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St. Paul Farmer's Market.

When it comes to sustainability, Heartland Restaurant has long been one of St. Paul’s finest proprietors of fine dining with a local and organic spin. Once tucked away in the Mac-Groveland location, Heartland recently made the jump to the district often likened to NY’s Soho, Lowertown. This allows it to highlight a relationship between its food and direct farm sources on display at the St. Paul’s Farmer’s Market across the street – a simple paring, yet an innovative idea that subtly links fresh produce with the final product, fresh cuisine. After all, there’s a mindset that goes hand-in-hand with a trip to the Farmer’s Market. While surrounded by delicious organic ingredients and friendly local farmers you may find yourself making tiny goals towards culinary self-improvement. You inevitably start daydreaming about creative recipes for that bundle of Swiss chard in your bag. You want to eat better, to live better…maybe you’ll even take up composting… It’s that steadfast mantra of better living through dining that flows from the hearts and fingers of the chefs in Heartland’s kitchen straight onto the meticulously arranged plates night after night.

Hand-cut angel hair pasta from Heartland. Photo by Steve Rice.

One could call Heartland a foodie’s dream restaurant, because like the mainstays of dreams the nightly menu is constantly morphing, a new set of provocative dishes every evening. This ever-evolving carte, not only provides diners with a multifarious sample of a Heartland’s artistry, but also a mouthful of season-appropriate ingredients. On any given night, one can expect such delicacies as veal bacon glace de viande and Butterscotch duck egg pot de crème on the three course Fauna fixed menu ($40 per person) or chilled golden beet borscht and morel mushroom gnocchi on the Flora menu ($30 per person). Their upscale, chef-driven menus feature ingredients indigenous to the Upper Midwest, including wild boar, salmon, Rainbow trout, savory wild mushrooms and regional artisan cheeses. In past years, the restaurant has received soaring reviews from former City Pages’ food critic, Dara Moskowitz, Mpls/St. Paul Magazine’s, Andrew Zimmern, and the Star Trib’s Rick Nelson, who have praised it for a creative and ingenuous twist on simple heartland-style cooking.

Heartland Executive Chef, Lenny Russo.

Heartland owner, Executive Chef and James Beard Foundation’s 2010 Best Chef Midwest Finalist, Lenny Russo, continues to showcase the best modernized Midwestern cuisine in his newly opened downtown restaurant with a few added bonuses. One, the new space is located in the Market House building (a former shoe factory turned condos) and is significantly larger than the Mac-Groveland location. It features a 80-to-90 seat dining room that overlooks the farmer’s market, several chef tables that wrap around the exhibition kitchen, an in-house, watch-them-work butcher shop and a gourmet market (set to open at the end of August) that will feature Heartland’s own proprietary label products including house made charcuterie, jellies, and stocks and soups, plus and grab-and-go Heartland prepared lunch items.

Can self-improvement really start in the kitchen? After a visit to Heartland, we think you’ll be inspired to say yes. So, maybe start your day with a trip to the St. Paul Farmer’s market and end with a fabulous dinner at Heartland to see if you can make the goal of better living through food a reality!

Heartland Restaurant & Farm Direct Market, 289 East Fifth Street, Suite #104, Lowertown, St. Paul