One of the Twin Cities’ most seasoned chefs — JD Fratzke (formerly of Bar Brigade, Saint Dinette, and the dearly missed Strip Club Meat and Fish) — is now steering the culinary ship at Artisan Plaza, a roadside food hall in Cannon Falls.
Launched about a year ago, the complex features three distinct arms: a well-stocked market/deli with takeaway sandwiches and locally sourced products such as fermented hot sauce, kale pesto, spicy Italian sausage, and CBD-infused honey; Oly’s Roadhouse, a pub that specializes in brick-oven beasts like a house-ground burger stuffed with cheese curds from Metz’s Hart-Land Creamery, pictured above; and Falls Landing, an elevated restaurant loosely inspired by the supper clubs, hunting lodges, and fish camps Fratzke grew up around living on the Wisconsin border. (Turns out Winona Ryder isn’t the area’s only hometown hero.)
Falls Landing, in particular, offers refuge from Big City Life, even if it’s less than an hour from Minneapolis. Standouts include a walleye roulade with butter beans, kale, garlic, crawfish, and wild rice stuffing; a duck breast with pinto beans, hominy, zucchini, and smoked chiles; and a 12-ounce ribeye served with whipped potatoes and a bone broth gravy. Sunday is brunch day, for which we have two words: breakfast chimichanga.
“I love making tacos here, or adding Asian flavors to the menu,” Fratzke told Minnevangelist co-founder Andrew Parks in a Food & Wine interview last spring. “But at the same time, I want to maintain the traditions of the town I’m from — a very meat-and-potatoes community that has a ton of wild game and freshwater fish. I hope our menu will help people remember the way they grew up and the love they felt from the families that prepared food for them.”
Artisan Plaza
1223 4th St. S., Cannon Falls, MN; 651-829-1138.
