Mexican steakhouse Asadero Fiesta Garibaldi in the works
Milwaukee restaurateur Valdemar Escobar says he likes to bring new concepts to Milwaukee. Now he’s nearing completion of his newest spot, Asadero Fiesta Garibaldi, describing it as a highend Mexican steakhouse.
It will open at 3086 S. 20th St., at West Oklahoma Avenue. That’s the former site of Fritz’s Pub, a family tavern with Serbian menu items and a popular Friday fish fry that closed in October 2019, after 41 years in business.
Asadero still will serve Fritz’s fish fry on Fridays — Escobar bought the recipes for it along with the building, and the newly retired Djuric family has offered to help with the fish fry for the first month when the restaurant opens, he said.
But Asadero’s main focus will be on steaks and incorporating different cooking methods and presentations — steaks on salt blocks, steaks on wooden planks. “We’re going to try to use the best cut of the meats” as well as local beef, Escobar said.
Steaks will be seasoned for 24 hours before being cooked on a chargrill, he said.
Diners will be welcomed at the table with miniature quesadillas filled with cincho queso from Escobar’s family’s cheese factory in Mexico, served with several kinds of salsa.
The menu will be fairly brief, but the restaurant will have daily specials, and it will have seafood that can be ordered in combination with steaks, as well as some pasta.
Escobar also hopes to open the restaurant for lunch, when it would serve panini, salads with organic ingredients and tacos enriched with bone marrow. “We’re going to specialize in that,” he said. “When the waiters serve you tacos, they’re going to put it right in your tacos, for that special taste.”
A display of wines from Mexico — home to the first vineyards in North America — will be one of the first things diners see when they enter the restaurant. The large bar, which eventually will seat 35 to 40, will stock a wide variety of mezcal and tequila, he said.
It will have cocktails like one with mezcal, fresh-squeezed orange juice, onion, pepper and fresh lime juice, as well as Micheladas and other drinks.
Escobar — who owns the brunch spot Fiesta Cafe at 1407 S. First. St., Fiesta Garibaldi at 821 W. Lincoln Ave., Fat Valdy’s Bar & Grill at 5108 W. Blue Mound Road, and several locations of Chicken Palace and the La Michoacana ice cream shops — prefers to open Asadero Fiesta Garibaldi once customers are allowed to dine inside.
The newest City of Milwaukee public health order says restaurants must submit a COVID-19 safety plan; if the plans are accepted by the Health Department, restaurants can operate at 100% capacity.
Asadero plans to seat customers on both floors of the building. Most seats are in the bar; Escobar plans to use both floors of the building because it has room for no more than 12 tables in dining areas, perhaps as few as six.
He also installed an open kitchen so customers can see cooks at work and removed the dropped ceilings, among other changes to the 1908 building.
In the meantime, Barbecue Asadero, a food truck, is serving takeout items such as sandwiches and ribs from its parking spot in the lot behind the restaurant, Escobar said. It’s open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday.
Asadero Fiesta Garibaldi likely will be open daily.
Contact dining critic Carol Deptolla at carol.deptolla@jrn.com or 414-2242841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter at @mkediner or Instagram at @mke_diner.