The phrase “farm-to-table dining” evokes many images: steaming platters of bacon and greens, freshly collected eggs and milk, and cozy restaurants bursting with small-town Americana. The reality isn’t far off.
Several locations in Iowa use locally-sourced ingredients on their menus. Iowa City and Cedar Rapids are no different, surrounded by some of the most fertile land in the country and countless local farms that provide an immense range of products.
Cobble Hill restaurant in Cedar Rapids, for example, aims to source a majority of its ingredients from local vendors. Andy Schumacher, Cobble Hill’s executive chef and co-owner, estimates that around 70-80% of its menus are created with local ingredients, depending on the time of year.
“We obviously still get seafood and oysters and certain ingredients that aren’t going to be [local], but we really cultivated a really strong relationship with some growers,” Mr. Schumacher said. “From a chef’s perspective, using the local produce is very dynamic in terms of what you can get and how much you can get and when it’s available. And so we’ll do a lot of pivoting and a lot of swapping things out and adjusting the ingredients or adjusting dishes.”
Watermill Kitchen + Bar in Coralville sources half chickens and honey from West Fork Farmstead in West Chester, Iowa. Located within the Hyatt Regency Coralville Hotel, the restaurant largely features classic American cuisine, and hosted its grand opening on April 10.
“We supply as much locally as we can, but then the items that we can’t produce locally, we still get regionally from the Midwest,” said Matt Hill, Watermill’s food and beverage director.
Mr. Hill estimated that around 10-15% of Watermill’s current menu is made with locally sourced ingredients, though it will continue to vary by season.
Farmer Natasha Wilson said West Fork Farmstead works with businesses in the corridor to provide pasture-raised meat, fresh eggs, and honey, which it also supplies to local families and food pantries. The farm is in its fifth season selling directly to consumers.
“We’ve focused a lot marketing-wise on reaching out direct to consumers around us,” Ms. Wilson said. “I think those relationships are really special, certainly for us. You know, they’re beneficial, and they help us get our name out into the world, and people get to try our products prepared by somebody who’s very skilled at it.”
Ms. Wilson said when the farm finds people who are invested in buying local food, and able to make it work as part of their menu, they are grateful for those relationships. She said it takes extra effort to buy locally versus from a large regional distributor.
“I think it seems like when we talk to restaurants and businesses that there’s a lot of attention on local food and people want to know where the food comes from. People expressed to us that can be an attractive tool for them,” Ms. Wilson said.
Like Watermill and Cobble Hill, the head chef and co-owner of The Webster in downtown Iowa City, Sam Gelman, also emphasized the seasonality of working with local farms and producers. For example, the restaurant just switched from the last of its apple-based jam — the apples being sourced from Wilson’s Orchard — to a rhubarb jam, which aligns more with the early summer season.
Typically, Mr. Gelman said, The Webster sources different categories of ingredients from different farmers. Certain items, like duck eggs or whole animals, come from specific individuals that Mr. Gelman works with on a regular basis, or from auctions.
“Since we’ve been open, we’ve been working to establish these relationships, and then working with our farms and farmers about the quantities that we go through,” Mr. Gelman said. “I can’t use too many farms, because it’s very seasonal. So when one person has one thing, a lot of different people have it. So I just try to stick with those few farms and then work with the products they have throughout the season.”
Though the Webster does not advertise as a “farm-to-table” restaurant, it still relies heavily on local producers for its evolving menus, which are printed new every day. For Mr. Gelman, it all comes down to quality.
“When the product is being harvested closer to you, and you’re getting it faster and fresher, then the quality of the product is better,” Mr. Gelman said. “And if we can support local farmers at the same time and doing that, then that’s just an added bonus for us.”
