The Bachelor Farmer
Last summer I traveled to Minneapolis-St. Paul as part of our Worth Destinations research, and while there I dropped in solo for dinner at the Bachelor Farmer, a restaurant whose farm-to-table ethos has attracted national acclaim and helped fuel a burgeoning food scene in MSP. I’d never been, and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. Turns out that, in its mellow, modest Minnesota way, the Bachelor Farmer deserves all the praise it gets. I sat at the bar and, while reading a book, had a delicious meal of “old water chicken”—the name refers to the broth in which it’s cooked—so tender and flavorful it changed my notions forever of what you can do with chicken. I followed that with a dessert of vanilla bean panna cotta with rhubarb-raspberry jam and coconut-buckwheat crumble which has forever spoiled my ability to eat an ordinary dessert. All of these were washed down with a craft beer and a glass of white wine (sadly, I didn’t record their names) that a massively informed but not-obnoxious-at-all bartender helped me choose. It was my best meal of the year. A close second: Spoon and Stable, also in Minneapolis. (The tamarind glazed pork chop—holy cow.) And, come to think of it, out at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Cedar + Stone in the JW Marriott is vastly better than your typical hotel restaurant. Even if you don’t want to go shopping, it’s worth a visit.
For more information, visit thebachelorfarmer.com, spoonandstable.com and marriott.com/hotel-restaurants.
