AppeThai focuses on ‘Old World’
Aveteran restaurateur this week opened a new restaurant in Brown Deer called AppeThai, featuring traditional dishes he remembers fondly from Thailand.
The restaurant, at 3900 W. Brown Deer Road in the Kildeer Court plaza, has limited hours during its soft opening. Regular hours begin Thursday.
AppeThai took over the space vacated by Habanero’s Mexican Kitchen in 2015.
The menu at AppeThai “is not street cuisines per se, but Old World,” owner Bang Tongkumbunjong said, food he remembers finding down the street in a casual restaurant or at home.
The owner previously operated BangThai Cuisine in Mequon from 2002 to 2008. Before that, he worked at the King & I starting in 1988, which is owned by family members; he also worked for a time at the Pfister, he said.
Tongkumbunjong said he tried to re-create in his restaurant the soul of a neighborhood restaurant, where diners might sit on benches or stools in a space that’s trimmed in wood and metal and playing traditional music — music that his dad would have enjoyed, he said.
“I bring those memories back and relive my childhood,” Tongkumbunjong said.
Some of the dishes he’s preparing include skewered marinated pork, an appetizer served with sticky rice ($7 for four skewers). “It’s a comfort food” that can be found on any street corner in Thailand, he said.
He also takes traditional larb and forms the chopped meat into balls and fries them for an appetizer ($8).
One of the main dishes is braised beef brisket ($17) served with a chile, garlic and lemon dipping sauce. His family called the dish coffin beef because the restaurant was next to a casket store; if anyone said “coffin beef,” everyone would know which restaurant they were talking about, Tongkumbunjong recounted.
AppeThai serves beer and wine; Tongkumbunjon might pursue adding spirits in summer.
The restaurant, which seats about 70, has a 24person room for private parties.
During the soft opening, AppeThai is open for dinner only on Friday and Saturday. Then it will be closed Sunday, reopening only for lunch on Monday and Tuesday, and closing again Wednesday.
Regular hours starting Thursday will be 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for lunch and 4:30 to 9 p.m. for dinner Monday to Saturday.
AppeThai accepts reservations, and it takes carryout orders. To contact: (414) 362-4264. AppeThai is online at appethairestaurant.
Cafe Grace and more
Three Bartolotta-run restaurants for the Mayfair Collection in Wauwatosa, which were first announced in 2014, finally have their names.
The group disclosed the names last week on social media: The pub will be ABV Social, standing for alcohol by volume; a Mexican restaurant will be Taqueria El Jefe; and Cafe Grace is the casual French restaurant, named for the daughter of Phoenix partner John Mangel. Phoenix owns the restaurants.
Joe Bartolotta, co-owner of the Bartolotta group, provided a preview of the restaurants, which are to
begin opening in June — first the pub, then the taqueria and finally the French cafe.
“We didn’t want to develop just a Lake Park (Bistro) West,” Bartolotta said, challenging corporate chef Adam Siegel to find a different approach for Cafe Grace.
That approach will lean more toward Provencal, Bartolotta said — more of a Mediterranean menu influenced by the south of France. Tastings of the proposed menu for Bartolotta and staff start this week as construction on the cafe and other buildings continues on W. Burleigh St. east of I-41.
The taqueria will have about a dozen taco fillings that might pull elements from the other restaurants, Bartolotta said. For instance, if Cafe Grace is serving duck confit, Taqueria El Jefe might have duck confit tacos.
The restaurant will make its own tortillas, and it will have two vertical rotisseries for pork al pastor, Bartolotta said. Part of its decor will be a collection of painted sugar skulls that he brought back from a trip to Mexico.
At ABV Social, customers will find 24 taps at the bar. “It’s definitely a watering hole,” Bartolotta said. “It’s going to have a very strong beer program.”
The space is designed to look like a century-old warehouse, he said, with steel and iron as dominant materials.
The menu will be “classic bar and pub food,” Bartolotta said. It will have burgers and salads, and items like grilled Korean short ribs and chicken wings four ways, including one with olive oil, garlic, rosemary and Parmesan with a squeeze of lemon. “It’s an amazing wing (recipe) that Paul brought back from Italy,” Bartolotta said, referring to his brother and business partner.
All three restaurants will be open for lunch and dinner daily to accommodate shoppers at the Mayfair Collection.
Third Ward Camp Bar
The Northwoods-themed Camp Bar will open its Third Ward location next week.
Paul Hackbarth, owner of Camp Bar with his wife, Natalia, said the soft opening will be Tuesday to Thursday at 525 E. Menomonee St., and the grand opening with specials and giveaways will be Friday to Sunday.
The new bar is decorated with antiques-store finds from trips taken up north over the past eight months, including a Boone and Crockett Club-registered moose trophy with a 70-inch rack that hangs over the fireplace.
The Third Ward location will bake pizzas delivered daily from Cranky Al’s in Wauwatosa. The kitchen is available to caterers for private parties; a lounge that holds 100 guests can be used for events.
In all, the bar has room for 240 guests, making the interior the largest of the Camp Bars. The others are at 4044 N. Oakland Ave., Shorewood, and 6600 W. North Ave., Wauwatosa.
The new bar’s hours will be 3 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 2 p.m. Friday and noon Saturday and Sunday.
To contact: (414) 930-9282.
New menu at Buckley’s
A new spring dinner menu will debut Wednesday at Buckley’s Restaurant & Bar, 801 N. Cass St., marking the most changes since chef Christian Schroeder joined the restaurant.
Schroeder, who was hired last spring after leaving Nourri on the west side, said he’d been making changes here and there to the Buckley’s menu, but the spring menu represents the most changes to date.
New dishes include small plates of asparagus with morels, house ricotta, preserved lemon and black garlic emulsion ($13) and roasted cauliflower with onion fritters, crisp chickpeas, red lentils, cumin and orange vinaigrette ($11).
New large plates include lamb seasoned with ras el hanout and served with beluga lentils, harissa yogurt and crisped leeks ($28) and an 8-ounce filet with fingerling potato confit, asparagus, poached duck egg with black salt and beer-battered onion rings ($36).
A new lunch menu is expected in a month, and new seasonal dishes will roll out all summer, Schroeder said.