Stars align at the Diplomat
It’s Friday, happy hour. The bar at the Diplomat on Brady St. is filling up. Friends — two, four, five at a time, from 20-somethings to 60-somethings — get seats, drinks and food, and catch up.
It’s only on Fridays that chef-owner Dane Baldwin stands at a table between the bar and dining room (just off a small walk-in cookbook closet, swoon). He pulls fresh, briny oysters from a pan of ice and shucks them to order.
The lighting is mellow; the service doesn’t miss a beat; the room, with its navy blue back bar and close quarters, is cozy. “Three Coins in the Fountain” plays silently on the TV, while the music bounds from Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” to Curtis Mayfield’s “Move on up.”
The only good reason to leave would be to head to dinner when a sliding door separating the bar and dining room is rolled back at 6 p.m. A rendering of a photo is blown up to cover the door and the wall; it shows people elbow to elbow at the Brady Street Festival in the 1970s. Different decade, same love of getting together.
It can feel like all the stars align at the Diplomat, which Baldwin opened in August where the Key West-themed Bosley on Brady long stood. Baldwin’s food is deeply satisfying, even thrilling; the service is relaxed but on the mark; the dining room, which echos the bar’s navy blue and is punctuated with a wall of plants, is comfortable enough for everyday but polished enough for a special night. The restaurant has all the finesse of, well, a diplomat.
The format is shared plates but, hey, it’s not a law. If you do share, two diners to a composed plate is the best ratio, so as not to miss a key ingredient.
That was especially true of gnocchi ($10) when the little dumplings were served with pureed rutabaga and finely chopped turnip greens, a bit of caraway and shavings of Grana Padano cheese to season and a sauce made from Concord grapes, a brilliant play of fruitysweet-tart with savory.
But the Diplomat keeps a seasonal menu, and dishes will change. Fresh Concord grapes are now a memory, and butternut squash puree has taken rutabaga’s place. It’s still a good dish, but that earlier version was downright magical.
Baldwin said at the outset, when the restaurant was still a construction zone, that he wanted to serve American regional food. Classical technique knits the menu together, though, and diners likely will find a house-made pasta, a nice nod to this historically Italian neighborhood.
Tagliatelle ($12) might be on the menu, for instance, a nest of firmtender pasta ribbons threading a ragu of winter squash, punctuated with the nutty flavor of pumpkin seeds and earthiness of oyster mushrooms.
A food tradition closer to home, corn grits ($15) were a bed for nubs of pancetta and a soft egg, like an elegant all-day breakfast capped with snowy wisps of caveaged cheddar.
It’s a pleasure to take in the attractively arranged plates, such as the beet salad ($10) composed around mellow panna cotta-like blue cheese with sunchoke chips and bok choy in champagne vinaigrette. But it’s just as gratifying to dismantle it, dragging each component through the blue cheese.
Potato fritters ($6), crisp and golden and creamy at the center, are served with chive crème fraiche and kohlrabi slaw, more creaminess and crunch. It’s one of the plates that’s easiest to share, but servers always brought serving pieces and refreshed plates and flatware — the right way to do this style of dining.
Baldwin’s time at top steakhouses is apparent in the dish called “Meat and Potatoes” ($18 for a smaller plate, $34 for a larger portion). Slices of expertly cooked New York strip are served on potato puree and garnished with a flurry of grated cured egg yolk. It’s perfect.
Besides oysters on Fridays in the bar, I encountered just one seafood dish on the brief menu, but it was excellent. Its skin crisp as a cracker, black sea bass ($18 or $34) turned hearty for late fall with shellfish cream, cremini mushrooms, turnip and Napa cabbage.
The Diplomat fries ($7) — triple-fried potato wedges served with garlicky mayonnaise — were craveably good, and so were excellent, featherlight fried pork rinds ($6), but they might be a better fit for the bar menu instead of the concise, dozen-item dinner menu.
Desserts ($7) at the Diplomat are pretty things and, like the savory dishes, they’re wellmade and delicious. Baldwin creates the sweets himself, having learned a thing or two from pastry master Kurt Fogle when both worked for the SURG group.
Lately, there were soft, silken buttermilk panna cotta with wine-poached pear, granola and sabayon, and a pumpkinpie parfait — pumpkin cream layered in a glass over sandy shortbread and beneath browned Italian meringue.
Chocolate mousse was served with caramel whipped cream, pistachio streusel and thin slices of dried orange, an inspired combination. That dreamy, intense chocolate had the density of pot de creme or cremeux rather than the typical airy quality of mousse — different form, same bliss.
The Diplomat’s chef is a veteran of Milwaukee restaurants, including Mr. B’s and Carnevor, both steakhouses. I’d had his cooking before but really had no idea what his personal style was, until now. The Diplomat lets Baldwin do his own thing, and I like it.
Side Dish, the weekly column of dining news, appears in Friday’s Tap Weekend section; see the daily Business section for more dining news. Contact Carol Deptolla at (414) 224-2841, carol. deptolla@jrn.com or on Twitter, @mkediner.