Martina ToDoTC.com To Do in the Twin Cities Restaurants

Martina

Date: May 15, 2026

4312 South Upton Avenue
Minneapolis, MN, 55410

Phone: (612) 922-9913

www.martinarestaurant.com

We get asked all the time what is your favorite place to eat. Which to me is different than your favorite meal which is steaks from Morellis or Ready Meats of the Nordeast from our 8 foot long back grill to eat on our deck.

Two years ago E asked me in February where I wanted to go for my birthday. I did not delay a second in my response when I said obviously Martina. We went again on Friday. I’m not thrilled about returning to my favorite. It’s kind of like going to your class reunion. I hate to ruin a great memory by a new experience. Thankfully Martina did fail us.

We taste wine every Friday night at Northloop wine. We had reservations at Martina in Linden Hills for 7:30. If you are not familiar with Linden Hills it is South of Lake Calhoun (south of Mpls) West of Lake Harriet and East of Fiftieth and France downtown Edina. Martina is a quick 20 minute drive from downtown Mpls.

So what makes Martina special? First Martina is a physically is a well designed restaurant. It has very high ceilings. What difference does THAT make? How many times have you been at a restaurant that there’s a it’s all about me person. You can hear all their conversations and laughs. Drives me nuts! Not so at Martina the acoustics is incredible. As someone who has spent about 50 years in engineering I appreciate great design.

Ever been at a restaurant in February and someone opens the door? One of two things will happen. If you feel a cold draft. Or if you are Martina you will not notice. Martina has an antechamber. It’s two doors t least 6 feet apart. It is the distance to keep some idiot from holding BOTH doors open to allow the cold air in, as we saw once.

Martina is very clean and run like a fine tuned machine. It is known as an Argentinean Restaurant. There are only a few Argentinean Restaurants in town. They have a nice selection of South American and Argentinean wines. For grapes they have: Pinot Noir. Carignan, Zin, Syrah, Cab Sauvignon for under $21 glass.
E had a Pinot Noir Refugio for $20, then a De Martino Cab Sauv for $20 and I had a La Vaquita Malbec for $14 the best of all three wines. An Argentinan Wine in an Argentinan restaurant, go figure!

We then had a huge Shrimp Cocktail for $19, more like a Prawn Cocktail. And we got FOUR not three shrimp as most restaurants. The some not to miss Grilled bread for $8.

For entrée’s E had Fra Diavolo Spaghetti which was OK. I had fresh off mother natures forest floor Mushroom Rigatoni, it was great Rigatoni. Our bill was $144 a bit higher than normal but we had two entrée’s instead of sharing one as usual. Had we not and shared an entrée it would have been closer to $110. And yes we will be back to perhaps our best choice in Twin City restaurants.