The best chef in the Midwest is from Minneapolis.
"And the winner is .... Christina Nguyen, Hai Hai!"
Fellow Minneapolis chef Ann Kim made that announcement Monday night during the James Beard Awards in Chicago, the highest honors given out in the restaurant industry.
Nguyen owns and operates Hai Hai restaurant on 22nd and University in Northeast Minneapolis.
"Thank you to the James Beard Foundation for recognizing the value of immigrant food when we started our restaurants," Nguyen said during her acceptance speech. "Most of the Southeast Asian restaurants could ever hope for was that it's cheap eats. And I feel like we've come a long way."
Nguyen later said that her restaurant and workers are now under some pressure after winning the award, but she also noted that they will continue to do what they've been doing all along. That, clearly, is working.
Among those she thanked was her husband Birk Grudem, her partner at Hai Hai restaurant and their other property, Hola Arepa in South Minneapolis.
"Thank you to my husband Birk, my partner in business crime," says Nguyen. "I can't imagine anybody else that I would want to do this with. And thank you for fixing everything that breaks in restaurants all the time."
Hai Hai opened in 2018 and has gotten rave reviews ever since. WCCO Radio's own Jason DeRusha picked it as one of his favorite Happy Hour spots in the Twin Cities.
Hai Hai is a Southeast Asian street food restaurant and bar in Northeast Minneapolis. The name is a nod to the kind of sordid past of the spot where the restaurant sits at 22nd and University. Hai Hai means two two in Vietnamese. The building housed the infamous 22nd Avenue Station (known colloquially as the "Deuce Deuce"), a dive bar and sort of strip club.
The menu is inspired by dishes that Nguyen grew up eating at home, at family celebrations, in Vietnamese Sunday school basements and during several trips to Southeast Asia. They shine a spotlight on some lesser known regional dishes, back alley food stalls and street food.
Other Minnesota chefs were a finalist with Nguyen. Ann Ahmed with Khâluna and Karyn Tomlinson of St. Paul's Myriel were up for Best Chef: Midwest.
Another Northeast Minneapolis restaurant, Oro by Nixta, was up against nine other restaurants for the prestigious award of Best New Restaurant which Dakar Nola in New Orleans ended up winning. Minneapolis' Owamni won that award in 2022, proving that the Twin Cities restaurant scene is alive and well.