Memorable | One of the Best
Wise Acre Eatery | Farm to Table At Its Best in Minneapolis
Review by: Michael Stern
Farm-Fresh
On a farm in Plato, Minnesota, Scottish Highland Cattle graze. Berkshire and Large Black hogs grow fat. Produce grows year-around in fields and greenhouses. All find their way to the menu at Wise Acre Eatery. Located in a former gas station, this casual restaurant defines farm to table dining. (Actually, the management calls it “farm to fork.”)
Come as you are for brunch and lunch. Maybe make a reservation for supper. (I didn’t need one Monday night). Behind the easy-going air stands an earnest mission to serve local food prepared with brio.
Asparagus!
Consider this spring vegetable plate of grilled asparagus and green onions on herbed goat cheese. It arrives in a cloud of smoky fragrance. The large, perfectly al dente stalks of asparagus verge on sweetness. But it isn’t really sweetness; it’s the bouquet of being picked so recently. The same asparagus makes a brilliantly flavorful soup so thick you almost could eat it with a fork.
Burgers and Beets
The Royal Brie and Bacon Burger, available at supper Sunday through Thursday, deserves its noble title. If you like burgers and bacon, put it on your must-eat list. The 1/3-pound hamburger fairly hums with the protein potency of hugely flavorful beef. Its crown is luxuriously creamy cheese and a single giant slab of melting-rich Wise Acre bacon, itself a quarter pound of flavor. On the side come good French fries with house-made beet ketchup.
In fact, beets assume a starring role in this farm to table kitchen. Consider, for example, a chocolate beet cake in which the root vegetable adds its own unique sugars to the dense chocolate cake. The cake’s strawberry cream cheese frosting is shockingly unsweet — at first, disconcertingly so. But a few bites reveal a clever strategy in which the creamy cheese on top serves as a brilliant foil to bring out the full cocoa verve of the cake below.
Return for Custard
Sit at a bare table indoors or outside. Expect service that is friendly and enthusiastic. My waitress really seemed sad when she told me that they had been so busy the last couple of days that they had run out of custard for dessert. She made me promise to come back again and try it. I did. No surprise, the custard was wonderful, especially so because it came topped with rhubarb caramel sauce.
Directions & Hours
Information
Price | $$ |
Seasons | All |
Meals Served | Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner |
Credit Cards Accepted | Yes |
Alcohol Served | Yes |
Outdoor Seating | Yes |
What To Eat
Wise Acre Eatery | Farm to Table At Its Best in Minneapolis Recipes
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