Uncle Wolfie’s Downtown Is Crazily Creative

Uncle Wolfie’s Downtown. Photo by Cari Taylor-Carlson.

When you are in the mood for something sweet for brunch, it’s time to pay a visit to Uncle Wolfie’s Downtown at the intersection of North Broadway and West Michigan Street. You will want to order the banoffe pie French toast, a breakfast dessert that left my companions and me starstruck at the complex construction of this delectable entrée. The chef started with brioche, stuffed it with pastry cream, sautéed it until it had a lovely toasty crust, then topped it with crunchy freeze-dried banana chips, graham cracker crumbles and whipped cream. A light butterscotch sauce finished this creation that our server called “banana pie French toast.”

We shared an order of London fog doughnut holes, five delicate, vanilla-flavored, golf ball-sized holes that were swimming in a lemony glaze that added pizzazz to every bite of the powdered-sugar-topped holes.

For the Baja breakfast, the chef filled the plate with roasted sweet potatoes and added onions, peppers and, for something different, cabbage. There was also cheese, cilantro, a mild chipotle sauce and, resting on top, two perfect over-easy eggs. These subtle Southwestern flavors won over my companion, who said, “This would be ideal along with a Baja sunrise.”

The chorizo fundito burrito was a gigantic creation that had spent time on the grill after it was stuffed with chorizo, cheese, salsa verde and scrambled eggs. That extra time on the grill crisped the flour tortilla and gave each bite a nice crunch. The chef paired it with green chile cheese sauce that had a mild, spicy heat. Because the burrito came with Uncle Wolfie’s tavern potatoes, the cheese sauce did double duty as a dipping sauce for the potatoes.

Those tavern potatoes, just like the ones at Uncle Wolfie’s in Brewers Hill, are a local legend. The potatoes were precooked, smashed and deep-fried. They were consistently crunchy, creamy, perfectly seasoned and as easy to disappear as a bowl of buttery popcorn.

The biscuits and gravy had the unusual addition of Chinese five-spice seasoning. The flaky, tender biscuits were perfect, but the five-spice seasoning in the sausage gravy added an unexpected and incongruous flavor to the traditional biscuits and gravy. The gravy was tasty, just different.

The steak satay, marinated chunks of filet threaded onto a skewer, was grilled and served with sautéed shallots, cilantro and two over-easy eggs. The fork-tender steak was accompanied by those aforementioned tavern potatoes.

The whimsically named don’t cha want a concha entrée included pork belly in a house-made concha bun topped with grilled pineapple, aioli and spicy pieces of pickled chile peppers. There was a lot of meat hiding in the pork belly, more than I expected. The combination of the fatty, meaty and spicy aligned nicely with the slightly sweet concha bun. It was a fat sandwich, which led our server to say, “Feel free to deconstruct it,” and I did.

Uncle Wolfie’s Downtown is located inside the Kinn Guesthouse. It is a beautiful space with a high ceiling, large windows facing west and south, and a fine view of a Milwaukee treasure, the Grain Exchange Building. Despite having the same name, according to our server, the menu is different from the original Uncle Wolfie’s in Brewers Hill, with one exception: the tavern potatoes. The downtown restaurant is open daily for lunch and brunch and open for dinner as The Wolf on Friday and Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m.

My companions and I loved everything about Uncle Wolfie’s: the food, the service, the casual yet elegant space and, of course, those tavern potatoes.

On the Menu

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• Location: 600 N. Broadway
• Phone: 414-935-2076
• Hours: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mon-Fri, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Dinner: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Fri-Sat
• Neighborhood: East Town
• Website: https://www.unclewolfies.com

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