Eat local on the cheap
Tiffany Mason
The Old Fashioned's decadent mac and cheese.
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It's hard to go anywhere to eat or grocery shop these days without being hit over the head with the cult of local, sustainable, and organic. Not to mention having Michael Pollan's voice running through your head as you reluctantly put down the Cheetos. For a long time, eating local in restaurants meant only fancy-shmancy splurge kind of places. Fortunately, local food has spread to the masses, so now those with only a few bucks to spare can lord their virtuousness over others too. Madison has a host of places serving local food at reasonable places. The A.V. Club surveys some of the local options.
Ian's Pizza
Famous for its slices of mac-and-cheese pizza, Ian's offers a variety of innovative toppings, many from local farms. The beef comes from Fountain Prairie Farm, the ham from Jordandal Farms, dairy products and some meat from Organic Valley, and veggies from Primrose Community Farm and Green Barn Farms. Check out the chalkboard each day for what's local that day. Besides all that local food, Ian's also uses 100-percent wind-powered electricity. Can eating pizza be any more virtuous?
Café Soleil
Café Soleil is the poor man's version of the restaurant it sits under, the prestigious L'Etoile. Serving breakfast and lunch, Café Soleil specializes in and celebrates all things local, just like its spendy neighbor upstairs. Everything on the menu is made from locally grown ingredients and nearly everything else that's disposable, from the cups to the napkins, is recyclable. And while sure, your fennel and leek quiche may sound a tad less exciting than pan-seared MacFarlane pheasant with Widmer's aged brick and Hook's 12-year cheddar "mac and cheese," braised Blue Skies collard greens, and house-smoked bacon, finished with Bourbon Jus, the $29 you just saved will probably assuage any hard feelings.
Mermaid Café
Despite the name, Mermaid Café serves neither mermaids nor other sea life, mystical or otherwise. Instead, it’s a funky neighborhood café and coffeehouse that specializes in sandwiches, soups, and baked goods handmade fresh from local ingredients. The Mermaid even has its own coffee blend, roasted locally from 100-percent fair-trade, organic beans by Just Coffee. Be sure to scribble your local food devotion on the chalkboard wall.
The Old Fashioned
Don't just eat local, drink local, too. There's perhaps no better place to do so than The Old Fashioned, which has 30 Wisconsin beers on tap and 121 different Wisconsin bottled beers. It also serves a menu of locally sourced foods that will have you thinking pure Wisconsin rather than pure hippie. Think fish-fry rather than tofu, prime rib rather than mixed greens. (Well, the place does a good job with salads, too.) If you're from Wisconsin, this may be the best cheese curds, pickled eggs, and wood-fired chicken you've ever had. If you're not, this is the perfect introduction to the state's gut-busting gustatory pleasures.
The Washington Hotel Coffee Room
Slightly off the beaten track but well worth the trek, the Washington Hotel Coffee Room offers one of the best views in town to enjoy your locally roasted, fair-trade coffee. The light-filled space is part coffee shop, part yarn store, and part café, serving sandwiches, soups, salads, and pastries. All of the bread comes from wood-fired brick ovens at The Washington Hotel on Washington Island, Wis., an island known for its wheat. As such, the namesake coffee room sells a number of other wheat-based products including a wheatberry salad, wheat dog treats, and soaps and lotions made, improbably, from wheat. Enjoy the wheaty goodness with your coffee.
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