For a superstar chef, Michael Stadtlander lives a very unconventional life. Instead of making headlines traversing the city and opening big-name restaurants, his genius comes from his desire to pay homage to his roots. “I grew up in North Germany, on a farm in Lubeck,” he says. “And my father and grandfather, they were milkmen. But we also raised our eggs and some other stuff. So when they came back from that work, then they were doing all the farm chores. Like, we had chicken, we grew all our grain and potatoes and so on. So that was really the influence.”
The influence resulted in Eigensinn Farm, a 1oo-acre property he and his wife Nobuyo run in Singhampton, just southwest of Collingwood. The land holds livestock, chickens, vegetables, fruits and even a budding forest, as well as a place where the Stadtlanders harvest honey from bees.
“After you become a chef, you’re a journeyman, and you travel around and you see different things. And somehow always I remember the flavours of our vegetables and stuff. And you know, and it was all very seasonal, right. So I wanted to really go back to these roots,” Stadtlander says. “And that’s how I kind of decided on the idea that I wanted to have a place where I can grow and raise and cook my own stuff, and serve it to people.”
Eigensinn Farm offers an eight-course meal crafted entirely from ingredients grown and raised on-site. The BYOB experience is seasonal, so the menus change as certain ingredients bloom. But, of course, farm-t0-table in the truest sense takes some prep time, aided by Stadtlander’s interns. “Right now I’m cooking two days in advance,” he says. “The average is like, two days before, we’re preparing. Let’s say it’s Saturday, we start cooking on Thursday. So Thursday and Friday are prep days. And then Saturday is more like getting ready and so on.”
This is the Stadtlanders’ first full summer operating the restaurant after Covid, as a result of pandemic and personal delays. “I really kind of feel like I want to get back in some kind of, not routine, but like back into cooking with the land and all that stuff. “2018 was my last project, with a group of my interns I built 12 sculptures and installations with each course, with one sculpture for one of our forests. After that, I took a sabbatical, which was in 2019. And in then 2020, we had Covid and then in 2021 my wife was in Japan, she had to look after her mother and brother and then she could not even get home for the opening. So she came home in August, and it was a very short season. So, right now, I feel like I want to start cooking again.”
Eigensinn Farms is located at 449357 10th Concession in Singhampton.