Photo Credit: Kevin Sparrow
Shorewood’s business district along Oakland Avenue has welcomed some additions recently, including Cloud Red. The quaint bar and casual eatery has a welcoming atmosphere with wood tables and exposed Cream City brick walls. A garage door, which provides an open-air concept during warm months, lets in plenty of natural light during winter. Quirky board games like Crabs Adjust Humidity and 1980s-’90s trivia provide entertainment while you sip a drink or enjoy a meal. The music is kept at conversational level.
Cloud Red has 16 beers on tap representing some of the best craft brewers of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the Midwest. A post-Christmas visit featured Indiana’s 3 Floyds Brewing Co.’s seasonal Alpha Klaus Christmas Porter. About 20 more craft and domestic beers and cider are available by bottle or can. There are several house cocktails (all $9) to choose from, such as Beach, Please made with tropical spirits, or the basil gimlet. The wine selection is also decent ($8 per glass; bottle prices vary) with choices such as Storybook pinot noir.
Not a drinker, or designated driver for the night? No problem, as Red Cloud has plenty of non-alcoholic drinks besides just soda: Rishi teas, Anodyne coffee and even Tapaut kombucha on tap.
The food menus of appetizers, sandwiches and wraps are whimsically scripted on boards displayed near the kitchen door, and customers order at the bar. Healthy comfort food might sound like an oxymoron, but Cloud Red’s small yet comprehensive menu nails it with variety and quality. Most items can be made vegetarian or vegan, and there are also gluten-free options.
For starters, we debated among the Clock Shadow Creamery cheese curds, buffalo cauliflower wings or the Mid East Peace appetizer (all $9) before choosing the latter, which included generous servings of house-made hummus and baba ganoush (an eggplant dip), accompanied by fresh cucumber slices and plenty of warm pita bread triangles. The bread was especially good, thinner and lightly seasoned, and not at all thick, doughy or dry like pita found at some eateries.
When our sandwiches arrived, my husband dove into his Ney’s Big Sky Burger ($12), a half-pound, grass-fed beef burger topped with bacon, green leaf lettuce, tomato, cheddar and French-fried onions, served on a brioche bun. More than once, he praised the freshness and quality of the burger.
I chose the tofu Po’Boy sandwich ($12), which is also available with chicken. The seasoned, breaded tofu was topped with pickled carrots and daikon, cucumbers, cilantro, lettuce, lime, and a spicy sauce on a piccolo roll. The tasty sandwich tempted me to eat the whole thing, but it was enough for two servings. (Cloud Red has no take-outs, but containers are available to take leftovers home.)
Other menu choices included the falafel open-faced pita burger, Thai-grilled steak sandwich and fresh—not fried—spring rolls with chicken or tofu. Side choices such as chips are also available separately.
Specials include Taco Tuesday and Wine Wednesday, where all bottles are half-price, because, as one of their amusing signs proclaims, “It isn’t good to keep things bottled up.”
