Edina Art Center
A city-run community art center with two indoor gallery spaces and a rotating outdoor sculpture program along the Edina Promenade. Free exhibitions change throughout the year.
The west-metro suburbs ringing Lake Minnetonka. Cumin, Hello Pizza, the Hotel Landing, Bawarchi Biryanis. Worth the drive when you want a different pace.
A city-run community art center with two indoor gallery spaces and a rotating outdoor sculpture program along the Edina Promenade. Free exhibitions change throughout the year.
A regional arts center on Hopkins main street with rotating gallery exhibitions, the long-running Arts North International juried show, and a downtown public sculpture program.
A nonprofit cooperative housed in the historic Robbinsdale library building. Eleven exhibits a year include two member shows and the statewide juried Extremely Minnesota show. Open Wednesday through Saturday.
A four-screen Mann Theatres location in 50th and France, formerly the Edina Theatre. Indie new releases, curated programming, and a comfortable lobby that has resisted feeling like a corporate megaplex. The right west-metro arthouse.
Pen Pals brings literary heavyweights to the Hopkins Center for the Arts, where the sight lines are great and the parking is free. The 2026-27 season marks its 30th year, with names like Lily King, Patrick Radden Keefe, and Tayari Jones. Each writer gives a lecture and takes questions, and the room feels intimate even when the author is a household name.
A St. Louis Park bakery that has earned a serious following for sourdough loaves, danishes, and pop-tarts that make the supermarket version feel like a different food category. The cinnamon roll on Saturday is the Saturday move.
A dedicated GF bakery cafe that started as a farmers market side hustle and grew into a full operation in St. Louis Park. The snuggle pies — buttery pastry wrapped around breakfast sausage — are the signature, but the Danish pastries, quiches, biscuits, and custom cakes are all equally serious. Full espresso bar. Vegan and dairy-free options available. The most well-rounded cafe experience of the dedicated GF options.
A fully gluten-free and vegan bakery, women- and LGBTQ-owned, that closed its downtown cafe in 2024 to focus on custom and celebration work out of a commercial kitchen. This is the one for the occasion cake: birthdays, weddings, and event dessert spreads that everyone at the table can actually eat. Order celebration cakes online and pick up Wednesday through Saturday, or fill out an inquiry form for custom and wedding work.
An Edina diner that has been doing burgers and malted milkshakes the same way since 1934. Walk in and it is essentially 1955 inside. The basket burger is the order. The chocolate malt is mandatory.
A family-run roadhouse out by the Minnesota River that has been grilling its Famous Hamburgers for decades. A reader put it best: as good as Kings in Miesville, without the drive. The beer is plentiful, including their own root beer, and the whole thing is gloriously simple. Worth the trip to Eden Prairie.
A pizzeria attached to a brewery, with a menu that changes when the kitchen feels like changing it. Names like the Smoking Goat. Beer pairings that actually fit. Worth the short drive from Minneapolis-proper.
Ann Kim’s third concept, this time built around the New York slice. The crust folds, the cheese pulls, the corner pieces are worth fighting your friends for.
A west-metro sushi room on Excelsior Boulevard with a deep maki list and a kitchen that runs late, which is rare out this direction. Reliable rolls, a long happy hour, and the kind of broad menu that suits a group where not everyone is sold on raw fish.
A small Twin Cities chain doing some of the best contemporary North Indian in the metro. The butter chicken and the lamb vindaloo are reliable orders, and the lunch buffet at the Edina location is one of the best deals in town for the quality.
A long-running Brooklyn Park institution doing classic North Indian with a serious tandoor program. The lamb seekh kebab is the order, the naan comes out blistered and right, and the staff treats you like family by your second visit.
One of the few full dim sum cart services in the metro. Weekend service pulls a steady crowd. Get there before noon on Saturday or accept a wait.
A family-run distillery and lounge making award-winning brandies, herbal liqueurs, gin, and whiskey in St. Louis Park. The 3,000-square-foot room runs warm, fireplace and communal table, with cocktails built around the German-leaning spirits they make on site. Worth the drive west when you want a Negroni variation no one downtown is pouring.
A 200-boat dock and a wraparound deck on Lake Minnetonka’s most-watched stretch. Worth the drive on a summer afternoon, especially if you can find someone with a pontoon. The Wharf burger is the order.
A Wayzata boutique with one of the strongest contemporary buys in the metro. International labels, a focus on pieces that actually wear, and a staff who remember what you bought last time. Worth the drive out to the lake.
An Edina boutique with a national following on Instagram and a strong contemporary buy. Trend-forward without chasing it, with a focus on pieces that earn their cost-per-wear. The kind of boutique that knows its customer well.
On the shore of Lake Minnetonka, in downtown Wayzata. A 92-room boutique with rooms overlooking the lake, a seasonal patio that competes with anything in the metro, and an easy walk to Wayzata’s shops and restaurants. Worth the drive in summer.
A west-metro wellness center in Minnetonka with pools, fitness, yoga, massage, and a holistic-wellness orientation. The combination of facilities under one roof is hard to find anywhere else in the metro.