Smart Order: At Bonton, you can shop the farm like a produce aisle 

After my first lunch at the Market at Bonton Farms, I took a stroll in the small organic farm behind the restaurant and learned a delicious secret: You can shop the leafy rows of organic vegetables like a produce aisle. Pick what you like as you go, then bring it back to the cafe to weigh and pay for it.

Among the world's most devoted and elaborate farm-to-table restaurants, I've never experienced anything like having a great meal with the bonus privilege of plucking the restaurant's shishitos straight from the bush, harvesting its unusual varieties of zucchini and cucumbers amid lush foliage, or discovering little lantern-shaped sweet peppers called Mad Hatters that look more like an ornamental than the sweetest, crunchiest pepper ever.

Most of Bonton's vegetables are grown using seeds from Row 7 Seed Co., a new developer and purveyor founded by Dan Barber, the Michelin three-star chef and farm-to-table pioneer at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York. At Row 7, chefs and breeders collaborate to create new varieties for maximum flavor, nutrition and pest resistance.

When I cooked my haul, the difference was noticeable. The squash, a variety called Centercut, was unusually sweet and sturdy, like a cross between a zucchini and a kabocha. I became addicted to the Mad Hatters, which turn supple and delicious grilled with just a slick of olive oil, salt and pepper.

In fact, all of the vegetables were so good, I made a habit of swinging through the farm after every visit — and soon learned that it's best to do that before Friday, when it gets picked clean for the Bonton Farms stand at the weekend Dallas Farmers Market.

Bonton’s founder, Daron Babcock, explained that the farm grows only heirloom varieties or Row 7 seeds to produce “the best food no one else is growing.” Produce like that will fetch premium prices (from 99 cents to $7 a pound) at the market and from chefs, and ultimately, help keep Bonton afloat. Don’t worry about overpicking: Bonton’s bigger, 40-acre farm a few miles away produces the bulk of its produce and eggs, along with honey and Mangalitsa pork.

And here’s another secret: You can buy a dozen of Bonton’s pastel chicken eggs ($6) out of the market’s cooler, or you can ask for your eggs “warm,” and they will be gathered for you straight from the henhouse.