Chef Yia Vang opens Vinai restaurant as love letter to parents, Hmong culture

When Chef Yia Vang says his new restaurant is a love letter to his parents, it’s no metaphor. He wrote a letter to his family five years ago, and pulled inspiration from it to create Vinai in northeast Minneapolis.

“Every piece in here just reflects my parents,” Vang said Tuesday before the restaurant’s grand opening. “My father, when we came to America, he was a carpenter, so you see a lot of wood in here.”

Architects for the restaurant referenced that love letter in crafting the space, which features live plants to represent Vang’s mother, Pang Her, who has a green thumb.

Vang opened Vinai’s doors Tuesday at 1300 Northeast 2nd St. four years after announcing plans for the restaurant. Vinai, he said, is named after the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand, where his parents met and where he was born. Vang said it honors his family’s history and Hmong culture through food.

Hmong refugees who fled Laos after the Vietnam War ended, called Ban Vinai home until 1992. Vang grew up in the camp until age four, when his family immigrated to the United States, first settling in Minnesota and then Wisconsin.

“Vinai, the refugee camp, was a place where there was pain and suffering, but it was a glimmer of hope for those who say there’s something greater to come,” Vang said, adding that he wants his restaurant to serve as a space for restoration and refuge. “I want Vinai, here in Minneapolis, to be that glimmer of hope.”

The connections don’t stop there. The wooden structures on the restaurant’s ceiling resemble the roofs of old refugee houses in Ban Vinai. The orange walls suggest the color of dirt in Laos, and turns brown in the evening to mirror the soil in Minnesota.

Cinder blocks form a banquette in the middle of the dining room, mimicking a grill Vang’s dad used, and the place where Vang first learned to cook. Vang family traditions also show up on the menu, where clients can find a grilled, boneless chicken dish.

“For us, the secret ingredient is the smoke,” explained Vang. “It’s the light touch of the smoke that makes the sauce so good or the vegetable pop.”

Vang also highlights a cucumber and melon salad on the menu, which includes section headers written in the Hmong language. The Hmong cucumbers come from his parents’ farm, where most of his ingredients are sourced. They are accompanied by honeydew melon drizzled with sesame dressing.

The menu is structured around the main components of Hmong food, and includes Zaub, the Hmong word for vegetables; Nqaij Ci and Nqaij Hau, grilled and braised meat; Kua Txob, hot sauce; and Mov, rice.

The drinks, crafted in collaboration with Jeff Seidenstricker, also represent Hmong history. The Hmoob dawb and Hmoob ntsuab cocktails are inspired by the white and green Hmong dialects, respectively.

Beer from Dangerous Man Brewing, which previously occupied the restaurant space for a decade, is also available on tap. Vang wants to retain the brewery’s legacy; regular customers will recognise the famous L shaped bar, which now hosts walk-in clients.

The kitchen hummed with activity and the morning light filled the dining room a few hours before the official opening Tuesday.

“I am really excited,” said Vang, whose team matched his enthusiasm. “’I’m a big football fan, we just got done with practice, pre-season, and this is the home opener.”

The excitement was not only palpable in the neighborhood — customers peeked through the windows in anticipation of the opening — but also online. Vang’s career in Minneapolis involves a healthy dose of social media as he runs Union Hmong Kitchen at Graze Provisions and Libations in Minneapolis, operated a rotating pop-up on Lake Street and opened the first Hmong food stall at the Minnesota State Fair.

Vang credited those projects for leading him to Vinai.

“We truly believed that the road to Vinai was through the Union Hmong Kitchen,” he said.

Vang’s friends, family, collaborators and investors visited Vinai last week for a soft opening, with some of his friends sitting at the family table for a dinner representative of a shared meal in a Hmong home.

One of Vang’s friends texted him after last week’s dinner. Eating Hmong food at the family table was like sitting down at his mother’s house, the friend said, even though he’s not Hmong.

Vinai

Address: 1300 N.E. 2nd St., Minneapolis

Hours: Tuesday through Thursday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

What to know: The restaurant seats 88. “The Family Table” can be booked for parties of 6 to 10 people. Vinai takes reservations; walk-ins are seated at the bar.

For more information: Visit Vinai’s website .

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