#thepreachersson

A must-do experience: Sunday brunch at The Preacher’s Son in Bentonville. Items on the brunch menu, prepared by Executive Chef Matt Cooper, are sourced directly from local farms featuring the season’s bounty and farm fresh ingredients.

Brunch at The Preacher’s Son is our New Fall Obsession

Fall is a bounty in Northwest Arkansas. Just stroll through any of our beloved farmers markets to see all the harvest brings to us this time of year. As our gorgeous Ozark surroundings change into the most beautiful colors and the weather becomes cooler, we find ourselves looking for more and more ways to enjoy comfort food and comfortable surroundings, particularly on the weekends. When we realized we could combine that beauty and bounty with brunch, we were elated. Enter our current obsession: Sunday brunch at The Preacher’s Son. 

Popular brunch items on The Preacher’s Son menu, the Frittata of the Day and Bloody Mary, which features J. Rieger & Co. Vodka, house-made bloody Mary mix and pickled okra, on the patio.

On The Preacher’s Son menu at all times of day, you can expect to see a narrow focus to local and sustainable ingredients on the fall menu sourced from local farms and featuring ingredients that they are growing at the time. Executive Chef Matt Cooper is partial to the the fall flavors and hearty spiced dishes that come from fall like heirloom squashes. Little known fact: Autumn is actually his favorite time of year, too!

"Our new brunch will give you everything you love about the sustainability and seasonality of The Preacher's Son while offering traditional brunch options and some menu items which may take you by surprise." - Executive Chef Matt Cooper, The Preacher’s Son

(Above) The Preacher's Son Mimosa with grapefruit juice and house-made pastries. (Below) One of the most popular items on the brunch menu, Chef Cooper’s blueberry-cured salmon lox with house ricotta, pickled onion and grilled bread.

The Preacher’s Son rooftop (weather permitting) is open during Sunday brunch hours for mimosas, Bloody Marys and more. (Try the house-made turmeric and oat milk horchata for an alcohol-free concoction.)

All of Ropeswing Restaurant Group’s Bentonville restaurants (The Preacher’s Son, Pressroom, Louise and The Holler) are designed to be unique, inviting places for community and food. The patio and rooftop (above) will be open until frost sets in (but don’t worry, if the weather doesn’t permit dining on the rooftop, you can settle in to an equally inviting spot inside the restored church setting in The Preacher’s Son’s main dining room). Don’t miss this perfect opportunity to enjoy the season’s local bounty and Sunday brunch featuring the freshest farm fare!

Executive Chef Matthew Cooper of The Preacher’s Son (201 NW A Street, Bentonville, AR) believes that if you see a farmer, you should shake his hand. “Without farmers there is no food,” he says.

Matthew’s partnership with local farm Rios Family Farms (1407 Roller Lane, Rogers, AR) plays a huge influence on the menu he creates at The Preacher’s Son. His menu is designed to allow the farm’s hyper-seasonal ingredients like their six varieties of heirloom tomatoes, spicy mustard greens or flame beets, to showcase themselves.

“Raphael Rios and his father, Hector are amazing,” says Matthew.  “Their sister Christina (pictured) and brothers help run the farm and their brother owns the land. I can’t say enough about that family and what they mean to me and my family.”

“The relationship between consumer and farm is so important, especially in a restaurant,” says Matthew. “It’s our responsibility as chefs to provide people with the tools and information to see how food can relate with being as close to the source as possible.”

One of Matthew’s favorite summertime recipes to make at home is bruschetta. At the restaurant, he serves a more refined tomato appetizer with Rios’ colorful heirloom tomatoes and The Preacher’s Son’s delicious housemade ricotta. 

At home, Matthew uses the following simple steps to create a light healthy appetizer or seasonal side dish for his family:

Ingredients

Bunch of heirloom tomatoes (Rios Family Farm grew speckled Roman tomatoes, heirloom cherries, black crimson and yoders this year)

Sea salt

Extra virgin olive oil

Red wine vinegar

Baguette (Matthew uses a gluten-free bread)

Quality whole milk ricotta

Cut the tomatoes into large pieces. Toss with a little bit of sea salt, the olive oil and a touch of red wine vinegar to bring the acidity up. Brush bread with olive oil and toast in a pan or on the grill. Spread bread with ricotta and serve tomato mixture on top. Enjoy!

Matthew’s menu at The Preacher’s Son  is rustic and traditional, keeping true to his roots in the South as well as the Pacific Northwest. His celiac condition has enabled him to passionately and creatively cook gluten-friendly. 

The menu at  The Preacher’s Son goes through what chefs are calling hyper-seasonal changes, so you see the menu features evolve constantly throughout the year. “This allows people to see things they want, with small variations. It also allows us to adapt to the hyper-seasonality of what’s happening in our region and at Rios Family Farm.” 

The Preacher’s Son, in downtown Bentonville, is housed inside a converted church featuring breathtaking stained glass art work by Fayetteville artist George Dombek.