Bavette La Boucherie — Restaurant in Milwaukee

I've always wanted to walk in here...so I did --ill definitely be returning to enjoy the food. Cute place with great selections. Stop in and grab some meats/cheese. Or stay and have a snack/meal.

Update: 3/16/19

Let. Me. Tell. You. How awesome this place is... how delectable it is... how friendly it is. And...its female owned (yay). Let me tell you about how I'm planning on stopping in monthly because of this one experience...im going to send literally everyone here..whether theyre looking for a recommendation (or not).

I have been eyeing this place for over two years (I know...)...walking past it... walking in to see what's behind the counter... online surfing the menu.... but this past Friday night at 825p it happened. We walked in and received a very warm welcome when we sat down at the bar - despite the fact they were closing in a half hour... introduce Amy! Our wonderful hostess with the mostest with great conversation and awesome recommendations.

The ambiance is great here. Its clean... everything is out in the open. Modern decor... good lighting...good for dates...friends...first encounters. Its the perfect size for a restaurant.

So we sit at the bar. Peep the menus.. We get these manhattans. They were delicious. Presentation was on point. Amy comes back and inquires if were ready to order. She provides suggestions. All the suggestions.

We get: Cheese and charcuterie board. IT IS ARGUABLY THE BEST IN THE CITY. Tell me where theres better and I will debunk it. Amy told us it was and my natural skepticism kicked in... but she was right. Two crackers/breads that they make, almonds, pate, meats, cheeses, jams, mustards, peppers, olives and others...its beautiful. It's also a meal... easily could have stopped here....this and wine would have been a perfect

...but we were going all in.

The meatballs - over polenta with ricotta and pesto was also recommended... there was a lot recommended....I'm on a mission to try everything now. This was delicious. You get three meatballs, it's a good sized dish.

Then. Then the pork cheeks came out. 🤪 Sauerkraut croquette...it all paired well with the onion.... but when the said these words I was like 'yessssss' In my mind. On the plate there were three beautifully constructed peaks of.....Bone. Marrow. Butter. Shut the door.

And then she brings out our final splurge... the banh mi...with this pork sausage....that melts in your mouth like butter. Literal butter and the flavor is out of this world.

So now its after 930p.. and we have the last of our food. and Amy asks if we want another drink..and we do. And we spent the last 30 minutes of our adventure there snacking on food and talking with Amy and others about the restaurant....food... the world--while they clean up everything and break the case down. I felt completely at home. We learn all about Karen and Bill and how the restaurant operates. They apparently use to offer 'classes' to learn how to breakdown a pig...which is pretty cool... you can catch Bill doing his thing if you time it out.

Karen. Your staff is sublime. Throw them a party! Everyone we interacted with was over the top last night!

I will definitely come back. I am definitely recommending it...I'm already trying to find an excuse to expose new people to it tonight...less than 24 hours later. This is literally the longest review I have...

We REALLY wanted to love this restaurant but wow did it disappoint. We started off phenomenally with the charcuterie plate which is so worth the price. It had a great variety of meats and cheese and other pairings and presented beautifully.

We then got our sandwiches which all left something to be desired or were, quite frankly, not worth finishing. Pate: very simple, not very good. Weird dynamic of cold pate on toasted bread and VERY mustardy. We really like mustard and this was over powering. Interestingly we had pate on the charcuterie and it was much better than this. Cuban: the best of all the sandwiches but pretty standard overall. Only complaint was the bread may have been over toasted because it crumbled quite a bit when bitten into it. Fried chicken: the biggest disappointment of the day. It looks absolutely phenomenal but was unfinishable. The chicken thigh was extraordinarily greasy, so much so that the breading/fry dissolved in the grease. The chicken didn’t even seem to be seasoned and left an oily taste in the mouth. Bread was good. The sandwich had other toppings but left little to be desired after the grease and chicken ruined the sandwich. For something that supposedly had honey on it, you couldn’t even taste it. It really felt like it was missing seasoning and some other flavoring like a hot sauce.

The fries were yummy and had a beautiful crispness. Side salad wasn’t great and was poorly dressed, however the veggies were very fresh.

The new location is actually quite beautiful and we loved the table setting. It was a bummer the AC wasn’t working but didn’t detract from the experience in our opinion.

The last piece was the service. Maybe the lack of AC was getting to him but our server was almost rude. He refused to make any recommendations and seemed offended when we asked questions. The timing of the food was fine, but we could not understand his lack...

Bavette may be the first ever butchery fit for the cover of a CB2 magazine. It’s a kind of cafe where class and carnivorousness collide, where you stuff a napkin under your collar so your tie doesn’t get grease stains, where you eat french fries out of a brown paper bag and drink scotch out of a crystal Glencairn glass. It’s the kind of place that serves a corned beef tongue reuben with cheese, spicy sauerkraut, and pickled mustard seed aioli with a side of beef fat fries for 17 dollars.

When I ordered this mouthful, I fully anticipated a sandwich with an isolated spotlight on the meat. This place, at its core, is a butcher shop, and three of the four words that make up the name of this sandwich are designated solely to the description of the meat – corned, beef, tongue. I was pleased to discover how wrong I was. The beef tongue was masterful, of course (how could it not be?), but every element of the sandwich made a choice to stand out. I’ve praised sandwiches before for their ensemble-nature of blending into a unique collaborative flavor, but this one was special for its ability to complement without combining. The bread was crisp and distinctly rye, appearing in flavor waves as I chewed. The sauerkraut was almost citrusy and herbal like an alcohol and made for a perfect contrast to the rich oils of the beef fat. Even the cheese was unique enough to inform me if one bite had more or less of it than the last. It felt like every bite was a new take on the same reuben.

I finished the sandwich without noticing and began to munch on the beef fat fries. They were unexceptional next to its companion on the plate, but they made for the perfect mindless snack while I zoned out in a euphoric trance recalling the flavors I said goodbye to only 60...