Your top five Madison restaurants 🍽️
At dinner earlier this week — the kickoff of the Women and Food dinner series at Seven Acre,* featuring Francesca Hong — a friend posed a question I found hard to answer. What are your top five restaurants in Madison, right now?
I find this question impossibly open-ended. What time of day is it, what am I craving, how much money am I prepared to spend? Importantly, who am I with? Do they love spicy food, prefer a cocktail with dinner or lean pescatarian?
I’m happy to point people toward something great, I just need clues. My Sunday brunch recs have nothing in common with my favorite steakhouse, sandwich shop, Italian place, seafood spot and recent pizza obsession. (In order starting with brunch, that’d be Sardine/Turn Key, Tornado, Casetta/Marigold Kitchen, Osteria Papavero, Tempest/Jacknife and Molten Monkey. Personally. As of today.)
This question snapped me out of my cooking binge — I’m (happily!) drowning in local produce lately. Last weekend I made celery root and leek soup (perfect for these cooler days), my favorite late summer ratatouille tart, a kale salad with miso dressing and pistachios, and stuffed peppers with ground beef, rice and melted pesto jack cheese. I’m loading up on fresh figs, the last of summer peaches and pretty yellow doll watermelon.
Congratulations to our Old Fashioned Week winner, Honey Barrel, which used chocolate liqueur and smoked cherrywood chips for a spin on a classic. Beck’s old fashioned flight was all tasty, spirit-forward and distinct — no surprise, since Mike McDonald developed them…