Cafe Mir — Restaurant in Fertile

Cute little place on the outside. Inside was nothing special. Kinda plain. Hostess was super nice and asked if we had reservations.. I'm was like..."oh no..we need reservations?" The hostess assured us it was not a problem and gave us a booth seat along with some menus.

We were told the menu changes every week since the chef uses organic and local ingredients.

Our hostess also mentioned that there was an "off the menu special." Wood fired roasted Duck confit with a fersh organic side salad. $55.00

There was plenty to choose from on the menu. From homemade lasagna to grilled skirt stake with fresh green beans.

Pan seared wild caught Alaskan sockeye salmon with caper dijon aioli, cherry tomatoes shishito peppers, roasted red peppers, mustard greens and sesame seeds. $26

We started off on an appetizer of fresh sour dough bread with house-marinated Sicilian olives. $5 for bread and olive oil and $5 for olives. The bread was soft and very tasty. The olives were amazing.

We then decided on wood fired pizzas.

Caramelized onion, garlic, gruyere cheese, fontana, parmeasen and arugula on top. $14.

And.....a Cinque Formagge 5 cheese pizza with pomodoro sauce. $13

It took about 15 minutes and our pizza arrived. They were hot and fresh..... and tasted amazing! Thin, wood fired crust with just the right amount of sauce an cheese. I'm not a fan of arugula, but this was really good organic arugula that tasted fresh.

Once we finished our meal we ended up taking a whole pizza home since we didn't realize how big the pizzas would be.

My brother went to pay and I noticed 2 men who were sitting behind us ordered the skirt steak and duck. I asked if I could take pictures of their food. I know that's weird, but thier meal looked amazing..

One of the guys was from Seattle and the other was from Minneapolis. Super nice guys. They were kind enough to let me take photos. Lol... The guys told me I needed to give 5 stars to this place since they said their food was... hands down the best food they've had in a long time.

I was planning to give 5 stars for...

This a local gem. The food is really good. I've been here a few times over the years. Ownership has changed recently but the taste and quality of food haven't. The one item I didn't care for in terms of the presentation was the "pizza" we ordered for our kids.. they looked more like bread sticks.

With that out of the way.. this is really a gem. I usually don't order pork chops. They all tend to be the same. Kind of bland and dry and desperately in need of a sauce. Not here. Their pork chop is especially fatty and the way they cook it, almost burning the outside, leaves the actual pork chop almost melting in your mouth. But remember.. it is fatty.

Same with steak.. I usually don't order steaks but their rare steak is perfectly cooked.

If you end up there on taco Tuesdays, any of the tacos is just very well made and assembled. I loved their chicken, mushroom, beef and fish tacos in that order.

One thing about ambience: if you end up in the back room with an idyllic view of the river and a small footbridge.. be ready for some really loud volumes of sound. No one has to yell . The room is too small and often there are about 22-27 people in there having 22-100 conversations trying to be heard over the ever increasing sounds of voices. My wife measured 85dB yesterday on her phone. They should do something about that.. perhaps change the wall treatments to absorb more sound.

They have a small cocktail menu.. the Fertile Fizz is a favorite of mine, refreshing on a summer afternoon. Margarita is pretty good as well. They also have a good beer and wine selection.

Be sure to make a...

The food was incredible here, the sauces & oils were definitely cracked. Like...actual crack. So glad we have this place here in Iowa. Food was and IS top-tier. I would like to add, there should be some type of etiquette signage to please be considerate of others and the noise level in the small room. We had reservations, and the room was full of other people. There was a group at a full table that were clearly making up the majority of the noise in the room, like yelling-shouting level of talking. Clearly the other people in the room were annoyed that this party of people were being exceedingly louder than most parties I've ever witnessed, which made our experience incredibly frustrating considering I was sitting inches from the loudest man that wouldn't stop cussing and shouting at his highest decibel. I just wish a waiter would have politely asked the table to tone down and be considerate of the other people in the room! Even the lady across from me made a comment about the noisy table. Anyway, I know this is NOT the restuarants fault, and does not change the quality of the food! Just got unlucky with the group of people behind me that gave all of us in the room a throbbing headache after...