Sean Sherman’s explosively successful year was no surprise to the Twin Cities community. The Sioux Chef’s 2021 opening of Owamni, a restaurant celebrating Indigenous cuisine, has come on the heels of over six years of dedication to a higher purpose: a global awareness of Native food traditions.
Sherman, along with Dana Thompson, his business partner, has put a long-overdue spotlight on the foodways native to the Midwest. Having founded NATIFS, or North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems and the Indigenous food Lab, Sherman, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux nation, and his team see their projects as the groundwork for a movement in which Indigenous food is accessible and recognizable to all of the Western Hemisphere and beyond.
Owamni is named for, and was built on the shores of, the expanse of water beneath St. Anthony Falls bordering downtown Minneapolis. The water and its islands have been considered sacred by Indigenous people including the Dakota and Anishinaabe. What is contained within the walls of the restaurant creates a different kind of sacred experience.
Sherman’s contributions to hospitality were felt far and wide when his restaurant doors opened to the neon sign, “You Are On Native Land.” His work has been featured in numerous national publications, often described in terms of what it doesn’t include: colonized foods like dairy and wheat. But the implications of who and what are invited to the table hold serious promise.
In line with a decolonized mission, Sherman prioritizes Native American farmers, vintners, and brewers. This extends an invitation to marginalized craftspeople in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Sherman’s beverage menus, for example, are an opportunity for non-majority groups at a time when only a handful of breweries in the U.S. are Native-owned. Having an opportunity to be part of a meaningful cycle of hospitality will hopefully continue to usher in a growing body of Indigenous beverage-makers.
Words,Paige Latham Didora