Delicious food, warm and inviting atmosphere. The fried chicken was the best I'd had in ages. My…read moredaughter got the chicken wild-rice pot pie--also excellent. Husband had salmon and wild rice side. Highly recommend this gastropub!

Insula is our go-to night out spot when we come to Ely, we love it! We first visited in 2015, just…read moreafter they opened, on my first (and my husband's millionth, haha) trip to the BWCA. It was great then, and as we have visited every 1-2 years since then, it's still great! We love the food variety, the presentation, the creativity. We've always had great service, whether we come alone or with the kids we've had since 2015. Highly recommend dinner here! It gets busy in the summer, regardless of the day, so just a heads up to be prepared/flexible.

Delicious food! Amazing wait staff! Homemade soups are excellent! Friday night fish fry has so many…read morewonderful options. Best fried chicken in town! Very large portions , so come hungry!

AE here. We went on an unexpectedly busy night. Our server was quick and super nice. She took our…read moredrink order right away and our food came out really hot. (Love that!!!) Every staff member we interacted with was so nice. Our only complaint is that it is expensive. It was $80 for 2 meals and an appetizer. Overall, we will be back, just with a larger budget!

STAY Away! I know…read morewhen I read reviews, it's helpful to have lengthy descriptions of the food and atmosphere. But I'm just not willing to spend more time typing than the cooks spent cooking my food. We tried this place twice -- once for dinner and again for the breakfast buffet. Both instances, the food was barely tolerable and my entire family walked away hungry rather than continuing to eat what we ordered. The Tamarack is inexpensive but I suspect its the only way they can get people to eat there. I'm not a snooty eater -- I love Waffle House and iHop for breakfasts but even the Tamarack was able to make breakfast food unpleasant (pancakes were crusty, ham was fatty, oatmeal was nearly solid, fruit was from a can, etc. etc. Do yourself a favor and avoid. On the second day we managed to find the Vermilion Club for dinner and SuLus in Tower for breakfast...both a welcome change from the Tamarack

We ate both the breakfast and dinner buffet at this casino restaurant. The service was excellent…read more The omelet cook made one of the tastiest custom omelets we ever have had. All the entrees in the buffet were fresh, hot, and quite tasty. Only the bacon was overcooked, but a lot of people like it that way so it probably is not an issue. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Compared to the crappy expensive breakfast we had the day before at another local restaurant, for $5.95 this was a huge value! Compare that to your average mediocre-at-best chain restaurants. The dinner also was very nice with a large variety of fish, seafood, ribs, steak, chicken, etc. Everything we tried was very good including the fresh green beans. The salmon was excellent as was the catfish, the ribs were very good, the seafood was fried but of a good quality, the steak was surprisingly good, and the deserts were very very good. Nothing bad to say at all about this buffet for $11.95. The casino is just a typical smokey casino as you would find anywhere in the country.

5 stars for a good meal and a good drink We stayed at the…read moreCantiever Distillery and Hotel in Rainer MN. The little town for the mast part was closed (off season). However this place was open for business. We had thier Smash burger with fries, I had a Old Fashion with Cantilever Bourbon a vary good, Smooth Bourbon. On the Burger and staff Our server brought us water and told us that there was going to be a large crowds order going soon... do you want me to place your order right away?? We took the hint and got it in ahead of thr crowd. Trust me I tipped him well that night.

Cantilever does everything! They have a boutique hotel, distillery and restaurant altogether like a…read moreone stop shop. My friend and I first walked in here for their distillery tour. Luckily for us, we were the only one scheduled, so our guide was very flexible & was willing to accomodate to our schedule. When we got in, we had a great tour around the small facility that is their distillery. He took the time to answer any questions that we had and he was very knowledgeable about the whole process. Later, he sat us by the bar area where we got to do a tasting of the spirits. They were all very clean/strong tasting, so naturally we got food afterwards. I opted for a Flyin' Hawaiian Burger. It was a decently sized burger with a tangy twist and had ample fries. It was enough food to fill me up and soak up some alcohol before we headed out. Overall service was excellent - from our tour guide to our waiter. Everyone was really friendly & welcoming.

We stumbled upon a little place for breakfast the other day while in International Falls, called…read morethe library. Unless you know of the place, you could vary well drive right past it. Just off Hwy 11 by a rent all. The library roasts it's own coffee for starter, you walk in and it has a Library feel to it. You order at the counter and take a seat in a couple different areas , kind of like a study room. The server brought our coffee (in our case) and when the food was ready She brought it to. To start the coffee was one of the best I've had in a long time. I ordered the build your own omelet, with toast. As we were waiting for our order I noticed that the place was filling up. I commented to Nancy "we beat the rush". The place is well known in town. Good food excellent coffee. Do not drive past this place you will be sorry you missed it.

My friend and I stopped by for a quick breakfast/coffee stop…read more We were initially intrigued by the whole library concept and it's definitely a unique place for it. We found out that all these books were up for grabs and donated here for people to take for free. I really love that. I honestly wish I had more time to browse, but the books were all jumbled up (unlike an actual library) and would literally take a whole day or more to browse thru. But, it was nice to know. In terms of dining in - you first order at the counter, take a number and they bring it to your table when it's ready. The food is really quite simple. You literally get what you order - nothing fancy. I personally ordered the omelette (with sausage/mushrooms) & a side of hash browns. The omelette was literally the sausage and mushroom in between a rolled up thin egg. The hashbrown was also just a jumble of fried thinly cut potato slices. It was really made so simply and different from what I expected, but it was fair considering that it was a good price for what they offered. I also ordered the cookie dough iced coffee. They had tons of torani syrups in the back, so I definitely knew that they were using these syrups to bring out the flavor. It wasn't super authentic flavor, but was a good option for a quick coffee run.

Definitely check out the menu, they have so many options! It was very quiet here over 4th of July…read moreweekend so we didn't need a reservation. But they do take them. We ordered the ribeye dinner which comes with your choice of potato and vegetable (Excellent)! Seared scallops fettuccine with squid ink noodles (Excellent)! We were given a loaf of bread with butter before our meal. We each had soup with our dinners. My fettuccine dish was very large and was only able to eat half. Our service was great as well. Highly recommend!

I agree with previous comments about past service and food issues. But this visit was a delight!…read moreThey have a new menu and a new chef, and the food quality is significantly better. I had the fried chicken handheld, which was perfectly cooked with a delicious crunch. I could easily eat two! Highly recommend trying it.

Driving through town, we were looking for a place for lunch and maybe catch a few holes of the…read moreBritish Open. The Northern Divide is in a golf clubhouse. The atmosphere is very 'northern MN', fireplace, stone, log cabin walls,... very cozy. I chose the soup and salad lunch special. Soup was chicken and dumpling. It was robust and service nice and hot with oyster crackers. Bit salty though. The garden salad was good with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers (onions as well but a bit too many of those). Croutons were soft and would be much better if they were crispy. There were lots of sandwich choices and husband had the Club which was good and served with kettle chips. Nice lunch. Service was excellent. Beautiful views of the course from the clubhouse.

The food was excellent as was the service. Plus, we were seated so that we could watch golfers on…read morethe course.

Wings were good not great. The bartender was friendly, and fast with drinks and etabs. Small but…read moredecent environment. I've only been once, but I would go again. The burgers looked really good.

Driving through and stopped after reading Yelp reviews. Busy but worth the wait. Had the supreme…read morepizza and wings. Both were great. They don't skimp on toppings.

The view is amazing. Outdoor seating in the water or a table by the window. Nice to have a tv to…read morewatch playoff hockey at the bar but one more there would be nice as well. The food was absolutely delicious. Spring rolls were up there as among the best I've ever had. Walleye bites were enjoyable including Tartar sauce. The bibimbap was fantastic, good size, very enjoyable. Fast friendly Service was fantastic. Two Local beers on tap were great. Looking forward to a return visit!

We had excellent service from Kaitlyn. Our food was great & the menu had a nice variety. Absolutely…read morebeautiful view of the lake from both inside & the deck!!

Well maintained, super friendly owners, and fun MN themed course. Ice cream, sodas and t-shirts in…read morethe shop. Clean bathroom. We will be back!

This was about forced family fun time. We were on a weekend get away with our teenager. The course…read morewas clean and staff were nice. We laughed, we had fun, and we'd return again!