Promoted as a meeting place for the modern-day nomad, Terra Nomad has a café atmosphere that serves breakfast, brunch, and lunch. It’s the perfect place to meet up with a group of friends in a relaxed setting.
Location: Terra Nomad located at 514 East Main Avenue in downtown, Bismarck, North Dakota.
Menu: They have a smaller variety of offerings, on a one-page menu that changes weekly. Terra Nomad serves breakfast and lunch daily and brunch on Saturdays. They offer pastries and cookies as part of their bakery and coffee shop throughout the day.
Terra Nomad’s 514 Social Club serves dinner by reservation once a month as a special event.
Vegan and gluten-free options are available. One option is the chia pudding, made with organic chia and coconut milk, infused with maple syrup. Then it’s topped with fresh berries and almonds. Another vegan, gluten-free option is the lemon poppy seed pancakes. Lightly sweetened with blueberries, they have bananas, poppy seeds, and lemon zest mixed throughout them.
While the menu changes frequently, they always have scones and a variety of quiche available. Terra Nomad makes everything from scratch, based on fresh seasonal ingredients. For example, North Dakota is known for its great farms. Dairy products like milk and yogurt are local. The proteins, like bacon and beef, are also from the local farms listed on their website.
The produce was in the ground yesterday and on the menu tomorrow. During Terra Nomad’s high season, they receive deliveries twice a week. The week I was there, asparagus was in-season and at the peak of freshness. It was available in an asparagus soup and a quiche.
Thoughts: The restaurant’s name, Terra Nomad, sums up the owners, Chris Tello, and Tyler Romine, in a nutshell. Terra means of the earth, and nomad indicates their travel aspect. Both Chris and Tyler have lead nomadic lives before settling in Bismarck. The restaurant’s logo is the bison because as Chris explains, the bison is the nomad of the animal world.
Tyler, the chef, works with local farmers and lists their purveyors on their website. While their coffee and tea come from San Francisco, all of their dairy, proteins, and produce come from local Bismarck, North Dakota farms.
Terra Nomad provides casual counter service in a modern atmosphere. There are polished, painted cement floors, painted white brick walls, and a modern blond wood bookshelf that completes the minimalist décor.
They conveniently offer a daily email so that you will be in the know of their day-to-day specials.
Some of my favorite dishes include the:
- Ricky Martin latte. It’s my favorite coffee drink because the guajillo chili adds just a little spicy heat at the end. Made with ritual chocolate, brown sugar, espresso, and steamed milk, it’s a cup of comfort.
- Smoothie bowls. A well-chilled smoothie with almond milk, nut butter, bananas, and various fruits. Topped with house-made granola, sliced almonds, berries, and fresh lightly toasted coconut. The smoothie bowl eats like cereal. The smoothie stays cold in the large, white ceramic dish that holds a chill throughout the meal.
- Lemon blueberry scones. They are moist from the juicy blueberries and have a tart zip from the lemon zest. They have a decorative lemon glaze on top.
- Greek wrap. Starting with a fresh-pressed pita wrapped around a salad of greens, they add quinoa, cucumber, tomato, pickled onion, olives, feta cheese, and lemon oregano vinaigrette. Hummus made from scratch adds a creaminess to the mixture. The Greek wrap isn’t only my favorite, but a house favorite.
- Superfood chopped salad. It contains shredded Brussel sprouts and kale, sunflower seeds and flax, quinoa, with a hint of sweetness from the dried cranberries. A Dijon vinaigrette adds zip and shape to the salad. Crumbled feta cheese tops it all off.
Price Range: Breakfast entrees range from $5 for chia pudding to $9 for the smoothie bowl. Brunch entrees range from $8 for the brunch taters to $12 for the savory pie. Lunch entrees range from $9 for a chopped salad to $10 for a Greek wrap. Beverages range from $2.5 for the coffee of the day to $10.5 for a festive mimosa — lunch for two runs about $30 including taxes and gratuities.
Disclosure: The Bismarck Convention and Visitor’s Bureau hosted the author.
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