French Hen's creole biscuits and gravy: 50 Favorite Dishes, no. 41

Ashley Quinn

A hearty breakfast made with heart

As a countdown to the Best of the Twin Cities 2013, coming April 17, the Hot Dish is serving up 50 of our favorite local dishes.

While this St. Paul cafe is decidedly a Francophone venture, serving simple and generous salad Nicoise, croque monsieur, and fruit and berry crepes, French Hen's menu also extends into the American south, where the biscuits are buttery and Creole culture is alive and well. For a humble dish like biscuits and gravy, there are actually a lot of elements at play, which means a lot of chances for things to go awry. Biscuits can be undercooked and thickly doughy, or too dry and lacking that tender quality one expects from anything made with such a crazy amount of butter. The gravy can go lumpy, break up, be oversalted -- or worse, totally bland. But when everything comes together, savory breakfast magic happens. That's precisely the experience we had with French Hen's Creole biscuits and gravy.