October reveals abundance at the 86-acre Blossom & Brie in North Fort Myers. Tomatoes and beans prosper in the garden while red wattle hogs root for acorns beneath the oaks. On the back patio, a wood-burning smoker perfumes the pole barn-turned-restaurant, its metal roof gleaming above a green sweep of pasture.
As evening reservations fill the dining hall, guests look on as the farm work carries on around them. Lead animal caretaker Seliney Jacsaint scatters spent grain from Fort Myers Brewing Company for the mooing heifers. Chef Wesley Robbins traipses through garden beds, thyme and rosemary pressed to his apron, while lead grower Jn Normil plucks sun-warmed tomatoes for the night’s service. Here, the land dictates the menu—ingredients come first, recipes second.
In a region where pastures often give way to condos, Blossom & Brie restores the oft-touted farm-to-table philosophy to its roots: a lived system that’s transparent, regenerative and rooted in place. Rather than bringing the farm to the table, the restaurant brings the table to the farm, with a linen-clad dining hall set in the middle of meandering acreage. From each seat, the link between land and plate is visible—a line drawn from the house-cured bacon and roasted carrots on the plate to the surrounding fields. Nearly 80% of the produce comes from the farm, with the rest sourced from neighboring growers.
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Photography by Tina Sargeant
blossom and brie farm to table dining pavilion
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Photography by Tina Sargeant
blossom and brie farm to table dining farm cows
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Photography by Tina Sargeant
blossom and brie farm to table dining farm sheep
Florida Cracker sheep graze rotating paddocks as part of the regenerative system established by original owners Rose O’Dell and Gary King in 2013, now continued by new stewards Stacey and Rodney Poole (previous photo).
Original owners Rose O’Dell King and her husband, Gary, bought the North Fort Myers tract in 2013. Pioneers of the local slow-food movement, they transformed the coastal plainland into a working farm with longhorn cattle, Florida Cracker sheep and goats, red wattle pigs and flocks of heritage Wyandotte chickens. Rose soon added a restaurant to showcase the farm’s bounty. In 2023, after a decade at the helm, the Kings decided to step back from the demanding work and spend more time with friends and family.
Longtime customers Stacey and Rodney Poole purchased the property—a return to their childhoods spent on neighboring Illinois farms. “There’s something magical about this place,” Stacey says. “We turn down the drive and see those waves of green; it’s the most natural thing. Life everywhere.”
The Pooles renamed the property after two of the farm’s matriarchs: Blossom, a donkey-turned-livestock guardian, and a Jersey cow named Brie. With new ownership came speculation—would the property pivot toward weddings and events, or double down on its agricultural roots? Two years later, the answer is clear: Their additions have broadened the farm’s reach while keeping food at its center.
Photography by Tina Sargeant
blossom and brie farm to table dining farm fish meal
About 80% of the produce used in the restaurant is grown on-site, with most ingredients coming from nearby purveyors. Dishes such as Gulf grouper with tomato-caper salsa embody the restaurant’s restrained philosophy, letting the land speak.
Yes, they built a 150-person celebration barn, but they also doubled down on the land. The couple has introduced monthly wine dinners with equally soil-conscious guest vintners and installed a 40-foot hydroponic freight farm. The system produces steady harvests, regardless of weather— a crucial advantage in storm-prone Southwest Florida.
Inside each repurposed shipping container, crops grow on vertically stacked panels, yielding the equivalent of two acres of traditional farmland. Every seven weeks, 4,000 heads of frilly-edged lettuce emerge, ready for the kitchen’s stainless steel counters. This fall, the Pooles will debut an on-site market, giving local families a way to bring the farm home.
As they expand, the couple stays mindful of the land’s rhythms, adhering to a closed-loop ecology. All organic matter, from table scraps to compost, is returned to the land, along with wastewater from dishes and troughs. Jn and Seliney have been with the farm since 2013 and oversee a honed grazing rotation. “We wouldn’t have bought the farm unless they agreed to stay on,” says Rodney, who has a degree in agriculture from the University of Illinois. “They love this land and every single animal upon it.” The flock rotates from paddock to paddock, giving pastures time to rest and renew. The method, modeled on how wild herds migrate, keeps the soil healthy and the forage nutrient-dense.
Photography by Tina Sargeant
blossom and brie farm to table dining farm place setting
The pole barn’s open-air dining hall eliminates the buffer between kitchen and source—diners can trace the carrots, pestos and grass-fed beef on their plates to the surrounding fields. The market, opening this fall, will allow locals to stock up on the bounty.
Respect for the farm’s bounty carries into the kitchen as resourcefulness. Wesley—Stacey’s brother—develops the rotating monthly menus, drawing on his decades of experience leading kitchens in Portland, Maine, where the slow-food movement has long dominated.
On a July morning, butcher Otto Mejir runs his knife along the bone of a 300-pound hog with an easy rhythm honed since childhood. The rich, marbled red meat, the product of a life spent foraging on pasture and seasonal acorns, is a far cry from the pale pink of commercial pork. Otto’s careful strokes ensure nothing is wasted. Seliney rubs the hind legs with salt and sugar before putting them to rest in the curing room, where they’ll become fat hams. Meanwhile, Wesley kneads a bowl of the pig’s ground shoulder with sage and pepper for the housemade cavatelli with Italian sausage. The chef carries the whole-animal approach across the menu: When beef strip loins are gone, he converts the leftover cuts into smash burger sliders.
Later that evening, the philosophy unfolds in the screened-in dining hall, where reclaimed wood tables set with troughs of wildflowers seat up to 100 for dinner (capacity expands to 150 for brunch, when tables spill out onto an exterior patio). The breeze rustles through the oak trees as plates glide out of the kitchen: sourdough with honey butter for every table, grass-fed beef Bourguignon in braising liquid made from the animal’s bones, local grouper paired simply with garden squash and herb pesto, Otto’s pork shanks tucked into butterhead lettuce leaves with tomato-caper salsa. The experience falls somewhere between rustic farmstead and fine dining—white linens meet open air, with food that’s rooted and refined.
The harvest moon rises as dinner service continues. The last guests walking the dirt path to the restaurant pause as Jn calls the hens to their coop: farm-to-table made visible.
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Photography by Tina Sargeant
blossom and brie farm to table dining farm brian wesley
Last year, the Pooles installed a hydroponic freight farm, where 4,000 heads of butterhead lettuce grow in vertical rows every seven weeks—ready to be prepped and plated by chef Wesley Robbins, Stacey’s brother (pictured).
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Photography by Tina Sargeant
blossom and brie farm to table dining salad