Though Myriel in St. Paul has been open since 2021, Karyn Tomlinson was just named a Best New Chef 2024 by Food & Wine. Perhaps it’s the recent interest in the Midwest, or maybe it’s a fascination with “grandma chic,” as the magazine put it. But Tomlinson’s real mission is evangelizing the commitment to locally sourced food from small family farms. Tomlinson recently helped mentor the kitchen team at the newly opened Aster House. “The way I look at it,” Tomlinson says, “either I can give them a fish which feeds them for a day, or I can teach them to fish so that they can make really grounded decisions on their own going forward.”