Across the area, chefs on the move

Chef Jonna Froelich has left I.d. restaurant in Delafield to join an organic cafe and grocer in East Troy.

May 13 was Froelich’s last day at I.d., 415 Genesee St., in the Delafield Hotel.

Froelich said she would work with the East Troy breakfast and lunch cafe 2894 on Main to expand its offerings and to develop concepts on the square downtown.

Froelich, who lives in East Troy, said she wanted “to be of service for the community I live in and try to have a positive impact here.”

Froelich, who joined the Delafield Hotel in late 2012 when its finedining restaurant was called Andrew’s, led the restaurant onto the Journal Sentinel’s Top 30 list for the first time in 2013 and kept it in the top 10 every year afterward.

In 2016, she oversaw the restaurant’s change to I.d., a more casual restaurant that included shareable plates and menu items prepared in a wood-fired oven.

The Delafield restaurant was seeking a new chef, Froelich said.

At casino and hotel

Potawatomi Casino & Hotel has a new executive chef to oversee the property’s seven restaurants: Mike Christensen, who has more than 25 years of experience and is a member of the Lac du Flambeau band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

Christensen has spent the majority of his career working for casinos, most recently in Albuquerque, Potawatomi said in its announcement.

Christensen, who grew up in Chicago, lived in Lac du Flambeau for three years when he was a teen and spent summers with an aunt and uncle in Lac du Flambeau throughout his childhood.

Christensen replaces Peter Gebauer, who left in 2015 to work as executive chef for the Sendik’s grocery chain.

At the Pfister

The Pfister Hotel’s new pastry chef, Travis Martinez, might be familiar to viewers of food TV; he was a finalist in 2015 on Season 1 of the Food Network’s “Cake Wars: Christmas.”

Martinez worked as a pastry chef or baker at places including Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and Milwaukee’s Potawatomi Hotel & Casino. He most recently was pastry chef and chocolatier for JinJu Chocolates in Las Vegas.

Thai Lotus changes

Thai Lotus, which recently opened a takeout location in Riverwest, will close its restaurant on the south side after dinner Saturday; the owners are planning a restaurant and grocery store on the west side.

Thai Lotus opened in 2005 at 3800 W. National Ave.

The Thai Lotus at 1000 E. Locust Ave. in Riverwest opened two months ago, said Raphael Sivongsa, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Chinda. It still serves south side residents through delivery services; ordering can be done at thailotusmilwaukee.com.

The Sivongsas next plan to open a restaurant with table service at 3221 W. Lisbon Ave., which they are renovating.

Raphael Sivongsa said he wanted to open a store that sells the ingredients he uses at his restaurant. The west side neighborhood has mainly corner stores that don’t sell typically Asian ingredients, but residents include people of Hmong and Burmese heritage, he noted.

The area also has relatively few restaurants, he said. One business nearby is Amaranth Bakery, at 3329 W. Lisbon; Chinese restaurant Dinersland opened a few blocks away in the past year, at 1355 N. 35th St.

The Lisbon Ave. Thai Lotus might open in July.