Former Mimma’s Cafe to offer Italian

Dorsia will replace Brady St. restaurant

The new restaurant replacing the recently closed Mimma’s Cafe on Brady St. will have house-made pastas and plates diners can share, with a bar that goes deep into Italian wines.

Jeno Cataldo, whose family operates Jo-Cat’s Pub next door and whose J.C. Capital bought the building housing Mimma’s at 1301-1307 E. Brady last year, is projecting a late-April opening for the new restaurant on Milwaukee’s lower east side.

Cataldo filed a liquor license application this week that identifies the new restaurant as Dorsia.

“We’re 90% set” on that name, Cataldo said.

Dorsia is the name of a restaurant in the novel and film “American Psycho,” about a high-flying investment banker. “He’s got everything, but he’s never been able to get a table at Dorsia,” Cataldo said. “It reminded me of what Mimma’s was like in the 1990s. It was almost impossible to get in there.”

The chef designing the menu is David Magnasco of the Chef’s Table in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood. Magnasco studied cooking in Italy.

The general manager of the new restaurant is Jessica Peterman, a Level 1 sommelier who formerly was assistant general manager at Rare steakhouse downtown.

“She’s got free rein to do her thing” in compiling the list of Italian wines, Cataldo said, but he envisions a list from which guests can buy anything from a $20 carafe of wine up to a higher-end bottle, with a large number of wines available by the glass.

Cataldo plans a full bar in addition to wines, including higher-end scotches and bourbons. “We’ll pour you a drink,” he said. “No short pours.”

Menu items will be such that diners can share and sample more dishes. “I think Italian restaurants in general over-portion. That’s an American thing; when you go to Italy, you don’t get the gigantic, endless dish of pasta,” Cataldo said.

Changes to the interior include moving and expanding the bar. The front dining room will likely seat 50 or 60 people. The back dining room, a private-event space, also will seat around 60 people.

The look, he said, will be a modern version of Mimma’s. “Warm and cozy,” Cataldo said.