Juniper's is a charming little restaurant with great food in a scenic SE Minnesota location. Immediately alongside the Root River and the Root River Bicycle Trail, it has a stimulating outdoor setting. (Cyclists looked longingly at the food as they rolled by us.) My wife and I enjoyed delightful cocktails. I ordered Mahi-Mahi in a buerre sauce, which came with broccolini and fried wild rice. My wife ordered shrimp, which came with delicious risotto with mushrooms. Everything was cooked to a perfect degree. We shared a house salad ("the Hydro") that could not be beat for freshness and flavor. Everything deliciously prepared, the serving sizes were generous and right-sized (not just tasteless heaping mounds of food). For desert: strawberry-rhubarb pie and banana cream pie. Lanesboro is a great little town on the Root River that has made a specialty of small hotel/B&B accommodations in a beautiful valley setting, and capitalizing on the bicycle trail passing through the middle of Lanesboro. The restaurant choices are sparse, but Juniper's more than makes up for that in the quality of their food. Don't be fooled by the truncated menu you see online. This is "haute cuisine" in the countryside, people! Juniper's would be a star attraction to any large city's restaurant scene, and its "come as you are" ambiance is exactly right for a town economy based on outdoor recreation. Lanesboro and Juniper's is an easy day trip for anyone in the triangle: Twin Cities (2.25 hours)/Madison (3.5 hours)/Des Moines (3.5 hours), with many nature-based attractions along the way.

- Jon Nicholson Verified