"Can we go to that bacon place?" asked my friend.
Absolutely. I don't need to be asked twice to dine at the Wise Acre Eatery, particularly if I can get a crack at that carefully brined, barely smoked, teasingly fatty pork belly they modestly call bacon. I get lightheaded just thinking about it.
Where this Maserati of bacons really stands out is on what chef Beth Fisher has christened her Shades of Summer salad, a flurry of harvested-that-morning lettuces, a selection of vegetables and herbs so seasonally of the moment that a person could set a clock by them, a toss of chicken and dainty quinoa and, of course, that bacon. The results elevate the phrase "farm fresh" straight up to the penthouse.
The Wise Acre's story is in many ways all about real estate. Co-owners Scott Endres and Dean Engelmann, proprietors of Tangletown Gardens nursery, sensed an opportunity when their neighbor, Liberty Frozen Custard, came up for sale. They snapped up the property, a sharply restored "Mad Men"-era Standard Oil station, and began plotting their entry into the restaurant business.
The Engelmann family farm in Plato, Minn., about 30 minutes west of Chaska, is the restaurant's not-so-secret weapon, supplying chickens, hogs, beef cattle and all manner of vegetables and fruits.
The menu's ambitions hover in farmhouse supper territory, a supreme compliment. I can't remember the last time I've enjoyed a better fried chicken. That fried chicken has recently morphed into a similarly prepared wings appetizer, a reflection of the menu's constant harvest-driven evolution. What had been a blissfully unembellished, fork-tender pork steak -- wrapped in more of that soul-stirring bacon -- is now a slow-braised pork shoulder paired with toothy white beans, crunchy yellow wax beans and a spicy pork sausage. Cuts of beef also journeyed across the animal, from a braised roast to grilled ribeye, all admirably good.
A few quibbles. Fisher knows her way around same-plate juxtapositions -- hot/cold, crunchy/soft, sour/sweet -- but her sweet embellishments occasionally go overboard.
And while no one appreciates a cleverly wrapped package more than yours truly -- the witty Wise Acre name ranks among my Top 10 favorite dining-out monikers, ever -- the restaurant's relentless rural-goodness marketing message can slink into preciousness. Come on, do sandwiches really have to be wrapped in paper and tied in kite string? (Do not miss the spicy egg salad, by the way.)
