Brunch at Wise Acre, Minneapolis

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I read about Wise Acre Eatery in my constant food-related media perusal. It sounded great, and I love brunch, so I was determined to go when I was in Minneapolis back in June. Luckily, they serve weekday brunch (genius!) and finally, the opportunity arose: my mom, Kiyo and I drove my sister to the airport and since we were out, stopped at Wise Acre on the way back to my grandma’s house. My grandma and my other extended family feeds us so much delicious, home-cooked food when we’re in Minneapolis, that we almost never eat out of someone’s house. Which is great, except my grandma once literally told me, “I don’t like vegetables,” a sentiment the rest of my family seems to share. So after a few days of delicious but more hearty than usual meals, I was ready for something bursting with vegetables. And I wasn’t disappointed at all.

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My mom asked me if I should make a reservation, and as the totally snobby New Yorker I was back then, I scoffed and assured her that you can’t make reservations for brunch. Well, Minneapolis is nothing like NYC, and we should have made reservations.

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We had to wait at the front for a table, jealously eyeing other people’s dishes as they emerged from the kitchen.

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Finally, we were seated. The menu is adorable and informative; it includes detailed information about all the local ingredients. I’ll just let them explain:

“The Wise Acre Eatery connects guests to the source of their food, most of which comes from Tangletown Gardens’ 100 acre farm in rural Plato, MN. Here, our Scottish Highland Cattle, Berkshire and Large Black hogs, and free range chickens, ducks and turkeys live stress-free, hormone-free lives with plenty of room to roam. Fresh produce is grown year-round in our greenhouses and fields ensuring a steady stream of farm fresh goodness delivered to our kitchen all the time. We are the folks sowing the seeds, nurturing plants and tending the animals in the morning, then delivering the harvest to our restaurant’s kitchen in the afternoon—it just doesn’t get any more local than that.

Our Farm to your fork. Truly, the shortest distance between the earth, the hand and the mouth.”

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As if this wasn’t pleasant enough, the interior of the restaurant is charming. Industrial yet cozy, small yet spacious, natural yet clean, it just struck all the right notes.

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I started with a latte, which was beautiful and flavorful.

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But I think my mom’s dish was the most beautiful thing we ordered that day. Although, of the three of us, she was the least impressed with her meal. I forget what she had, because it was a special, but I believe it was eggs and cornbread with some sort of meat. She said it wasn’t bad, but not great.

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Kiyo, as always at brunch, ordered the burger.

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This one was a bacon cheeseburger, and it looked epic. Even the name is epic: “the royal brie and bacon burger,” a third-pound Scottish Highland beef burger on a brioche bun. Served with delicious homemade pickles, french fries and ketchup, which I of course stole a couple of.

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But my dish was the best, by far. I loved it so much, that if I get to go back, I might have to order it again, even though I want to try everything else on the menu.

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The magical “CSA Hash” sounded simple enough: farm vegetables, egg and herb scramble, cottage ham, aioli and toast. Well let me tell you, this dish was simple yet complex. I felt like the vegetables must have been cooked in crack (or maybe that’s just how veggie-deprived I was feeling after one week at Grandma’s). The eggs were light and fluffy, the aioli was addicting, the bread was super hearty, and the cottage ham was basically really thick, rich bacon. You can’t tell from the picture but underneath the eggs, toast and meat was a festival of vegetables. It was glorious.

I have never had my expectations for a popular restaurant surpassed as they were here.

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