Warming up to Local Food: Barbette in Minneapolis

By: Katie Kadue | April 20 2010
Posted in Find It - Minneapolis

Coming from the cornucopia of California to Minneapolis in midwinter, I didn’t expect to find much local, seasonal food – all I really hoped to find was unseasonably warm weather. But on a recent trip to the Twin Cities, I was met with twin surprises: temperatures hovering around -5 degrees, and, far more pleasantly, a thriving local food scene.

Katie Cannon Photography

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Poised in the middle of farm country, Minneapolis has long fostered food co-ops and farmers markets, and an increasing number of restaurants are getting their ingredients from local farms – even in January. At Barbette, where we warmed up one night with cabbage-beet soup and sage-flecked squash risotto, local food is served with local flavor. Maybe it was my preconceived notions of down-home Midwest earthiness, but I found Barbette’s simple approach refreshing.

While information about the restaurant’s local commitments is available and advertised, servers don’t piously recite farm pedigrees and slaughtering details as they might in certain coastal cities. By sticking with classics like (grass-fed) steak frites, chef Sarah Master showcases local fare without making the menu read like a lecture. Barbette isn’t a “local food” restaurant; it’s a French bistro that serves great food, from ingredients that are, whenever possible, local and organic.

Barbette isn’t perfect: our server brought the wrong glass of wine (twice), and the “Arborio and Wisconsin Wild Rice” risotto was too skewed toward the former. Still, I admired the commitment to local produce in a land better known for lutefisk than lettuce. Do you live in an area not often associated with local food sourcing, or where eating locally is difficult but rewarding? I’d like to visit – preferably when temperatures are above zero.