St. Paul's Tasting Menu Standard-Bearer
Myriel occupies rare territory in St. Paul: a tasting menu room built for occasions but run with enough discipline to reward regular attention. Karyn Tomlinson took the Beard award for Best Chef Midwest in 2025, the first for a St. Paul kitchen, and the room's operating pattern backs up the honor.
The chef's tasting menu with wine pairing anchors the evening, structured as a sequence rather than a highlight reel, and it draws diners who plan ahead for it, not diners who wander in on impulse. Anniversaries and small celebratory parties of four figure heavily into how the room fills, which shapes the pacing: courses spaced for conversation, service staff briefed to read the occasion and adjust rather than rush. That kind of attentiveness costs money, and Myriel is priced for it. This is not a neighborhood supper spot; it is an event room, positioned for the diner who wants New American cooking treated as a full evening rather than a meal squeezed between errands.
The wine pairing program reads as a serious second track alongside the food, built with enough range to carry a multi-course sequence without repeating itself. St. Paul has a smaller fine dining bench than Minneapolis, and Myriel's presence matters within that context: it gives the city an occasion kitchen that does not require crossing the river for it. The room rewards diners who come hungry for structure, who want a kitchen making a sustained argument over two hours rather than a single showpiece plate.
First-timers describe the tasting format as setting a new bar for what they expect from a multi-course experience in the Twin Cities, which says as much about the format's execution as about the ingredients on the plate. For a special-occasion booking in St. Paul, this is the room built for it, and the reservation should be made with that intention in mind.
