Editor’s note: Below is the Thursday, Feb. 26 edition of the Food & Culture newsletter. Our $20 Dining series, this week featuring Mishqui Peruvian Bistro, is exclusive to newsletter subscribers. If you want to receive the newsletter in your email inbox every Thursday (it’s free!), subscribe at captimes.com/newsletters.
Repping Wisconsin with cheese and charisma
By Lindsay Christians, food and culture editor
My first day on “set” at “Top Chef Wisconsin” was drippy hot, the kind of humid late summer day that wilts everything and everyone. One group at a time, PAs ushered attendees of the Top Chef Cheese Festival into the backyard of a wedding barn in Oconomowoc, where sweaty cheftestants labored over flat-tops and fryers.
When I spotted Dan Jacobs — co-owner of EsterEv and DanDan in Milwaukee — I might have squealed? I was definitely not chill. This was the first time in “Top Chef” history that a chef actively working in Wisconsin had ever been on the acclaimed Bravo culinary competition. His life hadn’t changed yet, but it was about to.
EsterEv chef and co-owner Dan Jacobs made parsnip cake with pasnip cremeaux at Cooking with the Cap Times.
Last night, we hosted Dan at Cooking with the Cap Times, and it was an absolute delight. He talked about his upcoming appearance on “Tournament of Champions” (Hulu, March 2), confirmed my theory that sponsored salt throws off seasoning on “Top Chef,” and gave a behind-the-scenes peek into what it’s like to cook for your life in 30-minute televised sprints.
While you watch Dan compete, maybe let someone else cook? Ashley’s profile of Lovely’s Take Home Chef offers a brilliant alternative to Blue Apron, with dishes designed for easy reheating. This couple’s local farm focus is impressive during our long winters, when nothing grows outside of greenhouses.
The cast of “Shamilton,” an improvised hip-hop musical.
This weekend, find me at “Sandra,” Two Crows Theatre’s production of a one-woman playing starring APT actor Colleen Madden. (Fun fact: Madden was scheduled to make her Broadway debut in 2020 before the pandemic shut shows down.) Saturday I’m making time for spontaneous comedy at Overture’s Fringe Festival, namely “Shamilton,” an improvised show about a random character — Dolly Parton, Kim Kardashian — with songs inspired by the hit Broadway musical.
Cheers, friends, have a great weekend! — Lindsay
PS My beloved friend Maureen’s birthday is tomorrow, so I stopped by Hatch Art House for some Maebel earrings. Shop local!
PPS Next Wednesday is the Wisconsin Film Fest preview. It’s cinema Christmas! For first dibs on film tickets, check out the First Look event at Flix Brewhouse.
What we’re reading
Pam Zhang’s “The Land of Milk and Honey” is a novel for people who love food-centric films, like “Babette’s Feast” or “Big Night.” Set in a vaguely post-apocalyptic future, a young chef escapes the smog and gray flour of daily survival to take a job at a compound on an isolated mountain, where everything and anything is available to a select few. I loved the saturated descriptions of food and drink in Zhang’s story. Luxury makes me uncomfortable, and this author knows exactly why.
Jane, 17, has begun to recognize the remote Montana cabin where she lives with her father as a kind of prison at the opening of “What Kind of Paradise” by Janelle Brown. When Jane becomes an unwitting accomplice to her dad’s radical acts, the book expands as her world does. Set amid the tech scene in San Francisco in the 1990s, this novel is dynamic and expertly crafted.
“The word ‘affair’ had the ring of obsolescence, like a cigarette or an adman or a chaise lounge,” Erin Somers writes in her new novel, “The Ten Year Affair.” Cora and Sam meet in the back of a bougie baby store in upstate New York, where both have decamped from the city to raise their young families. They’re married to other people, working jobs that don’t inspire them, and susceptible to infidelity, even just in fantasy. I love Somers’ wit and humor as lines blur between what’s real and what’s not. — Lindsay
The Ohio Tavern at 224 Ohio Ave. intends to reopen in mid- to late March with four new owners.
Restaurant news
The Ohio Tavern will reopen in mid- to late March under new ownership. Mike McDonald, one of the partners, told me their version of the bar will lean toward tequila and mezcal, draft and batched cocktails, and things regulars already love, namely nachos and karaoke. (My former editor and friend Jason Joyce lives in the neighborhood, and notes this former dive bar is not “iconic.” But it is kind of historic! The Ohio Avenue Tavern opened here in 1933.)
Sofra Family Bistro, an American restaurant with Albanian specials, has announced that it will close on March 1 after 35 years in Middleton.
Pink Heifer BBQ Saloon, a quick service barbecue spot, is now in “super soft open mode” at 567 State St., the same development as Colectivo Coffee and Raising Cane’s. The official grand opening is set for March 3. According to a State Journal story, the original Pink Heifer is in Monticello, and this one will serve “Texas-style brisket, chicken, pork … (an) elaborate Southwest salad and mac ‘n’ cheese.”
A new upscale Mexican restaurant from the founders of RED and Jacknife is in the works for the Estrellon space at 313 W. Johnson St. Plans filed with the city describe a tequila and mezcal program, fresh tortillas made in house (“in the dining room”) and “elevated takes on classics like fajitas, tacos and guacamole.” Owner Tanya Zhykharevich said her team is “still very much in the development phase” and is not ready to share more details publicly yet. The city filing shows a proposed opening date of Aug. 1.
Recent obsessions
Drinking: The hot toddy ($11) gets a glow up at The Coopers Tavern, where Irish whiskey, port wine and honey are set off by a squeeze of lemon, a cinnamon stick and orange peel.
Reading: A shady west coast couple has been hiring surrogates to build a massive “family” — more like a baby farm — of 24 kids and counting. Ava Kofman’s daring investigative piece, “The Babies Kept in a Mysterious Los Angeles Mansion” from The New Yorker, raises thorny questions about the oversight of surrogacy.
Grand aioli at Cassis in Milwaukee
Listening to: “Stuff Yer Face,” a food-focused series hosted by Emily Tucker on WORT. (Recent guest Matt Rodbard, editor of Taste, gave CT’s own Ashley Rodriguez a shout-out.) Also The Floozies live sets, which combine funk, reggae and Grateful Dead-style jamming with electro beats. Catch them at The Sylvee on March 7.
Dining out: Cassis, a classic French bistro near the Milwaukee Public Market, has polish and poise just a few weeks after opening. When we posted up at the bar on a Friday, service was stellar and the food was even better.
Of note: a fines herbes martini, ice cold and smooth as anything; a deeply rich and creamy white bean soup with crusty sourdough croutons; silky scallop crudo with oro blanco grapefruit and drizzles of herb oil; a grand aioli platter with beauty heart radishes and carrots. The veggies were such a gift in the middle of winter. Steelhead trout, poached and filleted open like a book, came soaked in a caper lemon butter sauce that reminded me of a delicate, fish-centric chicken piccata. Chef Kyle Knall’s new spot feels like a sister restaurant to Sardine in the best way. — Lindsay
Chaufa de pollo at Mishqui Peruvian Bistro is part of an excellent $20 lunch deal. In $20 Dining, exclusive to this week’s newsletter, Ashley Rodriguez writes about chifa, the Cantonese-influenced food of Peru, through the empanadas, tres leches cake and chaufa at this downtown Madison restaurant.
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