Best Chinese Food & Dim Sum in Minneapolis

Jade Dynasty opened in early 2025 in the former Fuji Ya space at Lyn-Lake and immediately became the most important Chinese restaurant in Minneapolis. The owners are the family behind the original Hong Kong Noodles in Stadium Village and the legendary downtown Nankin, and they brought decades of Cantonese cooking knowledge into a massive, beautifully renovated space that feels fancy but approachable. The dim sum menu alone is worth the trip — a glossy picture menu where you check off har gow, siu mai, char siu bao, turnip cakes, and chicken feet, all steamed to order in a dedicated dim sum kitchen. The dumplings arrive almost too hot to eat, which is exactly what you want. Beyond dim sum, the 60-plus-page menu spans congee, wok-fired noodles, hot pot, and a jaw-dropping Golden Fried Garlic Seafood Mountain that is exactly as dramatic as it sounds. The beef chow fun is meltingly tender, the gai lan with black bean sauce is textbook Cantonese, and the hot pot setup lets you cook at your table. Dim sum runs all day, every day — no weekend-only nonsense. This is the best all-day dim sum Minneapolis has ever had.

JUN is the most polished Chinese restaurant in Minneapolis, and it earns that distinction without sacrificing authenticity. Chef and owner Jessie Wong, born and raised in Shandong province and descended from a long line of chefs, named the restaurant after her Chinese name and poured her family's recipes into a sleek North Loop space on Washington Avenue. The Sichuan dumplings are clearly hand-formed and stuffed with rich, spicy pork. The dan dan noodles have the proper sesame-chili depth. The Farmer's Chicken and Xiang La Wings are standouts — bold ma la heat without numbing you into submission. The full bar adds sake, Japanese whiskey, and well-chosen wines. Expect to spend $25–35 per person for dinner. Some reviews note inconsistency, which is fair — on its best nights, JUN is extraordinary, and on an off night it is still very good. The weekend dim sum brunch (Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 a.m.) adds another reason to visit. Reservations recommended, especially Friday and Saturday.

Tea House has been the anchor of authentic Sichuan cooking in Minnesota since 2002 — the first restaurant to bring the real thing to the state, and still arguably the most reliable. The University Avenue location near Prospect Park serves a massive menu of Sichuan classics: ma po tofu with the proper numbing heat, cumin lamb that perfumes the entire dining room, kung pao chicken with the right ratio of peanuts to dried chilies, and xiao long bao that rival any in the metro. The weekend dim sum brunch (Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) features Northern Chinese–style dumplings, onion pork buns, and scallion pancakes that draw lines out the door. The walleye squirrelfish — a whole deep-fried walleye scored to look like a pinecone and drenched in sweet-sour sauce — is a showstopper that nods to Minnesota while staying rooted in Chinese technique. The space is no-frills with some tables curtained off for private dining, parking is free in the adjacent lot, and most entrées land between $14 and $22. Three other locations across the metro, but this is the original.

Shuang Cheng has been a Dinkytown institution for over 30 years, serving Cantonese-style seafood to University of Minnesota students and Chinese food devotees from across the metro. Andrew Zimmern once said that if he could eat only one meal in Minneapolis, it would be Shuang Cheng's steamed walleye — piled high with threads of ginger and scallion — and that endorsement is not hyperbole. The dry-erase board on the back wall lists the day's live seafood specials: lobster stir-fried with ginger and scallions, soft-shell crab in black bean sauce, baked lobster in five-spice salt, and whatever else came in fresh. The shrimp in lobster sauce is silky and rich, the salt-and-pepper squid has real snap, and the vegetable dishes arrive blazing hot from the wok. Most seafood dishes run $16–28. The space is compact and no-nonsense — fluorescent lighting, simple tables, zero pretense. That is part of the charm. If you want the kind of Chinese seafood restaurant that Cantonese families actually eat at on weekends, Shuang Cheng is it. Closed Sundays after 8:30 p.m.

Rainbow is unlike any other Chinese restaurant in Minneapolis — and it knows it. Chef Tammy Wong has been blending Chinese cooking with Minnesota farm produce on Eat Street for over 38 years, and the result is a style that only exists here: Chinese-Minnesotan. The honey walnut shrimp is the house signature, but the real magic is in dishes like five-spice calamari, gai lan topped with toasted onions and oyster sauce ($9), and green beans sautéed with garlic and preserved cabbage ($12). The Szechwan wontons are filled with shrimp and pork, lightly sautéed in soy sauce, and unlike anything you will find at a standard Chinese restaurant. Turnip cakes with scrambled eggs and the handmade cream cheese wontons with Tammy's own sweet-and-sour sauce are beloved regulars. The portions are large and the flavors are bold. Rainbow only does dinner service — Wednesday through Sunday, 4:00 to 9:00 p.m. — and reservations through Resy are strongly recommended, especially Thursday through Saturday. This is not traditional Chinese food. It is something better: a singular vision built on Chinese technique and Midwestern ingredients.

Great Wall has been quietly holding down the corner of France Avenue and 45th Street in Linden Hills for decades, and it remains one of the most dependable Chinese restaurants in southwest Minneapolis. The menu spans Hunan, Sichuan, Peking, and Cantonese traditions — a breadth that would be a red flag at lesser restaurants but works here because the kitchen has had years to get it right. The chicken with walnuts is crispy and sweet without being cloying. The Sichuan dishes have genuine heat. The Chinese Utopia — shrimp, scallops, and pork with broccoli — is a crowd-pleaser that families have been ordering for years. Most entrées fall between $13 and $19, which makes this one of the better values on the list. The space is casual and unpretentious, service is fast and friendly, and they offer delivery and takeout in addition to dine-in. Great Wall is the kind of Chinese restaurant every neighborhood deserves but few actually have: consistent, affordable, and genuinely satisfying. Open Monday through Thursday, 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Huie's is a time capsule — a cash-only, no-credit-cards, family-run Chinese restaurant on Chicago Avenue that has been serving South Minneapolis since the mid-20th century. This is not the place for trendy Sichuan cooking or Instagram-worthy dim sum. This is the place for a mountain of chicken chow mein on a plate the size of a hubcap, egg rolls fried to a deep golden crunch, and fried rice with the proper wok hei that comes from a seasoned pan and decades of muscle memory. The portions are absurd for the price — most dishes run $10–14 and could feed two people. The dining room is tiny and stuck in a wonderful time warp. Huie's represents a generation of Chinese-American cooking that is disappearing from Minneapolis, and every visit feels like an act of preservation. If you grew up eating Chinese food in South Minneapolis in the ’80s or ’90s, this will taste like your childhood. Bring cash. Open Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday dinner only, closed Sundays.

United Noodles is not a restaurant — the deli counter (UniDeli) permanently closed — but it remains essential to the Chinese food conversation in Minneapolis. This massive Asian grocery store on East 24th Street, open since 1972, has the deepest selection of Chinese ingredients in the state: shelves of Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce, Lao Gan Ma chili crisp in every variety, Shaoxing wine, five-spice powder, dried shiitake mushrooms, and an entire freezer aisle of frozen dumplings, bao, and dumpling wrappers for making your own. The fresh produce section carries bok choy, gai lan, Chinese eggplant, and other greens you will not find at Cub or Target. If you eat Chinese food in Minneapolis and want to cook it at home, you shop here. The store is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., parking is easy, and the prices on pantry staples undercut anything you will find online. Think of it as the support system that makes the rest of this list possible.