Gai Noi

Gai Noi is chef Ann Ahmed's Lao restaurant, opened in May 2023 in the former 4 Bells space on Harmon Place overlooking Loring Park in downtown Minneapolis. Ahmed — also behind Lat 14 and Khâluna, and a James Beard Best Chef: Midwest nominee — draws on the Xieng Khouang region of Laos that her family comes from, and the name references khao gai noi, a prized short-grain sticky rice. In 2023 Gai Noi became the only Minnesota restaurant named to the New York Times list of the fifty best restaurants in America, which is about as strong a national signal as a Twin Cities restaurant has received in years. The building spans a ground-floor bar, upper dining rooms and a rooftop patio, and it serves from late morning to 10pm every day.

The drinks menu carries a dedicated Zero-Proof Cocktails section of five named house creations, and they are unapologetically fruit-forward rather than attempting to imitate spirits — a legitimate and, given the food, a smarter choice. Lao cooking runs to chilli heat, fish sauce, lime and herbs, and a sweet, cold, acidic drink is genuinely the right partner for it, in the way a beer is. The Guava Mule brings ginger bite; Star Boi is built on a star fruit elixir with citrus oil; the Dole Whip works pineapple against coconut cream; the Pineapple Butterfly uses butterfly pea flower for its colour shift; and the Lemongrass Palmer is a Lao reading of an Arnold Palmer. Five named builds is a real list rather than a gesture, and together with sister restaurant Khâluna — whose zero-proof menu runs longer than its cocktail list — it means Ann Ahmed is quietly responsible for two of the best non-alcoholic drinking rooms in Minnesota.