To answer the question “What Is Great Hmong Food?”, last week The New York Times looked to Yia Vang, whose Minneapolis restaurant Vinai was recently named to Time magazine’s World’s Greatest Places of 2025 list after becoming a semifinalist for the year’s James Beard Award’s Best New Restaurant. Vang later won a Beard Media Award for his “Relish” television program on PBS, currently in the middle of its sixth season.
Update, August 26, 2025: The New York Times returned to Minneapolis for a review of Vinai by chief restaurant critic Tejal Rao.