In Iowa City, where college-town bars still dominate the nightlife, Paper Crane feels like a quiet recalibration. The ramen shop and cocktail lounge opened in October 2024, bringing a distinctly adult, design-forward restaurant to the North Side’s Brewery Square. It’s the latest project from Sam and Riene Gelman, the team behind The Webster, and it carries the same obsession with detail — just filtered through the lens of Japanese technique and comfort-driven cooking. That approach earned Paper Crane national attention this spring, when Midwest Living named it one of the Best New Midwest Restaurants of 2026, the only Iowa restaurant on the list. Tap the link in our bio for more on this story. #IowaCity #Iowa #MidwestLiving