South Dakota-Born Chef Wins Prestigious Award

A restaurant co-owned by a South Dakota-born chef has captured a huge national honor.

Oglala Lakota chef Sean Sherman, from Pine Ridge, co-owns the restaurant with Dana Thompson.

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The pair opened the restaurant in the summer of 2021 on 1st Street South at the Water Works Pavilion in Mill Ruins Park in downtown Minneapolis, less than a half-mile northwest of the Guthrie Theater.

The restaurant's menu, which is available in English and Dakota, features a number of game and plant-based foods.

The restaurant's website describes all of the influences that go into their menu:

'We are a team of Anishinaabe, Mdewakanton Dakota, Navajo, Northern Cheyenne, Oglala Lakota, Wahpeton-Sisseton Dakota and are ever-growing. We are chefs, ethnobotanists, food preservationists, adventurers, foragers, caterers, event planners, artists, musicians, food truckers, and food lovers.

We are committed to revitalizing Native American Cuisine and in the process, we are re-identifying North American Cuisine and reclaiming an important culinary culture long-buried and often inaccessible.'

Prior to opening Owamni, Sherman founded the business titled The Sioux Chef as a caterer and food educator, in 2014.

Since then he has captured numerous awards including the 2015 First Peoples Fund Fellowship, 2018 Bush Foundation Fellowship, National Center’s 2018 First American Entrepreneurship Award, 2018 James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook, and a 2019 James Beard Leadership Award.