Small towns, big flavors

This year's annual summer road trip found us in southeastern Minnesota, where we uncovered enough culinary finds -- and spectacular scenery -- to fill a scrapbook. And all are just a short drive from the Twin Cities.

Start with Rochester, where a young chef and an enterprising owner have turned a somnolent downtown corner, just a few blocks from the Mayo Clinic, into a bonafide hotspot. (A nearby boutique specializing in all things Italian -- including simple, well-made pastries -- is also definitely worth a visit).

A Victorian-era bed-and-breakfast in Lanesboro offers more than a good night's sleep, because down in the kitchen, chef-owner Meg Olson turns to local farmers and gardeners for fresh, seasonal inspiration. One town over, in cute Whalan, a retired Minneapolis school librarian has dialed up her knack for baking pies into a second career, to her customers' continual delight.

On the Mississippi River, some details at Nosh Restaurant & Bar have changed -- a newer, roomier and better-situated home on the marina in Lake City -- but chef Greg Jaworski's cooking is as compelling as ever.

Finally, the journey took a quick detour north to the St. Croix River, where we stumbled upon the ultimate waterfront respite, a neighborly burger joint with a million-dollar address.

LAKE CITY STANDOUT

Nosh Restaurant & Bar is the best thing to happen to Lake City since the invention of water skiing in 1922. That might be a slight exaggeration. But only slight.

There should have been a big brass band welcoming chef/owner Greg Jaworski a few months ago when he relocated his three-year-old restaurant upriver from Wabasha. He sure landed a dreamy chunk of real estate. Not only is the new place roomier, but it has the address to beat among Lake Pepin restaurants: right on the town's marina, with gasp-out-loud views.

Another bonus: The new location slices about 20 minutes off the drive for Twin Cities diners. That's a good thing, because Jaworski's cooking is better than ever. He has a knack for hunting down the region's most pristine ingredients, and then treating them with care and respect. An incredible grass-fed tenderloin, ruby red on the inside, nicely charred outside, might have been the best piece of beef I've had this year. An intensely flavorful braised pork shoulder, fork tender, easily earned my top 2007 pork vote, and the richness of quick-seared Minnesota-raised foie gras was nicely balanced against roasted pineapple.

Jaworski is an accomplished sausage maker (they're often spiced with seasonings that his mother sends him from her Michigan home, where she shops a huge array of Middle Eastern markets), and his nose for cheese, all Wisconsin and Minnesota artisanal knockouts, is right on the money, especially when those discoveries are paired with his expertly made mustards and preserves.

The kitchen doesn't shy away from bold flavors: garlic-punched shrimp, a strawberry soup peppered with dried chiles, pungent olives marinated in an intense harissa-preserved lemon marinade. But Jaworski can be subtle, too, with twinges of honey peeking through dates stuffed with salty blue cheese and crusted with pistachios, smoked tomatoes and house-cured pork belly warming up a risotto served with nicely sweet sea scallops or a light saffron scent in a seafood-chorizo paella. This is food that is definitely worth the drive, and service is warm and observant.

Back to those View-Master vistas. Maybe it's a we-just-moved-in-and-haven't-unpacked issue, but my suggestion is to be sure to ask for a window or patio table when making a reservation. Then keep your eyes focused outward, or on Jaworski's pretty plates, because the blandly generic decor -- it's a very suburban McMansion great room -- isn't terribly memorable. But those views? They just might be all the decoration any restaurant needs.

LOOKING GOOD IN ROCHESTER

Söntés, which has been lighting up downtown Rochester since November, is all about good looks, straight out of a Room & Board catalog. But what is clearly one of the state's best new dining establishments has plenty of substance, too.

It's easily Minnesota's top-performing wine bar. Owner Tessa Leung wisely invested in slick new technology that keeps opened wine bottles in peak condition for several weeks, and that equipment stretches the bar's by-the-glass capacity to 40 marvelously drinkable choices. Reading that list -- and the novella-length bottle roster -- made me feel like a kid again, when I would page through the Sears catalog and compile my Christmas wish list.

Chef Justin Schoville steps up to the plate and knocks out a home run. Most of his inventive, attention-to-detail menu resides in the small-plates realm, and it's clearly a comfort zone for this 23-year-old talent. A daily soup "flight" was gazpacho, three ways, with just-farmed flavors popping right out of the tiny cups. Chicken thighs were all crispy skin and succulent meat. Asparagus spears were wrapped in thinly shaved ham, garnished with sweet crab and drizzled with fragrant honey. Chorizo-stuffed dates, zesty and chewy, were finished with a tasty roasted tomato sauce. Crab cakes were all crab -- a sad rarity -- and fall-apart fabulous.

Sharp wasabi and pickled ginger proved just the right accent for meltingly seared tuna. Truffled toast points were an appropriately over-the-top companion to a rich rabbit confit. Even the crostini, usually a toss-off, are made to shine. The cheese list is temptingly well-sourced.

For larger appetites Schoville offers cleverly composed entrees such as pan-seared sea bass, beer-braised short ribs, grilled trout and roasted quail, along with a long line of designer pizzas. For serious eaters, there's an impressive eight-course tasting menu (a bargain at $45) and a fine selection of looky desserts. Finally, Rochester has a reason for a food-lover's day trip that extends beyond the city's exceptional Saturday morning farmers market.

PASTRIES AND POTTERY

Two blocks from Sontés lies another Rochester newbie, and another gem. Sopra Sotto is more than just a browsable selection of Italian pottery, although frankly that would be just fine if owner Maureen McNally stopped right there. But luckily she didn't, squeezing in a comfortable coffee bar that features -- what else? -- Italian-roasted beans and a few substantial sandwiches, along with occasional cooking classes.

But the shop's greatest temptation are its pastries. The ever-changing assortment could include a pert lemon chiffon cake, a multilayer chocolate-hazelnut extravaganza or perhaps a dense flourless chocolate torte with a generous dollop of real whipped cream. While you may not be compelled to drop $200 on an exquisite hand-painted platter, chances are you have $2.50 -- a total steal -- to devote to a well-made sweet.

LOVELY LEISURE IN LANESBORO

There's a dinner-party quality to the Vintage, Meg Olson's sweet year-old restaurant inside a Victorian-era bed-and-breakfast in Lanesboro. Once her prep helpers finish their work, the indefatigable Olson is often the only person laboring behind the kitchen door, an effort that translates into a personal, and personable, dining experience. The pace is leisurely, service is well-meaning, the surroundings have a garage-sale charm and the menu is limited. All diners get the same first and second courses, and select from one of three entrees. The choices change weekly, depending upon what's available locally -- more on that in a second -- and Olson is clearly cooking her heart out.

On a late-June evening, Olson kicked things off with a small slab of pastry-wrapped foie gras, then segued into an early summer Swiss chard-celery root soup garnished with bits of bacon and sweet onions, a lovely edible welcome mat. Then came a pretty salad of gold and red beets tossed with greens and herbs that were grown, our server told us, by Frank Wright, the craftsman who also operates a don't-miss Lanesboro shop featuring wooden spoons and utensils he painstakingly fashions from local hardwoods.

Main courses included a grilled elk rib-eye and a sizzling pork chop stuffed with an assortment of wild mushrooms and goat cheese, all sourced from nearby purveyors. "Every day I'm amazed by the talent here," Olson later told me. "People here are committed to growing their own food and they know how to do it well. It's a lost art, growing food."

It's clearly an art form she appreciates. Dessert was basic but a beaut: puff pastry garnished with mascarpone and garden-fresh berries. The price? Just $35 for a three-course meal, with an extra six bucks for dessert; the brief but pleasant list of wines rarely ventures above $30 a bottle. Turns out our server was also an actor, and he was gearing up for a new production of "Wait Until Dark" at Lanesboro's way-cool Commonweal Theatre, just up the street. Next time I'm in the area, I'll make a weekend of it: Olson's passionate cooking and a show.

PEDALING FOR PIE

A few miles east of Lanesboro, just a short pedal down the ultra-scenic Root River State Trail in the tiny town of Whalan, lies a peach of a place, the Aroma Pie Shop. After scuttling her original plan to buy a bed-and-breakfast, owner Maggie Gergen bought the business three years ago and finessed her pie-making abilities into a new career, commuting on weekends from her job as a Minneapolis school librarian to bake pies. Lots of them. As many as 50 a day.

Practice obviously makes perfect. On the sunny June day that I stopped by, the counter's headliner was rhubarb, and Gergen had picked the stalks herself from her sisters' gardens. "I raid all of my sisters' farms, and I have 10 sisters, so that's a lot of rhubarb," she said with a laugh. "But when you can get fresh rhubarb, well, there's really nothing better."

She's absolutely right. My wide wedge of rhubarb-strawberry pie was a little slice of heaven: golden, flaky crust (Gergen's secret ingredient: lard) fashioned into an eye-catching lattice top, a fine topper for the strawberry-rhubarb's seesawing sweet-tart flavor. The banana cream was another treat, the custard rich, the fruit plentiful. I loved the "Elvis," too ("It was Elvis' cook's recipe," said Gergen), a luscious peanut butter-whipped cream combo spread across a thick Oreo crust.

The Key lime was nicely tart, the pecan was rich and meaty, and if I'd had the wherewithall I would have taken a stab at what looked to be a swell sour cream-raisin concoction. Gergen prepares a dozen varieties daily, out of a repertoire that numbers about three dozen; they're all best enjoyed on the shop's inviting screen porch, just a few steps off the bike path.

ON THE RIVER

Finally, while there's a scenery overload on display at the Nordic landscape painting exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, it's nothing compared with the St. Croix River panorama framing the deck at Norman Quack's at Marine Landing. What a stunner. In just about every direction there's nothing but steep, densely wooded riverbanks, water and the occasional boat. Soaking it all in recently on a steamy Sunday over a late-morning breakfast, I found it hard to believe that I was just 15 minutes from Stillwater's sweaty Main Street crowds and 40 miles from downtown Minneapolis.

It's flip-flops casual, and so low-profile that it comes off more as a private club for in-the-know locals than a public establishment. A number of owners have tried to make a go of it over the years, but it's a tough gig: No liquor license, a nearly invisible address (calling ahead for directions is a must) and a kitchen so small it could probably comfortably fit inside a two-sleeper pop-up camper. Last year the folks behind Norman Quack's in Forest Lake stepped in, and they're wisely letting the place be what it is, a dockside greasy spoon.

In other words, if it's not fried, then it's deep-fried. Nothing wrong with that, especially when it results in crisp fries, monster onion rings and beer-battered Cheddar cheese curds. The hefty burgers are piled high with bacon, onions, chipotle mayo and other fixins and served on toasted onion buns. Sandwiches -- BLTs, salmon melts, a beef fajita-style takeoff in a hoagie -- are equally enormous. Kids can choose from grilled cheese sandwiches, pint-sized corn dogs, macaroni and cheese and other tot-pleasers.

Weekend breakfast means plate-size pancakes, three-egg omelets, eggs and hash browns, huevos rancheros and other familiar a.m. short-order fare. Prices rarely go north of $10 (pizzas are the sole exception, landing in the mid-teens) and the friendly counter staff almost makes up for the lack of an agreeable riesling or an ice-cold Grain Belt.

Oh, I mentioned the bucolic surroundings, right? Next time I'll hopefully remember to pack my swim trunks, because William O'Brien State Park, and the beach at spring-fed Lake Alice, is a five-minute drive from the restaurant. And a world away from the city.

Rick Nelson • 612-673-4757