The Wolf Downtown (600 N. Broadway) is a different restaurant than it was a year ago when it opened, but still fundamentally the same. Leaning into the success that brother restaurant Uncle Wolfie’s Breakfast Tavern has had with its brunch theme, the Downtown space adopted that service model for daytime – Thursday-Monday – back in September.
There’s more, too.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
In recent weeks, The Wolf debuted a new approach to evening service – tailoring executive chef Kristen Schwab’s Southeast Asian-influenced cooking to a four-course, fixed price format. It presents an interesting challenge for Schwab, “giving me a chance to be a little bit more fluid with it and more chef focused in a nice, intimate setting,” she says, emphasizing the menu’s approachability. “I just wanted to just be inspired by the idea of having a lot of little bits of yummy foods that can be enjoyed with low pressure,” she says. Reservations for the prix fixe experience are required. Click here to make one.
For the dishes, Schwab didn’t start at square one, but leaned into The Wolf’s “original hits,” she calls them, “things that got really good feedback, but fine tuning the presentation and size so you’re not getting like crazy full by the end of it.” Some things you might see in those courses are tuna hamachi, corn fritters, and pork belly satay.
When she tried the first prix fixe menu, co-owner Whitney McAllister says it felt “almost nostalgic, like it’s coming from [Kristen’s] own kitchen.”
Walk-in diners have an option, too – a weekly rotating a la carte menu, no reservation needed. The a la carte menu “is my way to let my cooks add some of their influence without the pressure of it being like on the tasting menu,” she says.
Dinner hours: Thurs 5-9 p.m.; Fri 5-9 p.m.; Sat 5-9 p.m.
Uncle Wolfie’s brunch served Thurs-Mon 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Walk-ins only.
