Calumet

TONI'S COUNTRY KITCHEN & BAKERY (906) 337-0611 - Honors for best Keweenaw pasty are usually given to Toni's, in a small, newish building around the corner from Hecla, the main downtown street, and a block west of Daniell Park. Toni's is a very popular spot, smoke-free, with a full breakfast and lunch menu and a huge carryout business. Low prices keep local regulars coming back. Eric Frimodig, the baker, has owned Toni's since 1982 but kept the name of a previous owner, Antoinette Coppo. His ethnic specialties pass the local ethnic test as elucidated by food writer Calvin Trillin, who says that the best ethnic food is in areas where an ethnic group has enough numbers to elect a city council representative. Toni's cookies and other baked goods meet the standards of customers who grew up with their mother's povitica (“PO-vuh-TEET-suh,” a rich walnut-cinnamon dessert bread from Croatia and Slovenia, rolled up like a jelly roll) or nisu (“NEE-soo,” a cardamom-flavored sweet bread from Finland that Eric fills with raspberry or blueberry cream cheese) or rieska (“ree-UH-skuh,” a biscuit-like flat bread, or saffron bread. These breads can be shipped, unlike Toni's pasties. Breakfast is served all day; it comes with a choice of saffron bread, cinnamon bread, oat bread, or white bread. The cinnamon bread makes a really rich French toast. Saffron costs $350 a pound, but a pound lasts for 60 batches of bread at 15 loaves a batch. The one-pound pasty ($3 to go, $3.25 eat in) is made with coarse-ground chuck and rutabagas plus the usual potatoes and onions. Homemade soups are $1.75 a bowl. Sandwiches range up to $4 for the popular Reuben. Eric's father, the late Mac Frimodig, was well known as a manager of Fort Wilkins State Park and as an authority on Upper Peninsula history and culture, though he would wince at being called an authority. Mac's notecards of sauna scenes with Finnish/English sayings are for sale here. No credit cards. Out-of-town checks OK. - 79 Third St. next to post office on north end of downtown Laurium. From U.S. 41 one long block north of the Keweenaw Tourism office, turn east onto Third. Open year-round except closed from around Dec. 20 to Jan. 20. From June through Oct: Mon-Sat 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Mondays at other times. Wheelchair-accessible. Family-friendly. No alcohol.

 

IRISH TIMES (906) 337-3977 - The buzz in Copper Country is about the Irish pub and restaurant in downtown Laurium, where Shawn's used to be. It has good food, a wide-ranging menu, and affordable prices - a lot like the late, lamented Hut. And it's actually Irish, not just capitalizing on the Celtic trend. Cormac Ronan, co-owner with his wife, Lisa, immigrated from Dublin for training in the hospitality industry. There he met Lisa, who wanted to move back to the Keweenaw. He's been in food service at MTU, and now he's taking on this challenge as well. Lots of mainstream American favorites are here - hamburgers, fresh lake trout and whitefish ($10.50 as a dinner entrée with starch and salad), salmon, grilled Parmesan chicken breast on fettucine, homemade soups - but the Irish dishes have been selling the best. There's “Irish sausage” - deep-fried pork sausage with housemade French fries and cole slaw - for $7.50, and cottage pie - ground beef in a rich seasoned gravy with carrots and peas, topped with a mashed potato crust. Most surprising is customer reaction to the Irish mixed grill, on the menu because Cormac likes it: bacon, sausage, black and white pudding (the black is blood pudding, the white a pork sausage with breading), plus fried bread (the Irish fry it in grease left over from cooking the bacon and sausage - but Cormac uses butter). “People love it,” Cormac says, and they even eat the blood pudding. Beers on tap are Harp Lager, Guiness Stout, and Smithwicks Irish Ale, a red ale made by Guiness. Live Irish music, often the area band Fiddlehead, plays occasionally on weekends, starting around 6:30. Call. There's room for a dance floor in the banquet room, but cleaning that up is a future project. Incidentally, the restaurant has a terrazzo floor is because it goes back to around 1900; it burned in a 1947 fire but the floor remains. So does the tin ceiling in the banquet room. - 333 Hecla. Open for lunch and dinner on Saturday (11 to 10) and Sunday (11-10). Otherwise open Mon-Thurs 4-9, Fri 4-10. Wheelchair accessible. Family friendly; children's menu. Full bar.