Farmette blends sustainability with local foods and flavors
“Food is my love language,” says Katie Burdett, explaining why she founded Farmette, a sleekly stylish farm, marketplace, bakery and café, just south of downtown New Buffalo, Michigan. “I want to make the world around me more beautiful, and for me, that’s being able to blend small-scale agriculture with what I know are our customers’ favorite things.”
Burdett has long held an interest in growing food, and after graduating from Northern Illinois University and moving to Chicago, she interned at Windy City Harvest, the agricultural program at the Chicago Botanic Garden. It focuses on growing food and increasing health outcomes as well as creating employment opportunities for residents of Chicago’s West and South Side neighborhoods.
“It was an intensive experience,” says Burdett, who learned about gardening in small spaces and in containers, a skill she translated into growing vegetables on her balcony and rooftop.
After completing her apprenticeship, Burdett became the first farm manager at Big Delicious Planet, a woman-owned and -operated luxury and sustainable catering company. She also grew vegetables for Chicago restaurateur Rick Bayless, owner of such restaurants as Frontera Grill and the Michelin-starred Topolobampo and winner of seven James Beard Foundation Awards.
A yearning for a more rural life led her to Southwest Michigan, a place she knew from visiting her husband’s family, who had a home in Stevensville just a short distance from Lake Michigan. The couple relocated to the area in 2015, and Burdett worked as farm manager at Granor Farm, an organic farm in Three Oaks, for just over six years. Katie’s husband, Billy Burdett, is the farm manager at Harris Family Farm Foundation, a sustainable donation and education farm.
“Opening Farmette was a way to create an inclusive and welcoming space where our customers can trust that we’ve done the work of picking out the most sustainable foods,” Burdett says. “I wanted to give people the type of experience where they can sit here with a cup of coffee and just enjoy.”
Consider it mission accomplished. With its clean lines, open areas and large windows overlooking the gardens and patio space, Farmette is a place to tarry. Fresh produce is as close as the greenhouse and garden in back, and you can often view Burdett harvesting her salad greens and flowers and whatever is in season. She also sources produce from other small, independent farms.
The shelves in the marketplace are stocked with a large variety of goods, many of them from Michigan, including mushrooms from Harbor Country Mushrooms in nearby Galien; Koeze’s Sweet Ella Peanut Butter made in Grand Rapids; seafood dips from Big O’ Smokehouse in Caledonia; Sticky Spoon Jams from Niles; and treats from Evergreen Creamery, a goat and cow’s milk cheesemaker in Fennville. Farmette has their own brand of apple butter, cocktail cherries and tomato jam in partnership with Cellar Door Preserves in Grand Rapids.
Further afield, Burdett stocks such items as the Kelp Chili Crisp made by Barnacle Foods out of Juneau, Alaska; Bellwether Farm’s organic sheep milk yogurts from Sonoma County, California; and Coriander and Pink Peppercorn Green Olives and Spicy or Greek Herb Kalamata Olives from Kosterina Foods, a New York–based company that imports Mediterranean specialties. There’s also a wide selection of wines and other beverages.
The demand often outstrips the supply. Two bakers arrive early each morning to craft a variety of sourdough breads, such as dark German rye and a chocolate sourdough that is so addictive Burdett jokes it should come with a warning label. There is sometimes a line when Farmette opens at 8 a.m., and they often run out before the end of the day.
With Farmette, Burdett has created a community destination where sustainability, local foods and flavors, and hospitality come together in every detail. It’s exactly what she wanted.
Farmette
18439 U.S. 12
New Buffalo, MI
269.224.0229
farmettemichigan.com
Travel/food writer Jane Simon Ammeson lives on the lakeshore in Stevensville, Michigan, and is
a James Beard Foundation judge and a Taste Awards judge. She is the author of 17 books,
including Classic Restaurants of Michiana and America’s Femme Fatale: The Story of Serial
Killer Belle Gunness. Her book Lincoln Road Trip: The Back-Roads Guide to America’s
Favorite President won the Bronze Award in the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition
for Best Travel Book. Follow Jane at janeammeson.com and instagram.com/janeammeson.
