Decolonized Dining at OWAMNI
On a recent visit to my erstwhile home of Minneapolis, Minnesota, I made sure to try to get a table at Owamni, the newly-opened and long anticipated Indigenous food restaurant by The Sioux Chef, aka Chefs Sean Sherman and Dana Thompson. I say long awaited because I joined the kickstarter back in 2017 when Owamni as a restaurant was an idea for an extension of the already-existing Sioux Chef food truck. The Sioux Chef as a concept was a channel to educate the community about native foodways of this region, Mni Sota Makoce, pre-colonization. Needless to say I was not the only person anticipating this opening! Everyone I knew was planning to visit Owamni as soon as they could get a reservation. The local and national media had covered its arrival not only for it’s unique menu but for opening with such a unique concept during a pandemic.
“Every step of my visit to Owamni was an immersive experience”
Every step of my visit to Owamni was an immersive experience, from the earthy/smoky/watery visuals on their website (available in English and Dakota language versions) to the menu featuring decolonized foods (more on that later) to the dining environment overlooking the Mississippi river, at sacred St. Anthony Falls, “The place of the falling, swirling waters” in Dakota, Owȁmni Yomni.
Decolonized Dining in Mni Sota Makoce
Since its opening in mid-July and after receiving national attention in The New York Times and Esquire, Owamni’s reservations book has been consistently filled, but a helpful host gave a friend a tip over the phone for getting us a table: skip the online booking tool and come on a weekend morning. If your party will fit at a 4-top you’ll probably be able to get in. The tip worked. We were seated immediately by the friendly staff on the beautiful tree-canopied patio. We read through the menu, sipping our Staghorn Sumac teas while modern Indigenous music could be heard in the background. It was the most perfect sunny October day and the whole scene was enough to make me forget everything bad going on in the world outside of this little refuge. I don’t remember the last time I felt like I could just leave everything- every bad thought or feeling about our world- totally behind for an hour. This part of the Mississippi is sacred to the Dakota and Anishinaabe people. It felt really special and peaceful right there, like time was on pause. (And if you are wondering what was in that tea: berries, elderflower, lilac blossom and cedar).
We decided to order several items to share since the entire menu was so new to us and sounded so good:
· Rabbit tacos of native heirloom corn with rosehip sauce
· Nixtamal hominy chili
· Roast sweet potato with indigenous chili crisp and scallion
· Elk choginyapi (open-faced corn sandwich) with crabapple pico
· Bean, squash and dandelion choginyapi
While we waited for our order to arrive we read the names of the native flora labeled in the patio garden (Psiŋ- Nodding Wild Onion; Hanté Sá- Eastern Red Cedar…) and I thought about the tenets of the establishment- fair wages and benefits, a work gear stipend, a built-in service fee for the staff, things that are essential for long term sustainability, yet go beyond what most restaurants offer to their staff. As businesses shift to meet the challenges presented by the need for sustainability, the true meaning of the word is often lost in the conversation in topics like carbon-neutrality, “greening” and buying local. Those are important components of ecological sustainability, but sustainability must also encompass a plan for the people working at the businesses, because an employee is far more than the job position they are filling...
Our food arrived on beautiful glazed earthenware with copper utensils and it looked so good I almost didn’t take photos before trying all of it. It was all delicious. Did I mention that Owamni was named one of America’s Top 50 restaurants by The New York Times? Yeah.
I am back home in Salt Lake City and I will most definitely be returning to this sacred spot the next time I am back in Mni.
Owamni
425 West River Parkway
Minneapolis, Minnesota
55401