Chef Hauck of c.1880 joins the Lowlands Group
New culinary director set to refocus cafe menus
Chef Thomas Hauck, whose finedining c.1880 served its last dinner Saturday, is joining the Lowlands Group as its culinary director.
Lowlands has eight European-style cafes — Café Hollander in five locations, N. Downer Ave., Wauwatosa, Madison, Mequon and Brookfield; Café Benelux in the Third Ward, Café Centraal in Bay View and Café Bavaria in Wauwatosa.
They’re mostly a nod to Belgium and the other Lowland countries, reflected in extensive beer lists, except for the German-inflected Cafe Bavaria.
Dan Herwig, the group’s director of brand and marketing, acknowledged that the group wants to improve the food it serves for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
With Hauck as culinary director, the group is gaining a chef who was a perennial semifinalist for a James Beard Foundation award and whose c.1880 yearly was among the very top restaurants in the Journal Sentinel’s Top 30 list.
“I think it’s really exciting,” Hauck said of his new position with Lowlands. “Good food is good food, no matter how you look at it,” he said, whether it’s a $2 roadside taco or a three-figure dinner at the French Laundry.
C.1880 opened in 2012 at 1100 S. 1st St.
as Walker’s Point was enjoying the early phase of its current boom.
The number of restaurants in the neighborhood and the city has multiplied since then; Hauck cited the saturation of restaurants and the financial hardships caused by the closing of his other restaurant, Karl Ratzsch, for his decision to close Circa.
Hauck will join Lowlands in late May; it likely will be fall before customers see changes to the menus, Herwig said.
Although Hauck said his role will be to elevate the food, he added, “Don’t get me wrong, we’re not going to start deconstructing food,” referring to one of the characteristics of fine dining.
Instead, he said, he wants to instill the same precision and accuracy in food preparation at the casual restaurants and to focus the menu on the core of what the group does, convey a European-style cafe.
Although Hauck will oversee the direction of the menus at all eight restaurants, each restaurant has its own chef, with whom Hauck will collaborate.
Herwig said the group found Hauck appealing for the role for a number of reasons, noting that the chef had worked in Europe and knows the Milwaukee market, as well.
With Hauck’s classical background, Herwig said, the new culinary director will be able to take simple ingredients and make the most of them for the group’s menus.
Hauck’s research for upcoming menus will include a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands in September. Lowlands yearly sends a group of 20 of its employees to Europe for education of food and beer that they can use on the job when they return, Herwig said.