Diane’s Place Is the 2025 Food & Wine Restaurant of the Year

For over 20 years, Diane Moua worked as a pastry chef at top restaurants across the Twin Cities. But when she wasn’t working, she preferred to cook savory food — the dishes that reminded her of her upbringing. “To me, going home and cooking Hmong food is my happy place,” she says.

Moua grew up in central Wisconsin in a Hmong community. Her parents, like many in the Indigenous group from East and Southeast Asia, fled their country following the Vietnam War and the Refugee Act of 1980, settling in the Midwest. Moua spent her childhood on her family’s 120-acre farm, growing a wide range of crops, like beets, carrots, green onions, and flowers.

Her home was a hub for the local Hmong community. “We took good care of people when they came to our house,” says Moua. “My dad never let anybody leave unless they had a meal or a drink.” Now, that philosophy is ingrained in her Minneapolis restaurant, Diane’s Place. “When people come to Diane’s Place, I want them to feel like they’re at my house — that we’re taking care of them. It’s not just about the food; it’s about how you make people feel.” 

While Diane’s Place has evolved since opening in April 2024, it has always seamlessly blended Moua’s experience as a classically trained pastry chef with her roots in Hmong home cooking. At first, the restaurant served only breakfast and lunch — joyful menus including towering Thai tea French toast made from croissant bread, a beautifully messy Spam and nori croissant sandwich, and Hmong sausage served over sticky rice. A pastry case offered classic viennoiseries alongside creative, Asian-inspired pastries, like croissants filled with coconut and pandan and savory Danishes topped with sweet pork and cured egg yolk. 

To prevent her team from burning out, Moua waited seven months before launching dinner service. “It’s not just about taking care of the guests. I’m making sure I’m taking care of my staff, as well,” she says. “How do we simultaneously keep this place going for years and years and keep my team proud, happy, and supportive of one another?” 

Now, in addition to brunch, Diane’s Place is open for dinner four nights a week (Thursday through Sunday). The menu riffs on homey Hmong dishes, served family style. There’s sour pork short ribs, roast chicken with an egg roll–inspired stuffing, and a complex duck stew with Thai eggplant and lemongrass.

Moua simplifies the names of the traditional dishes to make them more approachable for guests new to Hmong cuisine — khao piak sen, a lemongrass-forward chicken soup with tapioca noodles, is simply called Asian Chicken Noodle Soup; laab, an herby beef salad, is transformed into a carpaccio. She might tweak the technique but never the identity. “If I can feed the elders and they go home full, feeling like this is Hmong food — that to me is a success.” 

Inside the dining room hangs a framed wedding skirt — a gift from Moua’s parents when she married at the age of 16 (as was common among Hmong Americans). “I was married for 18 years,” she explains. “Going through the growing pains of being a traditional daughter, a traditional housewife, and a traditional daughter-in-law got me to where I am today, so I’m glad I went through that.” Today, the skirt acts as a symbol of independence. “The skirt is there to remind us how far the Hmong people — especially women — have come,” she says. “And we’re just going to go further.”