Yellow roses with curling petals, apothecary bottles, new blown-glass lights, vintage photos, a gorgeous old soda fountain bar. At Racine’s The Yellow Rose, past and present live together. Cordially, comfortably. Scott and Patrice Sebastian took over pretty much a museum piece (the place is listed on the National Register), adding another chapter to a place that’s already been a restaurant, pharmacy and soda fountain.
If you haven’t been to Racine for a while, it’s a curious curious town of simple pleasures found once you’ve trekked from the I-94 exit to the lakefront (it seems further than seven miles). Main Street threads east, passing houses of all shapes and several blocks of downtown commercial quaintness. There’s now the Racine Art Museum’s modern new building, and a block down and across the street, the 2-year-old Yellow Rose. Last spring, executive chef Scott, who also runs Sebastian’s Restaurant in Caledonia, added the first major change since creating the Rose. Concerned that the Racine spot was competing with his Caledonia restaurant – the New American menu and price range were similar, not to mention they’re separated by just six miles – he gave the Rose a better fit for its petal-and-stem name. The cuisine is loosely interpreted Southwestern, and prices are more moderate than they had been.
It’s amazing that it all works together – the quesadillas and Margaritas, abundant restored wood detail, guitars from Scott’s collection, even the sound system (Steely Dan to U2). It’s eclectic, but it feels right. The setting is so charming – restored when Helen Johnson-Leopold (of the S.C. Johnson family) ran Helen & Craig’s Bistro there – that it deserves a serving staff with more polish. Youth and inexperience detracted from two otherwise pleasant meals.
The prices are respectable – a little break from what we’re seeing increasingly in Downtown Milwaukee – and yet there’s steak and seafood to be had. The menu is à la carte, so salads and soups are extra, but a house salad (romaine and iceberg with tomato and cucumber) is $2.95. Dip a little deeper into your pocket and the reward may be greater – a mountainous toss of sliced green apple, Gorgonzola and candied pecans in romaine tossed with smoked tomato dressing ($8.95).
Soups are an of-the-day affair ($3.95). I had a roasted chicken thick with shredded meat and suffused with cumin; less than a week later, it was creamy chicken tortilla topped with crunchy blue corn strips.
If you decide to start with an appetizer instead, it ought to be crab cakes – two to a plate, patties of chunky crabmeat secured inside a golden, pan-fried crust, served with a mellow smoked tomato beurre blanc and sautéed squash slaw ($9.95). Another night, I couldn’t pass up a shrimp relleno appetizer special. The mild stuffed poblano pepper had less shrimp than I’d hoped for (I found traces of one and a half-shellfish), but no shortage of melted chihuahua cheese cohabitating with the chile’s light, crisp breading and creamy black bean/corn sauce ($8.95).
When he switched to the Southwestern menu, Sebastian left a pork shank in the mix. It was the most popular thing on the previous menu, and he figured it had to stay. Served with black bean mashed potatoes ($15.95), the shank settles squarely into the lineup alongside chicken blanco verde ($12.95) and sautéed shrimp over corn cakes ($14.95). Imagine sweet corn flapjacks not with maple syrup but large, toothsome gulf shrimp and a light-green slaw of chayote squash, bell pepper and onion ($14.95). That’s how The Rose serves shrimp.
One of the ways it serves beef is in a ball. The top sirloin’s round cut earned it the nickname “The Baseball.” And of course, what you want to do with a baseball is slice it down the middle and stuff it (with caramelized onions and chihuahua cheese). All of this works for me hypothetically. But the steak I get is cooked past my asked-for medium, so every morsel needs the tomato au jus ($15.95). And the cheese and onion are in scant supply. Too bad – it’s a good idea that falls short of its promise.
The nice thing about Southwestern food is that meat can take a hike and you won’t necessarily miss it. In the name of things “green,” The Rose has a tower of eggplant, meat-like Portobello mushroom, spinach and queso fresco in black bean sauce (comes with nutty Texmati rice), and the effect of this rich, hearty vegetarian entrée is soul-satisfying ($12.95).
When there are yellow roses in the vase next to you, you have no choice but to stay and order dessert. That’s my rule. This place makes it easy, with only a few choices or, in my opinion, just one – coconut flan with chocolate truffles dusted in cocoa. The flan tastes more of vanilla than coconut, but the intense sweetness of the custard works well with the mild, silky chocolate balls ($4.95).
The yellow roses at my table would be gone the next day, replaced by new flowers and different desserts and other diners. A living history.
The Yellow Rose, 340 Main St., Racine, 262-637-4340.
Hours: Tues-Sat 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Prices: appetizers $4.95-$9.95; soups/salads $2.95-$9.95; sandwiches $6.95-$8.95; entrées $12.95-$20.95; desserts $3.95-$5.95.
Service: young and inexperienced.
Dress: casual.
Handicap access: yes.
Nonsmoking.
Credit cards: M V A DS.
Reservations: recommended.
