"This is me on a plate": How one dish shows what a new Wisconsin restaurant is about

Marlee Crave served a summer dish at Fiddlehead Kitchen made from her husband's tomatoes and greens, her homemade sourdough bread and her family's cheese.

"Here you go, this is me on a plate," she said.

Crave and Sarah Mittelstadt call plates like that their "heart dishes." The two women opened Fiddlehead Kitchen at the end of August in downtown St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, just across the border from Minnesota, with a menu built around local farms.

Local growers supply everything from beef and lamb to mushrooms, honey, cheese and vegetables. Crave and her husband established a vegetable farm in 2020, and it grows most of the vegetables the restaurant uses.

The menu changes with the seasons. Crave said that once something is no longer available from her farmers, it comes off the menu. That's why the burger has no tomato right now, she said. The tomatoes "just died."

Surprises from farmers shape the menu, too. When a farmer shows up with a "bumper crop of parsnips," Mittelstadt said, that becomes inspiration for her and Crave.

Mittelstadt studied food systems at the University of Minnesota, then worked on a mushroom farm before cooking in Minnesota and Wisconsin kitchens. Crave grew up around her family's Wisconsin dairy farm and cheese business. After working with chefs in the Twin Cities, she landed at the same restaurant as Mittelstadt, and the two bonded over local food.

When that restaurant closed, they kept cooking, doing pop-ups and working out of a smaller kitchen before opening Fiddlehead Kitchen.

For Mittelstadt, the payoff is seeing familiar and new faces gather around food grown close to home. Inviting people in and feeding them food from the area "fills me every time," she said.

Fiddlehead Kitchen is open Wednesdays for Burger Night. It serves a full lunch and dinner menu Thursday through Saturday.