Minnesota restaurant and Detroit Lakes area sculptures make Time’s ‘World’s Greatest Places’ list

Yia Vang almost didn’t believe the email that brought good news.

“I kind of always do that, like, ‘Oh, this is a Nigerian prince scam,’” said Vang, one of the chefs responsible for Minneapolis' recent Hmong food renaissance.

But it was real. Vang’s restaurant, Vinai, has landed on Time magazine’s annual travel list of 100 of the “World’s Greatest Places.”

When he realized the email was legitimate, “I kind of got emotional,” Vang told the Minnesota Star Tribune this week by phone. “I’m just dumbfounded.”

But that wasn’t the only Minnesota mention on the list: Danish artist Thomas Dambo’s zero-waste “Alexa’s Elixir” exhibit in the Detroit Lakes area, which features a series of mythical creatures and towering trolls, was recognized, too.

“It’s so incredible. I just keep pinching myself,” said Amy Stearns, director of 412 Project, the Detroit Lakes nonprofit that helped bring the exhibit to Minnesota.

“I kept telling my family, ‘these trolls are gonna be a big deal. You guys, these trolls are gonna be a big deal,’” Stearns said.

“You can only imagine what you know, right? We never thought that in less than a year, it’s part of this thing where it’s like, ‘Hey, this is beyond a restaurant,’” Vang said. “My imagination was way too small.”

Named for the refugee camp in Thailand where Vang was born, Vinai (1300 NE. 2nd St., Mpls., vinaimn.com) is known for its live fire cooking of large-format proteins, punch-packing sauces and boisterous energy. It’s also known for Vang’s storytelling; he traces his family’s journey from the mountains of Laos to the Midwest through food.

After some ups and downs, and a significant pandemic-related delay, Vinai opened in July 2024 to soaring reviews, landing on many of the year’s “best” lists, including being selected one of the Minnesota Star Tribune’s restaurants of the year.

Then, the rest of the accolades came. The New York Times cited it as one of its favorite restaurants in America. Vang got a shout-out as chef of the year in Esquire. Eater called Vinai one of the country’s best new restaurants of 2024. And the restaurant scored a spot in the semifinals of the James Beard Awards in the national Best New Restaurant category.

After the New York Times story, Vang noticed more business travelers from the East Coast stopping in to dine at the bar, and he started getting more inquiries from journalists at publications across the country. But the Time list, at least to Vang, takes Vinai’s rising star a step further.

“This is the world,” he said.

Dambo’s sprawling art installation, which spans a 70-mile stretch from Perham, Minn., to Fargo, takes sightseers on a hunt to find six giant trolls, three magic mirror portals and the essential clues to locate a golden rabbit — the villain of the hunt — tucked into the rolling woods near Detroit Lakes.

The artist told the Star Tribune last summer that he enjoys encouraging people to rethink waste — he and his wife took a buy-nothing pledge — and give discarded materials new life while also inspiring folks to team up and get out into nature.

Amy Erickson, owner of Bluebird Books in Detroit Lakes, said troll hunter foot traffic has been a boon for businesses in town. She sold 250 copies of Dambo’s book “Trash Trolls and Treasure Hunts,” and her guest book notes troll hunters from around the world.

She expects even more visitors with the Time designation.

“That Detroit Lakes would be in Time magazine is insane. We haven’t had anything like this since Adam Thielen,” she said of the NFL wide receiver who hails from Detroit Lakes.

Erickson said at a recent board meeting they heard there was a possibility that the exhibit might make the Time list. When she heard the news Thursday, she thought: “I’d better order more troll books.”

Seeing the positive impact of the exhibit, Erickson joined Project 412, which scouted troll locations and coordinated 200 volunteers to build the bodies, while Dambo shipped the hands, feet and expressive faces from his Danish studio.

Joy Herbst, of Frazee, Minn., volunteered to help build the Jacob Everear troll in Frazee, where she grew up in a frugal family and respects Dambo’s zero-waste art that turns trash into treasure. She cried with excitement when she was featured on PBS, building the troll, and had a similar reaction to the Time designation.

“I don’t travel. I grew up here and have been here in the Frazee-Detroit Lakes area for my whole 44 years of life,” Herbst said. “It has been so exciting being just a little part of this art exhibit and wonderful story from the brilliant mind of Thomas Dambo.”

Stearns, the Project 412 director, said the trolls are a beautiful way to build community and it took a community to believe in the vision of bringing whimsical trolls to the area.

His work isn’t limited to Minnesota — his sculptures appear all over the world. Nearly 6 million have visited his “trash sculptures” across the globe, according to Time.

“We have all this trash that’s suffocating the world,” Dambo says in the Time article, “but it also has the power to draw people out. The more people I can bring into this project—as volunteers or as visitors—the better I can explain why recycling is so important.”

There’s still plenty of time to see his work in Minnesota — the trolls are expected to be around for about a decade, or until weathering makes them no longer safe.

But being Minnesota, troll hunting is off-limits during deer hunting season.

Vinai and “Alexa’s Elixir” share space on the list with destinations, hotels, cruises, museums and only a handful of other restaurants. Time correspondents and contributors nominated places to include on the list, and Time also accepted applications from businesses. Vang said he did not apply.

A TV star with hosting gigs on TPT (“Relish”) and the Outdoors Channel (“Feral”), Vang is bracing himself for even more attention now that the Time list is out.

But every win for Vinai is a win for Minneapolis, Vang noted. The article also called out the acclaimed Diane’s Place in Minneapolis from Diane Moua, and Marc Heu Patisserie Paris in St. Paul from Marc Heu, saying the trio of restaurants is “further cementing the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as the country’s epicenter of Hmong culture and cuisine.”

“This is one of those things that brings light to Minneapolis,” he said. “I think that so many of us around here, especially people who grew up in the Twin Cities, they’re so quick to leave, where they’re like, ‘I need to go somewhere where there’s culture and I can experience the world.‘”

“But here in 2025,” he added, “the world has come to us.”