siin swan, and sakoo; chilled plates like pineapple noodles, laab heed and rainbow rice; and entrées consisting of mango fish, laksa, gaeng toon and completely different fashion curries.

Jaya Saxena of Eater praised the eating places “magnificence,” noting its “colours are smooth and beachy, with accents of gold and greenery that make a Minneapolis fall night radiate heat.”

Of the meals, she praises Ahmed’s “exact and imaginative Laotian delicacies.”

“She subs in peanuts, pistachios, and mushrooms for the extra typical pork in her sakoo, creating luxurious, umami-laden texture within the conventional avenue meals, topping it off with edible flowers and zinging flakes of Thai purple chili. Cocktails come spritzed with macadamia oil that’s perfume-like in its perfume. And almost each desk has an order of bucatini talay, a tangle of pasta with shrimp, scallops, squid, and a wealthy ‘tom yum ragout’ of breadcrumbs, tomato, and fish sauce.”

In addition to the acclaimed meals and cocktail menu, Khâluna, which implies “please” in Lao, additionally gives a store stocked with fair-trade items Ahmed imports from Laos.

“That is the title I personally can join with, and it is a title during which I wish to function my enterprise. It is my perception, and the way I wish to share it with the group, with compassion for each other,” Ahmed mentioned in an Instagram publish.

Ahmed additionally owns two different Twin Cities eating places: Lemon Grass Thai Delicacies in Brooklyn Park (opened in 2005) and Lat14 Asian Eatery in Golden Valley (opened in 2018). She was born in Laos and left the nation on the age of two and lived in a Thai refugee camp till she was 4. Ahmed was in the end sponsored into Minnesota along with her great-grandmother, grandmother and mom, in line with her bio.

Deliver Me The Information reached out to Ahmed for remark Tuesday.