You Gotta Try This: Brunch at The Norwegian in Rockford
By Mary Sisk
Rock River Current
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You Gotta Try This is the Rock River Current’s dining feature focused on signature dishes at your favorite local restaurants. Want to see one of your favorites here? Email news@rockrivercurrent.com to suggest a local staple.
Where: The Norwegian
Address: 1402 N. Main St., Rockford
Hours: 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 7:30 a.m.- to 2 p.m. Sunday and Wednesday
Previously featured: You gotta try this: Always sunny peach tea and deep blue milk tea at Tien Tea House
Owners: Mark and Emily Hurd Christensen
You have to try: The brunch menu
Why should you try it: The Norwegian offers a frequently changing menu of dishes with Norwegian influence and locally sourced ingredients, with some produce even coming from the staff’s personal gardens.
The restaurant makes it a priority to work with local farms and sources when possible, according to manager Adam Barnett.
“We do have direct relationships with a number of different farms,” Barnett said. “On days off, staff will go out and wild forage for things.”
The Benedict on the brunch menu is one of the options made nearly entirely from scratch and in-house.
“I always like to shout out the Benedict because we do, truly, everything in house,” Barnett said. “The hollandaise is made from scratch. We carve our own ham. The hog farm is a couple miles that way, and it’s processed a couple miles that way.”
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The brunch menu is offered at any hour and often stays the same, unlike the dinner menu which changes weekly.
Brunch offers simple choices like The Sarah — which comes with cage-free eggs, bacon, smashed red potatoes, country white toast and raspberry jam — and more daring options like Gravlax Smørrebrød, which is beet an dill cured gravlax with crème fraiche, greens and capers served on rye.
The most popular options include The Sarah, Pyttipanne — which is a vegan hash of fried and sweet potatoes, tofu and brussels sprouts tossed in maple cashew sauce — and the steak and egg.
Contact: thenorwegian.com; info@thenorwegian.com; 815-329-6191
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This article is by Mary Sisk. Email her at msisk@rockrivercurrent.com or follow her on Instagram at @maryrrcurrent
