Regional food is the star at L'Etoile

''Back then," Piper said, ''fine dining was defined as how exotic" the food was.

Piper was excited by the agricultural wealth of south-central Wisconsin and the abundance of family farms. She set about designing a menu she calls ''regionally reliant" -- that is, nearly all the meat, freshwater fish, poultry, dairy products, and produce come from local farms, including cellared root crops and greens harvested from solar ''hoop houses" through the winter.

Piper also brings in fish from the North Atlantic and Alaska and other products not native to the area, such as Meyer lemons from California. To the whole, she adds a French influence, calling French the ''mother tongue" of cuisine. She notes that Madison is on the same latitude as Normandy, and that growing cycles for many fruits, vegetables, and dairy products are similar.

Piper and L'Etoile have been widely recognized. Gourmet magazine named the restaurant one of the nation's top 50 in 2001, and it consistently ranks among the most popular dining rooms in regional polls.

Piper was honored by the James Beard Foundation as Best Chef/Midwest in 2001 and was a 2004 nominee for outstanding chef.

L'Etoile's menu is a veritable Russian novel of names, listing the producers of each item. For example, one entre is frittered polenta with Heck's sweet corn, Creekside sun gold tomatoes, and Garden To Be basil shoots. Several artisan cheeses are offered, produced by local cheesemakers such as Carr Valley, Uplands, and Hooks. And if you were to visit the farmers' market on a Saturday morning, you would see many of these names -- and perhaps Piper herself, shopping for the restaurant.

Piper has assembled a staff that shares her passion for food and the land. The chef de cuisine, Tory Miller, told us he not only closes and opens the restaurant but also might very well spend his day off visiting local farms; he considers the farmers who supply the restaurant his friends. Miller spent seven years cooking in New York and said moving to Madison was the best decision he ever made.