Green Tables

Alma
At Alma, all of Alex Roberts’s food is “prepared with the best fresh, seasonal, and organic ingredients available.” That’s not only my take, it’s a credo. Two of his best plates feature roasted grass-fed beef from Todd Churchill’s Thousand Hills Cattle Company: A seared strip loin and a braised short rib share the stage, napped with port-glazed onions and cara-melized cauliflower from Peterson Farm, Riverbend Farm, and Foot Joy Farm. Another local legend is Alma’s sautéed breast of Wild Acres pheasant served with glazed carrots, radishes, pear mostarda, and carrot beurre blanc—the vegetables when in season all from local purveyors. And when Otter Creek Farm, owned by Alex’s dad, Don, has produce to sell, Alma’s order sheet becomes a family affair. 528 University Ave. SE, Mpls., 612-379-4909

Birchwood Cafe
At Birchwood, Tracy Singelton’s operative food philosophy is all about build- ing community through food, or, as she puts it, “good, real food that’s fresh, local, organic, beautiful, creative, and made with love.” Among the standouts created by chef Marc Paavola and pastry chef Sandra Sherva is the sunshine squash hand-pie made with cream cheese pastry, roasted cippolini onions, and aged goat’s milk cheddar, served with an apple and watercress salad. Like that dish, the Birchwood is a collaborative effort. The squash is from Greg Reynolds’s Riverbend Farm, the cheese is from Mt. Sterling dairy in Wisconsin, and the butter in the pastry is Hope Creamery’s. 3311 E. 25th St., Mpls., 612-722-4474

Cafe Brenda
At a restaurant often mislabeled as vegetarian, Brenda Langton serves plenty of organic meats, seafood, and vegetables with an emphasis on plant-based healthy meals rather than on any single food item. Her grain-and-vegetable croquettes are wildly popular, but try her quinoa-turkey burger made with Kadejan turkeys, or her seared regional walleye with local maple-syrup–blackberry-teriyaki sauce, or the Star Prairie trout with roasted-garlic–almond stuffing perched on a sautéed bed of farmer Dave Massey's  kale and squash. 300 1st Ave. N., Mpls, 612-342-9230

Corner Table
Despite Scott Pampuch’s reputation for dishing up a killer plate of gnocchi, it’s his beef that sends customers swooning as they tipple out the door. The combination of Pampuch’s passion for braising and the quality of his grass-fed Thousand Hills beef has birthed some great plates: smoked and braised brisket is finished on the grill, a burger comes crowned with locally sourced foie gras alongside homemade potato crisps, and his beef rib eye is paired with a truffled version of his gnocchi. And check out what Pampuch does with caramelized Brussels sprouts from Whitewater Gardens, blanched and then oven-roasted until they smell, according to him, “just like popcorn.” 4257 Nicollet Ave., Mpls., 612-823-0011

Craftsman
Mike Phillips believes that taking the lead from what the farmer is offering is the best way to maintain a sustainable food community. If farmers are long on lamb, Mike finds a way to use it, which is why he had just bought six whole lambs from Pam Benike at the Southeast Minnesota Food Network and was butchering all day long when I spoke to him. One day he’ll serve a rack, the next the leg, the next he’ll make stew or sausage, and all the scraps wind up in his sublimely rustic lamb Bolognese, which he serves atop homemade pasta turned out from native wheat that has been ground at an ancient local mill. Start a meal at Craftsman with the house dry-cured ham that Phillips butchers, salts, and ages for two years before it is ready to be served. It is the best local product of its type. 4300 E. Lake St., Mpls., 612-722-0175

Cue
Chef Lenny Russo and staff have singlehandedly transformed the farmer-chef relationship, purchasing ingredients in such large quantities from so many family farms that oftentimes they will take an entire crop or harvest. Recent all-star dishes include herb-crusted Michigan lake perch swimming in Drag Smith Farm’s organic carrot broth and garnished with Midwest Salad Company’s micro arugula and the quintessential Cue choice-cut Fischer Farm Yorkshire pork prime rib served with stone fruit catsup and perched on a mélange of hashed winter squash and root vegetables. 806 S. 2nd St., Mpls., 612-225-6499

FireLake
The philosophy and food style at FireLake is all about the very best regional ingredients, such as local lake trout or farm-fresh rotisserie chicken, but the dish most emblematic of that oeuvre is Paul Lynch’s honey-cured Berkshire pork rack with maple-glazed yams, apples, and a Pepin Heights cider reduction. Lynch cures and brines local Six Point Berkshire pork in honey and spices overnight, then slowly smokes the racks in a blend of apple and pecan wood. Two-bone chops then get a few moments on the grill and arrive at your table teamed with roasted yams and apples seasoned with Minnesota maple syrup, butter, and fresh rosemary. Radisson Plaza Hotel, 31 S. 7th St., Mpls., 612-216-3473

Fugaise

Chef Don Saunders has a fairly broad network of farms and local purveyors that supply his two-year-old restaurant, but he committed one phone number to memory a long time ago: “I get a lot of produce from my mom’s garden in Eden Prairie,” he says. Purchasing from Minnesota suppliers can be as simple for Saunders as letting a forager in the back door, but his trout always comes from a small Wisconsin supplier and Venison America keeps him well stocked in the Iowa lamb that he features year-round. In the warm months, the lamb chops are roasted and the shoulder meat is braised and served in a phyllo roulade, all saddled atop an Imam Byaldi salad of eggplant and tomatoes and fresh mint from Mom. Delivery charges and minimum order requirements are waived. 308 Hennepin Ave. E., Mpls., 612-436-0777

Heartland
At Heartland, chef Robb Moore’s menus ascribe to founder Lenny Russo’s directive that the restaurant’s offerings be farm-driven. Traditional methods such as preserving, smoking, making confit, pickling, canning, and putting up the summer’s harvest are all part of the daily hum of the kitchen. Locally sourced meats form the basis of the homey and rustic charcuterie served in the bar; in the restaurant, Moore’s most recent menus included seared foie gras from Au Bon Canard served over leek snippets along with locally foraged hedgehog mushrooms, all swimming in a native game consommé. Great Lakes steelhead is cured into gravlax, Wisconsin elk takes a star turn in a bold tartare, and grilled grass-fed rib eye comes on puréed Minnesota celeriac. Heartland has more locally sourced foods than any other restaurant in the state, but rather than rely solely on provenance for accolades, the kitchen works twice as hard to make sure each gets its due. 1806 St. Clair Ave., St. Paul, 651-699-3536

jP American Bistro

After several years spent at NYC’s swanky Bouley, chef JP Samuelson got back to the rootsy ingredient-focused cooking style that is best described as country-inspired sumptuous dining. Tuna tartare and other trademark menu tidbits come served twelve months a year with micro arugula and baby greens from Midwest Salad Company. Locally raised organic Angus hanger steak is served with caramelized sweet onions and roasted grapes, and all the heirloom tomatoes, salad greens, vegetables, and in-season fruits come from local farms. Foot Joy Farms supplies his tomatoes, potatoes, squash, melon, and micro cuke-berries; Hilltop Produce, his greens; Pat Ebnet from Wild Acres provides the duck, chicken, and pheasant for the restaurant, and his poultry is JP’s top seller. The big kahuna is a pan-seared skin-on chicken breast with black truffle-potato purée, ca-ramelized shallots, and fresh herbs, all dabbed with a Hope Creamery butter–finished pan sauce. 2937 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls., 612-824-9300

Lucia’s
Dinner at Lucia’s can seem like a trip to the farmers’ market, especially when it starts with a locally sourced mixed-green salad with a Minnesota maple syrup–mustard vinaigrette, toasted hickory nuts, Hook’s blue cheese, and sliced Haralson apples from a local orchard. Follow it up with grilled Minnesota bison tenderloin with wild mushroom demi glace, wild rice fritters, and Ulrich’s carrots and asparagus simply blanched and tossed with Hope Creamery butter. 1432 W. 31st St., Mpls., 612-825-1572

Modern Cafe
Chef Phillip Becht tries to imbue his cooking with as much love as he can, a tribute to the gloriously sustaining foods turned out by our mothers and a disdain for the clichéd pretensions of the contemporary restau- rant kitchen. Becht is more about fish soup than foie gras. His mussel pan roast with root vegetables and fennel pollen still floats my boat two years after first tasting it, while his Asian– inspired beef sumo roll with spicy sambal mayonnaise is a modern-day comfort food favorite. And the dishes that Becht inherited with his job, from meat loaf to killer pot roast with root vegetables and mash, have never been in better hands. 337 13th Ave. NE, Mpls., 612-378-9882

Muffuletta
Chef J. D. Fratzke’s menu changes with the seasons, and sometimes the week, but every month he punctuates his “food as travel without leaving home” aesthetic with a special menu built around a global region or culture. That allows Fratzke to shop from as many local farms and suppliers as possible. Menu stalwarts include pan-seared locally sourced duck breast with carrots, purple potatoes, and leeks in a citrus-brandy sauce; sweet potato croquettas with Faribault Dairy Amablu blue cheese dipping sauce; and Cannon Falls’ Thousand Hills’ grass-fed New York strip rubbed with Muffuletta’s Spanish spice rub, grilled, and served over local butternut squash with balsamic vinegar– glazed-roasted Minnesota onions. 2260 Como Ave., St. Paul, 651-644-9116

The Oceanaire Seafood Room

Chef Rick Kimmes and Oceanaire focus on serving “ultrafresh fish,” most from sustainable fisheries. Kimmes is a big supporter of Wisconsin’s Star Prairie Trout Farm. The restaurant serves Thousand Hills grass-fed New York strip, buys cheeses from Stickney Hills and Faribault Dairy, and features Au Bon Canard’s grade A foie gras. Kimmes and Oceanaire are strongly committed to local farmers, plating summer squash from Vine Valley Farms in Steward and in-season green beans from Axdahl’s Farm in Stillwater. Kimmes is a charter member of Minnesota Heartland Project’s Third Thursdays, when a select group of area restaurants prepare fare with local, sustainable, and organic ingredients from regional farmers and producers. Hyatt Regency Ctr., 1300 Nicollet Mall, Mpls., 612-333-2277

Sapor Café

Seven years after opening, Tanya Siebenaler and Julie Steenerson’s Sapor Café is still one of  the best-kept secrets in town. Their Warehouse District eatery features Siebenaler’s globally inspired and locally sourced cuisine. Sapor’s purveyors include Earthen Path Organic Farm, Fischer Farm, and Midwest Salad Company, to name a few. Some of the best dishes include a Fischer Farm pork shank with a bacon-perfumed white bean purée and sultry duck breast served on celery-root spåetzle seasoned with apple brown butter. 428 Washington Ave. N., Mpls., 612-375-1971

Spoonriver
At Spoonriver, Brenda Langton gets to take her culinary ethos and refract it through a prism designed to gussy up even the humblest of dishes. Supervising a coterie of talented chefs, including Liz Benser, Lisa Carlson, Tasha Truitt, and pastry goddess Carrie Summer, Langton is part chef-owner, part camp counselor, and part big sister—a role she was born to play. Last summer the city was agog over her yellow and red watermelon salad with heirloom tomatoes, vanilla vinaigrette, and celery leaves. Langton and her bevy of chefs source their produce from dozens of farmers, including Sandra Jean, Loon Organics, and the wildly talented and eccentric Dave Massey. Being able to step outside on a weekend and stroll the aisles of the Mill City Farmers’ Market Langton helped birth is an enviable convenience. 750 S. 2nd St., Mpls., 612-436-2236

W.A. Frost
Chef Russell Klein uses classic technique he honed from years of experience in kitchens working under highly respected chefs, and he delights in using local ingredients to showcase the essence of each. Seasonal favorites from past menus include a black trumpet mushroom–crusted venison loin with red wine– poached pears, Brussels sprout petals, potato-squash gratin, and red wine tinged with sweet beet juice—one of the best dishes I tasted last year. Another fan favorite is lacquered breast of Wild Acres duck served with house-made duck sausage, braised red cabbage, and ricotta spåetzle. 374 Selby Ave., St. Paul, 651-224-5715

Andrew Zimmern reviews restaurants and writes about food for Mpls.St.Paul. His blog, Chow & Again, is here at mspmag.com. Catch his new TV program, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, on Mondays at 8 p.m. on the Travel Channel.