Ristorante Lago.
Restaurant’s focus is upscale, in switch from Golden Anchor
The Maple Ave. restaurant overlooking Pewaukee Lake has had a few incarnations in the past decade.
Golden Anchor, Dylon’s Steakhouse, then the Golden Anchor again. It was reborn in October as Ristorante Lago, an upscale take on Italian dishes, and this one looks like it’ll stick.
The chef is Joe Volpe, who previously was at the French restaurant Le Rendez-vous on the Point in Okauchee. In Milwaukee in the early to mid ’00s, his name was synonymous with Tess and Holiday House. Owner Chaz Hastings hired him when the Golden Anchor’s chef left, and the new concept was launched.
At Ristorante Lago, Volpe’s focus is on Italian flavors, woven into pastas and other main dishes. It has a little of a swingin’ retro vibe, with crooners like Nat King Cole and Etta James playing in the background. There’s been some redecorating — new light fixtures, a big poster for Rome with a midcentury look — but it has the same knotty pine paneling, the same full-on view of beautiful Pewaukee Lake. The restaurants change, but it seems this building, like Rome, is eternal.
Italian fare must be as popular as ever; the place was jumping on the Saturday night I was there. I had dishes that were pretty much perfect over several visits, but Ristorante Lago stumbled on busy Friday and Saturday nights. The walleye special one Friday was supremely fresh but undercooked. The short rib ($25) on a Saturday, apparently cooked too quickly, was dry, and carpaccio ($11) too thickly sliced.
Tried again on a more leisurely night, Lago righted the ship: The short rib main dish was tender and moist, and the carpaccio was so perfectly thin it felt like it could melt on the tongue. With arugula, red onion and fennel in lemon dressing, it hit the bulls-eye of ideal appetizers.
Bruschetta ($6.50) turned out to be another very good appetizer, against all odds. It was April; how good could the tomatoes possibly be? But the chef managed to find ones that were juicy and red, and dotted them with basil and shaved Parmesan cheese.
A couple of other appetizers toggled between not enough and too much. Meatballs made of beef, veal and pork ($9), served in a lighter, brighter tomato sauce, fell a little flat; they were wellmade but seemed underseasoned. And a dish of sauteed mussels ($11) in cream flavored with Sambuca was so sweet I wished fennel had been used instead of the liqueur for that anise flavor.
Salads are a strong suit at Ristorante Lago, bracingly fresh: peppery arugula with grape tomato, fresh fennel, gorgonzola and pine nuts in balsamic vinaigrette ($8); Caesar in white anchovy dressing ($8); roasted beet tucked in mixed greens with gorgonzola and hazelnuts with lemon ($9).
Pastas were on terra firma, too, such as the bolognese made with ground wild boar that coated penne ($18).
The simplicity of traditional spaghetti carbonara ($16) makes the dish a thing of beauty, and that’s what it was here: a velvety cloak of egg, tossed with little chunks of guanciale and grated Pecorino. The spaghetti itself, made from the chef’s recipe, is excellent. Volpe adds a little sweet white onion to the carbonara, and ground black pepper was restrained in his version, but a server was quick to offer pepper from a mill.
Lasagna ($19) is a wellconstructed dish here, verging on light, even with four layers of pasta with ricotta and mascarpone. Its meat, the blend of ground pork, veal and beef, again seemed a little underseasoned.
A braised main dish, lamb shank ($26.50) with tomato, was especially flavorful, with the brightness of gremolata’s lemon, parsley and garlic, and a briny note with olives. The dish is served with what the menu calls ricotta gnocchi, but they’re more like gnudi — ricotta contained in the thinnest of doughs.
The walleye encounter aside, other fish dishes were very good, including the large seared scallops — so naturally sweet — topped with artichoke, tomato and pistachio, and served with saffron risotto and lemon butter sauce ($24.50).
Desserts are made at the restaurant; two not to miss are the chocolate dome (mousse over cake, covered by ganache, $9) and a lemon torta ($9) that was perfect, from the tartlet’s crust to its lemon pastry cream filling to its garnish of pine nuts.
The bar will mix you what you will — an Aperol spritz or Negroni, say, or pour a barrel-aged bourbon OldFashioned — and the wine list fittingly holds a number of Italian varietals (halfprice bottle nights are a good chance to explore them).
Servers at Ristorante Lago were veterans, by and large, and looked after customers well. It’s a good night out — some pasta, Italian wine, then a satisfying dessert to cap it.