We’ve got a Mac mini and a MacBook Pro in different parts of the house. They connected to the same Internet. The mini with a cable. The laptop wirelessly. We’d like to be able to access our Mac mini from our laptop and access its desktop files.
What are ways, preferably with built-in functionality, to make this possible?
There’s also the Screen Sharing app that you can use to connect instead of going over the network location item. It’s under /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/Screen Sharing.app 
I use the app Screens for this from Edovia:
but it should work fine natively using screen sharing
I use Screens too, but the main advantage there is being able to access a Mac remotely from outside your home network. Since @nplanchon’s use case seems to be limited to local access, Screens is probably overkill.
agreed
I just use it because I like the uniform way to access all machines, internally and externally
@ChrisUpchurch. Yes! Thank you so much and the appropriate level of technology which I could understand and implement. I used the connect to server path as I do not see our mac mini in the finder > locations area and it is showing other options.
Thank you other contributors too 