I recently dined at Owamni by The Sioux Chef in Minneapolis and am still so blown away.
I’ve been reading the cookbook by chef Sean Sherman, the self-described Sioux Chef, for years. So I knew a bit about what to expect: foods native to the Mni Sota Makoce area—a phrase from the Dakota Nation that means “Land Where the Waters Reflect the Cloud.” Ingredients grown together are cooked together. No processed soy or sugar or wheat or dairy. Only game meats and bison. Some seafood from local lakes, rivers and streams.
What I found at the glassed-in restaurant on the banks of the Mississippi River as a bad thunderstorm rolled in was unlike anything I’ve eaten before. From the zest of foraged herbs to the depth of wild sumac, I dipped and munched on fresh tortilla fried into a chip, topped with smoked trout from Lake Superior and white bean spread, as whispers of “taking shelter underground” added to the air of the otherworldly.
I ate hominy soup and wild rice grown on the banks of nearby waterways, alongside dandelion pesto and toasted sunflower. With every bite, I thought more about how special these tastes were.
—Chloe Sorvino, Staff Writer
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Pictured here is the second course of the meal I ate recently at Owamni by The Sioux Chef. The spread featured red cliff trout from Lake Superior smoked and shredded, a white bean dip made from Tepary beans, fresh tostada chips and a sauce of wild berries and sumac. Eaten all together, piled on a chip, the salty-sweet crunch hit the spot.
Owamni's trout and bean dip.
Chloe SorvinoChloe Sorvino leads coverage of food and agriculture as a staff writer on the enterprise team at Forbes. Her nearly eight years of reporting at Forbes has brought her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, drought-ridden farms in California’s Central Valley, burnt-out national forests logged by a timber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha and even a chocolate croissant factory designed like a medieval castle in northern France. Her book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat , will publish in December 2022 with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books.
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