Honeypie Cafe Boasts Good Home Cooking

Honeypie Cafe. Photo by Cari Taylor-Carlson.

After Honeypie Cafe opened in 2009, it quickly earned a reputation for its wide selection of extraordinary pies. As soon as you enter the cafe, a stunning display of daily pies is impossible to overlook. They know how to hook you with French silk, chocolate hazelnut, key lime, salted caramel, cherry, apple, and the one I took home, cinnamon apple with a creamy cream cheese topping and mounds of slightly sweetened whipped cream. It tasted like an upgraded version of my grandma’s apple pie, and that included the crust — flaky, buttery and just-out-of-the-oven crisp. For the record, not all the pies they offer are available every day at the cafe.

Lunch was equally impressive. My companion’s biscuits and gravy — two house-made biscuits topped with sausage-rich gravy — were served with two over-easy local eggs. The gravy, rich and creamy, smothered the biscuits that were more solid than flaky but left no doubt that they were freshly made. The fruit bowl held a combination of blackberries, apple slices, strawberries and blueberries that were artistically arranged to add color and class to this tasty breakfast.

The fried chicken sammie, made with a chicken thigh, had an Asian slant with the addition of spicy harissa aioli and pickled daikon. Shredded cabbage added extra crunch. The accompanying tomato soup was thick, almost like a sauce, and could have used a smidge of sugar to soften the acid from the tomatoes, though that might depend on how you prefer your tomato soup.

The fries that came with the sammie were so thin and delightfully crisp that my companions and I decided they had to be calorie-free. If you ask for hot sauce to dip your fries, expect a spicy, hot, vinegar-based sauce guaranteed to leave a warm glow in your mouth.

Honeypie also offers a rotating selection of savory handpies. The day we were there, cheddar-broccoli was the pie of the day. The pie had a cheesy filling stuffed in a pastry crust, similar to the crust they use for the sweet pies. There was more crust than filling, but that was fine because the crust was buttery and flaky, just like the apple pie with the cream cheese topping that I had devoured at a previous lunch.

It came with a salad that was a cut above the usual small salad, with its fresh assorted greens, grated carrots, sliced radishes and little toasted almond chips for extra flavor.

The pork belly banh mi was a feast of diverse flavors, starting with thin slices of tender and not-too-fatty pork belly. The sandwich had the usual shredded carrots and cilantro, plus pickled jalapenos and a generous swish of sriracha aioli to bring the flavors together into one amazing bite.

If you want one of Honeypie’s brunch favorites, order the breakfast casserole. This dish combines everything we love about brunch: biscuits, cheese, bacon, roasted potatoes and farm-fresh eggs. Put everything together in a casserole, top it with sausage gravy, add a sunny-side-up egg and you have breakfast/brunch nirvana.

For something sweet for breakfast, you can order the brioche French toast with fresh fruit, powdered sugar and local maple syrup. Or you could order something healthy, a yogurt parfait, or something traditional, the Denver omelet. If you want hearty, order the pot roast hash: meat and potatoes topped with horseradish crème sauce and two eggs.

After 3 p.m., you can order from the dinner menu, an expanded menu that includes salmon with sweet potato puree, squash risotto, mushroom stroganoff, flat iron steak with pepper cream sauce, airline chicken and a Friday fish fry.

There are also a few specials on the weekend brunch menu, including chicken and French toast, hopple popple, chilaquiles and a breakfast burrito.

I’ve been a fan of Honeypie since it opened on South Kinnickinnic Avenue in 2009. After one visit and one piece of pie, you will be, too.

On the Menu

12►

Photo Gallery

The Rundown

• Location: 2643 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
• Phone: 414-489-7437
• Hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mon-Sun; Breakfast and Lunch 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mon-Sun; Dinner 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mon-Sun
• Neighborhood: Bay View
• Website: https://www.honeypiecafe.com

Existing members must be signed in to see the interactive map. Sign in.