Strange Town coming to east side
Andy Noble, a longtime presence on Milwaukee’s music scene, wants to right a few wrongs, in a way, with his restaurantbar Strange Town. It’s due in late summer on the east side.
First, he wants to continue the congenial spirit of the late, mourned Allium, where he was a regular, by opening Strange Town in its place at 2101 N. Prospect Ave.
Noble also wants to offer a creative menu based solely on plants and do it at moderate prices.
Noble expects people will come for the drinks and the atmosphere, but he hopes to surprise them with the quality of the food. The kitchen, he said, will be “a true labor of love.”
“We’re going to do it as artfully as we possibly can,” he said.
And he wants to show how music could and should be done in a restaurant, which definitely does not mean playing stations complete with commercials, a restaurant practice that grates on him.
Noble will tap his extensive record collection for the restaurant’s soundtrack. A record dealer, he’s known for his work here and abroad as a DJ, including The Get Down, the soul and funk dance party on the second Saturday of every month at Mad Planet in Riverwest.
He’s also thinking of enlisting some of his DJ friends from around the world for three-night residencies at Strange Town. The nights, Noble said, would be “just totally about listening, just bring super-compelling music” from their collections to play on a prime sound system.
With Whole Foods nonexistent and vegetarian restaurants few when he became vegetarian at 15 in 1990, Noble learned about vegetarian and vegan dishes from other cultures, including Indian, Thai and Middle Eastern restaurants.
Now he’s developing a menu with international flavors for Strange Town with his cousin, Mia LeTendre. Noble’s brother, Tom, is a partner in the business.
Diners will find a menu with bar snacks such as curried cashews with dried coconut, or socca, the chickpea flour pancake found in southern France and other Mediterranean countries.
A large part of the menu will simply be vegetables in various preparations — not main dishes, not side dishes, Noble said, just small bites. One might be cauliflower that’s roasted and rolled in tahini, or roasted halved fingerling potatoes served with mashed heart of palm, dill and capers.
Noble said he wants to avoid salads that are “too bland, boring or obvious.” Grain salads, such as farro, will be on the menu.
The restaurant will have a pizza of the day, every day; they’re inspired by Noble’s grandmother, whom he called “an amazing Sicilian cook.” The dough will be half semolina and the crusts about an inch thick, made in square trays and sold by the slice.
The pizza might be topped with roasted fennel or roasted tomato and garlic sauce topped with cashew and roasted garlic crema and fennel fronds.
“They’re adult pizzas,” Noble said, but they’re essentially flavors he remembers from growing up on the east side.
Prices are expected to range from $4 for snacks to less than $15 for main dishes.
The drink list will include natural wines, a handful of local and European beers, and cocktails, with a focus on aperitifs.
Noble sees aperitifs as “so perfect for that space. It just screams that kind of culture.”
Strange Town could open in early August, but it depends in large part on when the liquor license is granted, Noble said.
Strange Town likely will be open every day, starting at 3:30 p.m.
Laughing Taco open
It’s taco time. The Laughing Taco — by James Beard nominee Justin Carlisle and his wife, Lucia Muñoz — is open in Walker’s Point for lunch and dinner.
The compact counterservice restaurant is at 1033 S. 1st St., in streetlevel retail space at the new Trio apartments. Regular hours started Tuesday: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.
Muñoz and Carlisle, who began planning the restaurant last year, said the taqueria would be simple, with four styles of taco and drinks. But they’ve boosted the menu by 75%: The opening menu lists seven tacos.
Diners can find trompo (seasoned pork in corn tortillas, $2.75 apiece), bistec (steak in corn, $2.75), papas (potato and tomato sauce in corn, $2.50), nopalitos (cactus with mild chile sauce in corn tortillas, $2.50). Also, gringa (seasoned pork with cheese in flour tortillas, $4.75), pirata (steak, cheese and avocado in flour tortillas, $4.75) and campechano (steak, pork, cheese and avocado in flour tortillas, $5).
The beef comes from the chef’s family’s cattle farm in Sparta, just as it does at sister restaurants Ardent and Red Light Ramen.
And like Red Light Ramen, the Laughing Taco sells spiked slushies ($5 and $10); the standby is the grapefruit-tequila Paloma, and the other is to change regularly. The shop also sells several Mexican and American beers and sodas.
Customers can call in orders for pickup at (414) 210-3086.