FJ HOUSE ADVOCATES: The Bachelor Farmer, North Loop, Minneapolis

The Tuthills are going out on the town!  Last week we tried to go to Lindon Hills' Tilia and found out that we weren't trendy enough to get a table (this happened to me again with friends four days later; get some more tables, Tilia!).  We went to Lucia's To-Go cafe instead and found it to be very JUST (free range chicken seasonal vegetables) but pretty average.  Farm-to-table is rad and all, we decided, but it ends up tasting a lot like home-cooking, which usually tastes better when it's cooked at home (you rule, Ma "The Best"!).

We were proven wrong on round two, when we decided to go for full luxury and treat ourselves to the Dayton brothers' wildly-hyped Bachelor Farmer.  The Daytons' have received nothing but praise for their first venture into the restaurant business, and they deserve every bit of it.  Bachelor Farmer succeeds on every front: design JUSTICE, location JUSTICE, taste JUSTICE, portion JUSTICE, FOOD JUSTICE JUSTICE.  They even get full marks on the bathrooms (more on this later).

Let's talk about sustainability first.  The Bachelor Farmer uses top-quality, local meat, and practices whole-animal butchery.  Their menu changes frequently depending on what's available and what's in season.  This would be good enough for any restaurant to get an FJ HOUSE stamp of approval, but TBF goes one step further and grows their produce on their own rooftop garden.  I don't know how that works in Minnesota January, but the fact that they even try is enough to get me teary-eyed.  A roof-top garden for a farm-to-table restaurant is such a simple, economical solution.  What are the rest of you jokers doing?        

The effort shows.  Its rare for a restaurant to let the pure goodness of its ingredients do the talking, and TBF's ingredients have a whole lot to say.  Even the starters, which consisted of some nasty-looking red vegetable that I usually avoid (turnips or something?), flat bread, and possibly the best butter I've ever tasted, where incredible.  Nothing complicated, nothing outwardly special, but the simple purity of the ingredients made for a truly notable bread-and-butter plate.

It doesn't get much more simple or more pure than beef tartare, which came with our toast course (the toast course is a bit of a signature at TBF, featuring a toast rack which seems bent on becoming a Twin Cities dining icon).  Ma "The Best" has been eating raw beef while making hamburgers for years, something I've always found to be a horrific practice, but I think I understand it now.  Mixed with salt, chives, mustard, something pickled, and a raw egg yolk, beef tartare tastes exactly as you'd expect it to taste; the only surprise is that its absolutely delicious, and that it doesn't instantly kill you.  I thought one half-slice of toast wouldn't be enough, but the tartare was so rich and so filling that I can't imagine eating much more.  I wish I could have taken a better picture, but TBF doesn't allow flash photography on grounds that it's harmful to raw beef and seafood (or maybe they just think that it's annoying; they don't allow cellphone use either).   

I got the duck flank and breast with cranberries and wild rice.  I won't show my picture because it doesn't do the food anything close to JUSTICE.  Duck is clearly the best of the birds; chicken and turkey don't even come close in terms of texture and juicy flavor.  The breast was immaculate, and the walnuts and cranberries complimented it perfectly.  My father had the meatballs with lingonberry sauce, a Scandinavian classic.  The caraway seasoning, paired with the tartness of the lingonberries and a pile of beautifully-whipped potatoes, was extraordinary.  Ma "The Best," somehow sane after the blood-lust brought on by the tartare, had poached eggs and Brussels sprouts which, though not to my taste, were deemed excellent by both her and my father.  

Dessert, usually the most disappointing course, defied conventions and settled the matter of whether to leave an extraordinarily large tip or not.  I had a delightful peach tart tatin, and had tastes of both house-made café miel and dried-fruit ice cream.  Even the lemon shortbread crackers were good, and the chocolate sauce for the café miel was TO DIE, as our waiter (who was stylish, enthusiastic, and helpful, by the way) put it.

What else is there to say?  TBF is located in North Loop, a neighborhood which has so much potential if only it would fill up a bit more.  TBF is right behind Askov Finlayson, one of the coolest new boutiques in the Twin Cities, and about a block away from menswear staple Martin Patrick 3.  In the basement (only accessible through an unlabeled blue door at the end of a dark hallway, itself only accessible through an unlabeled metal door in the back) is the Marvel Bar, recently rated the best bar in the Midwest by some mysterious organization I can't currently find.  If North Loop can draw a few more businesses and restaurants and some people to live above them, they might actually have something.  Get on it, R.T.!

Of course, no restaurant review would be complete without a discussion about bathrooms.  TBF's are beautiful: clean, spacious, featuring pleasant soap and serenely blue walls.  Most importantly, they are careful to keep the doors opened when unoccupied.  Why is this not more of a thing?  There should seriously be a law about keeping unoccupied bathroom doors open.  What are you guys doing in South Carolina?  Let's get to the #realissues.

The Bachelor Farmer is located at 50 N 2nd Ave., in Minneapolis.  Look at a map first, because it's unmarked and a bit tricky to spot.  Entrees are in the $20 range; with drinks and dessert, look to spend $35 to $50 per person.