8 new restaurants that should be on your radar right now

Champlin has been waiting for this. It’s evident in the repeat customers who already call the place theirs within the first few days of its opening, and in the huge square bar that promptly fills to the max at 3 p.m. for happy hour. This slick new restaurant with a wine wall, a versatile menu and waterfront view of the Mississippi River seems to be exactly what this north metro city needed.

Open for dinner daily and lunch Thursday through Sunday, with a weekday social hour from 3-5 p.m., Char Blu Riverside is giving its community a similar experience to what other higher-end suburban steakhouse-light restaurants bring to theirs: like Crave and Boketto in Edina and St. Louis Park; like 6Smith and Baldamar in Wayzata and Roseville. Or Willie McCoy’s, whose six suburban locations share an owner with Char Blu Riverside.

The menu is vast and exactly what you make of it: filet mignon, shrimp pasta, Thai-caramel-glazed pork belly, soup-and-sandwich combos and truffle fries. Appetizers are large and designed for sharing. There’s plenty to drink, too. Cocktails lean creative — and nice to look at — like a creamy espresso martini with a creme brûlée-inspired sugar medallion on top. With the bar already a hot seat, we expect the back patio that overlooks the river and a new performance area to be Champlin’s next big hangout by summer. (S.J.)

321 East River Pkwy., Champlin, charbluriverside.com

Somewhere around two years after the sign was first affixed to the building, Cheba Hut “Toasted” Subs has finally opened a Minnesota outpost of the Colorado-based sandwich chain. The sandwich shop on W. Lake Street is serving a lineup of customizable sandwiches, beverages (including spiked) and munchie-friendly treats.

While it would be easy to mistake this business for a dispensary, the place is rife with weed jokes, the reality is that it’s a neighborhood restaurant that’s affordable and accessible — even for those who don’t partake. Sandwiches start at $6.99 for a 4-inch “nuggs” sandwich. Add-ons go up from there, with the published menu and another menu (for those in the know) that gets even more creative with the sandwich toppings customized to this location.

Other foods are munchie crushers like nachos made with Doritos, rice cereal treats mixed with peanut butter and formed into a goo ball ($3.59). Like someone who dabbles in the Devil’s lettuce, the menu options really do go on and on and on with ideas.

Service is friendly, informative and entirely patient with those who have a hard time making quick choices. (J.S.)

1118 W. Lake St., Mpls., chebahut.com

The owners of Reverie have given a refresh to the former Hi Flora and Common Roots space and opened a new counter-order cafe. The bar area has expanded (using the old church pews from Common Roots) and is adorned with nods to beloved past haunts, from sun-etched wood panels from the former Viking Bar in Cedar-Riverside to the barstools from Psycho Suzi’s.

Like Kirstin Wiegmann and Jeff Therkelsen’s Reverie cafe, also in south Minneapolis, Dreamstate features a plant-based menu but with items exclusive to this spot. The all-day cafe (open 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily) might be the most expansive, exclusively vegan menu in the metro yet, if not the most varied. Menu items differ at breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a few crossovers. That includes one of our favorite bites, the “scallop linguine” ($20), available at lunch and dinner. House pasta is tossed in an “Alfredo” sauce of house-made fermented cashew cheese and almond cotija. Perhaps the most impressive are the “scallops,” which are actually mushrooms that have been reworked to imitate the look and texture of the bivalve. “Preparing the king oyster mushroom itself is the key: You have to peel and trim it to get to the soft inner core,” Wiegmann explained. Next, the kitchen marinates the pieces in a seaweed mushroom brine before it gets pan-seared.

At dinnertime, also consider the beet negroni cocktail ($14) and delicata squash doughnuts appetizer ($12), in which squash rings are coated in a crispy vodka tempura batter and brushed with a sweet orange-tequila glaze. These, too, are executed well and capture the spirit of Dreamstate: a place that dares to dream the possibilities of plant-based foods and make it a reality. (N.N.)

The northeast Minneapolis outfit that’s made a name for itself with its trademark ice creams and smash burgers is spreading the dream. A second outpost recently debuted in the solarium space attached to i.e. by Travail, near Lake Nokomis in south Minneapolis. The menu is the same as the original location, including handhelds from grilled cheese sandwiches and hot dogs (with sausages from Kramarczuk’s) to burgers and chicken sandwiches for mains.

The smash burger, in which you can order a single, double or triple patty ($11, $14.25, $16.25), was the crowd favorite. Maybe it’s the nicely seared patties, garlic-dill pickles, house sauce, generous pile of griddled and raw onions or the milk bun it’s served on, but we ate this meltingly delectable burger so fast there was little time for reflection. Dream Creamery is also churning out a solid fried chicken sandwich ($13), with tender meat and an ultra-thick, crisp coating.

For a sweet treat, close to two dozen house-made ice cream flavors are available, from classics to more off-the-beaten-path varieties such as blue currant with pear, raspberry lemon curd, and peppermint hot chocolate. A variety of vessels are available to enjoy them, whether scooped into waffle cones or served in a root beer float. But the most fun way is via the Ice Cream Fun Bun ($10.25), in which you choose an ice cream flavor that gets sandwiched between milk buns that’s then toasted in a panini press and drizzled with simple syrup and brown sugar. The toasty-on-the-outside, cool-on-the-inside handheld is sure fun to eat, just as the name of this out-of-the-box ice cream sandwich implies. (N.N.)

4728 Cedar Av. S., Mpls., dreamcreamery.squarespace.com

Italy by way of New York City, Chicago and San Francisco — and, of course, Minnesota — only begins to describe the influences on the menu at Little Bird Delicatessen. The cafe is tiny, with only a few window seats, but there’s so much good stuff coming out of that kitchen, it won’t matter where you consume it.

There are grab-and-go salads and sides, plus the Roman street snack Suppli al Telefono, a cheese-stuffed fried rice ball with a peppery kick. And we haven’t even gotten to dessert yet: Little Bird began as a gelato brand, a smooth-as-silk creamy treat in rotating flavors (we loved peak fall’s butternut squash studded with maple candies). For now, order it by the hand-packed pint; soon, a scoop counter will be installed. And when it’s too cold for gelato, there’s always a New York-style black-and-white cookie. (S.J.)

3749 Nicollet Av., Mpls., littlebirddelicatessen.com

What began as a breakfast pop-up inside Miguel Hernandez’s family’s Richfield restaurant, El Tejaban, now has its own home.

Lito’s Burritos branched out this fall, taking over the former Union Hmong Kitchen space in Lyn-Lake and turning it into a spare yet bright, tropics-inflected place to get his signature burritos and more.

Most of the enormous burritos are breakfast-oriented, with scrambled eggs and Lito’s braised and roasted meats, rice and beans, and some crunch from Tater Tots or fries — L.A.-style. There’s also a “Little Lito’s” menu of budget-friendly breakfast burritos for $10 and under.

It’s a counter-based operation, with food coming out fast in paper boats. Jarritos, horchata (augmented with cold brew if you like) and Mexican Coke round out the drinks list. (S.J.)

901 W. Lake St., Mpls., instagram.com/litosonlake

It’s an unassuming location, situated between two parking lots, but the Circle Deli & Boba is the oasis amid the strip malls that surround it. Bright, airy with plenty of seating — including tables in a sunroom — it’s a soothing space ideal for group gatherings or a serene remote office.

The menu is stacked with morning through afternoon dining options from rich chicken curry noodle soup bowls of khao poon ($9.50), crusty banh mi, crushable bao buns ($14.50 for three) and the sweet croissant/waffle hybrid that is croffles ($8.50).

As the name implies, there’s also a range of beverages available, including boba, matcha, Vietnamese coffee and more. (J.S.)

This lovely little Texa-Tonka gourmet market flipped over this fall into something more fully serviced, replacing the deli case with a smooth, long bar, and a central cheese fridge with a communal high top. The market’s all-day sandwich menu hasn’t budged. Only now, there’s a place to sit and enjoy some of the most carefully assembled handhelds in the west metro. Come 3 p.m. (and all day on Sunday), happy hour begins, and there are so many $2-off pours to sample; there is a sister wine shop on the other side of the wall, after all.

The snack menu grew, too. Because the fridges and shelves full of crackers and preserves still line the walls, it feels like the food was just plucked from the market. Choose the size of your charcuterie board, starting at $15 for a “small” that is by no means small. Ours had beef salami, craveable cherrywood-smoked cheddar, goat cheese whipped with honey, and darling house-made candied orange slices. Even the baguette with butter — an ice-cream-scoop-sized ball of it, with crunchy salt crystals on top — felt made with care.

The best part about dining inside a market? If you like something, you can take more of it home. That’s just what we did with a bottle of Copenhagen Sparkling Tea, a bone-dry, nonalcoholic Champagne alternative that hit the spot. We were pleased to see that the $20 half-bottle at the bar cost the same in the retail shop. (S.J.)

8016 Minnetonka Blvd., St. Louis Park, westsidewinemsp.com