Downtown gets new spots for tacos, pizza
Two new restaurants serving two of the basic food groups — tacos and pizza — have opened downtown.
Taco Bar on Jefferson
Taco Bar is exactly that, a bar (upscale) serving tacos (nontraditional), and it debuted downtown late last week, at 782 N. Jefferson St.
Its owner, Mazen Muna, owns the five Dogg Haus restaurants around town, among other businesses. Taco Bar’s location previously held Peking House, which closed this year.
Muna divided Peking House’s large space for two businesses, Taco Bar and a new Dogg Haus. Muna also owns the bar next to Taco Bar, Plum Lounge.
Taco Bar is serving 17 kinds of tacos, with the menu organized by filling: beef, such as strip steak with onion, mushroom, blue cheese and a splash of A-1 sauce; chicken, including spicy tikka with jalapeño, cilantro and raita sauce; fish, including a fish-and-chips filling with slaw; pork, such as a filling of roast pork, bacon and chicharrones; and vegetable, like a falafel taco with hummus and Jerusalem salad.
Prices range from $3.50 to $5.50 a taco; sides, such as guacamole and chips, range from $3.49 to $5.25.
Taco Bar has a metal tree sculpture behind the bar holding its various tequilas. The tippy-toppiest of the top-shelf pours is $200 an ounce, Muna said.
Beyond sipping and mixing tequilas, the bar will have some Mexican and craft beers, a couple of house wines from Argentina and a lineup of Latinstyle cocktails that include margaritas, daiquiris, mojitos, sangria, Pisco sours, frozen banana daiquiri, and Fernet and cola.
Regular hours for Taco Bar will be 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. Monday to Friday, and 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. Saturdays. The restaurant is on Facebook.
Pizano’s Pizza & Pasta on Water
The wait is over for Chicago-based Pizano’s Pizza & Pasta, which opened downtown Tuesday after a delay of several years.
The restaurant is at 1150 N. Water St., at Juneau Avenue. It’s on the first floor of the Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Grohmann Tower, an apartment building for MSOE students.
The restaurant, which seats about 220, will be open for dinner every day at 4 p.m. and will serve food until about 90 minutes before bar time.
Lunch service likely will be added in November, said Rudy Malnati, who also owns six other Pizano’s restaurants, in Chicago and Glenview, Ill.
The restaurant is known for its thincrust and deep-dish pizzas; Malnati’s father, Rudy Sr., is part of the legend of deep-dish pizza’s beginnings, traced to Chicago’s Pizzeria Uno. Malnati’s brother started Lou Malnati’s restaurants in Chicago.
“I’ve branched out with the times,” Rudy Malnati said, noting that he’s added barbecue chicken and ham with pineapple as pizza toppings. “My mother almost hit me in the head with a salami,” he joked, when he added the Hawaiian pizza to the menu.
Pizano’s makes a number of its own pastas, including tortellini with fillings such as chicken with prosciutto. The menu also has sandwiches such as Italian beef and Italian sausage.
The bar area, which has 35 seats at the bar itself and another 25 or so at tables in the lounge, is separate from the dining room to help contain noise, Malnati said, but the wall separating them is glass to keep the feeling airy. The restaurant also has floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto Water Street and Juneau Avenue.
Pizano’s takes reservations by phone (it eventually will be on OpenTable.com), and it takes phone orders for takeout, at (414) 277-1777. Paid parking is available in a public lot across Juneau.
“I never thought this day would come,” Malnati said.
The restaurant was announced in 2014, with plans to open in spring 2015. The school’s construction company was completing its work, Malnati explained, and he had lined up his own contractors to build out the restaurant.
After delays in the school’s construction company’s schedule, Malnati had to decide whether to keep his construction team trained on Milwaukee or proceed with the restaurant’s sixth location, near Chicago’s enormous convention center, McCormick Place.
“I couldn’t wait; I had to go,” Malnati said.
Pizano’s is still hiring for positions in the kitchen and dining room and at the bar.
Antigua open in new location
Antigua Latin Inspired Kitchen has moved to its new location, one that’s closer to the development going on in the Five Points area of West Allis.
It’s now at 6207 W. National Ave., a storefront that previously was the site of a series of bakeries. Previously, Antigua was at 5823 W. Burnham St. in West Allis, its home since 2006.
Owner Citlali Mendieta-Ramos said Antigua opened Sept. 21, after closing July 21 on Burnham for the move.
The kitchen size has nearly quadrupled to accommodate Antigua’s catering business. “We outgrew our previous space,” Mendieta-Ramos said.
Antigua has about 20 more seats — nearly 80 — and the bar area is separated from the dining room. The new kitchen is partly exposed, so diners can sneak a peek at the cooks at work.
“We tried to give it the same feel as the old location,” Mendieta-Ramos said, while restoring features such as a white glass wall that had been covered in layers of paint.
The tables in the dining room are old bakery work tables. One was kept large, to seat 10 people; another seats six diners. Others were turned into tables for two.
The menu has been streamlined, so chef Nicolas Ramos, Mendieta-Ramos’ husband, can offer more dinner specials.
The restaurant now is open for dinner only, 4:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, and 4:30 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Brunch is 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. A public parking lot is next door.
Antigua’s phone number is the same, (414) 321-5775.