Image via Instagram / Hot Dish Pantry
Hot Dish
I’ve been sad about Iron Grate. The Southside BBQ stalwart, inventor of the “Milwaukee Rib,” heroic slinger of Sunday’s finest ham and rolls, scooper of the smokiest of mac n’ cheeses, closed after eight years in business last November, seeming to bring back a thin wintry pall to this stretch of Howell.
Scarcity breeds preciousness here on the bottom edge of Milwaukee, an often-gray urban afterthought of automotive shops and mildewy bars and Hawthorne Coffee. Our special places just seem a bit more special, important: When Pho Hai Tuyet shuttered, I contemplated putting our house on the market. When Wioletta’s opened, again it felt like a forever home. Truthfully, Town of Lake can feel like a thoroughfare between the airport, and, well, city things. It can impress like a suburb of Bay View.
Then, recently, I spotted Iron Grate’s outpost at Fiserv Forum. I had forgotten, or maybe never knew, that the fire still existed, albeit under the corporate and high-rent lights of big event and overpriced Downtown noshing. Days later, in the same shiny arena, Giannis missed approximately one million free throws, each one like an arrow to the heart of civic hope, and the Bucks botched a first-round playoff matchup in historic fashion. It was hard not to think, as with Iron Grate’s links n’ curds platter, as with the Bucks championship window, maybe, perhaps I’d never appreciated it. Maybe I’d never appreciated anything enough—like the Kwik Wok and Yum Yum! that preceded Iron Grate’s little Howell home. For a while the wind at the end of April made it feel that spring might never bloom.
Such ennui is not uncommon for late winter and is often compounded by those recurring bouts of second and third winter. It’s a Midwestern malady for which there is no cure, but treatment of symptoms. Alcohol, namely. Meat, cheese, carbs, and fried fare, too. As it happens, most of these elemental balms can be balled together—in the form of a hot dish.
Filling the Void
You may not know what a hot dish is, exactly. You may not even need to order hot dish at Hot Dish (4125 S. Howell Ave.). But the eponymous restaurant reopened almost five months to the day after Iron Grate’s closing, filling much of the spiritual void of their predecessor. Even visible ghosts remain—signage, old piles of barbecue wood, hulking rusted smokers that look like burnt out carcasses of war machines from a long-forgotten battle. Also, Hot Dish owner Nathan Heck used to cook at the Grate. Along with partner Laura Maigatter they operated as a popup at Third Avenue Food Hall, that sprawling bastion of happy food and drink and sports and light blink and cornhole and shuffleboard and vibes of adult recess.
A decidedly more easygoing energy wafts about their new digs. But don’t let the humility, soothing blue hues, or the boutique-y softness of “Pantry” in the name fool you. This is a counter service assault of almost dangerous comfort, of fat and lethargy and calories fit for staving off harsh climates and doctor approval.
It might be hard to know where to start, but for a certain strain of appetite, fried bologna demands the ball. A billing of “Chicago style” entices too, as those of us overly online may automatically conjure notions of the famous, nearly infamous, fried bologna of Au Cheval. But while that West Loop icon slices their meat Arby’s thin, stacks it NYC-deli-level high, and tops simply with melty American and flowing Dijon, here we have a black-crusted, single sweating frisbee of pureed meat, topped with tomato, onion, relish, pickles and mustard. So that’s what they mean by Chicago style. Salty and hefty, it is indeed a sandwich of wide shoulders. While there’s much to appreciate about a Chicago-style dog—especially those sporty sport peppers—so many toppings often feel like compensation for mediocre meat. This package comes on hot dog-ish too, a little low rent satisfying. But it’d be easy to wish for more of the taste of the stockyards, less of a toppings jar.
Brawny, Beefy
There’s quite a different sensation with the Lucy Goosey, a take on the Minnesota-style cheese-stuffed burger, and a meat bundle that practically eats itself. Equally cheese smacky, brawny, beefy, the single patty mustard-and-mayo topped number feels like the ideal of a backyard burger. The kind you finish without ever really setting down. Neither overly fussy or cheffy, refreshingly not overtopped but naturally juicy, it is simple, squat and potent, at once elbowing its way into the top-five-in town conversation.
Such blankets of comfort abound: curds are messily battered and charmingly misshapen stretchy blocks that hit like the fryer mastery of Palomino; a decadently creamed beer cheese soup, svelty and spicy, thick and rich, makes one almost wistful for winter time comforts. There are fried pickles, curry cocktail meatballs, goat cheese taco dip. A tenderloin sandwich is ostentatious, Instagram-ready in its refusal to be contained by a brioche. On a recent trip this was special-offered Nashville style: flattened, breaded, lava-dusted and fried to a light crisp, topped with pickles and mayo, the finish was vinegary and fiery but not painful. The Music City treatment doesn’t have to mean oily torture. There are similar heavy rock riffs on the burger—a pizza Lucy Goosey with pepperoni and sopressata, a brat and curd Lucy Goosey stuffed with cheese curds. Yes, some of that might sound like acid reflux and regret and an overriding feel of too much. Inspiration can run amok. Or maybe too often our appetites fail to meet imagination.
But what makes Hot Dish different, a potential new place of destination worthiness, a point of neighborhood pride, a real estate boon? The menu touts “scratch made midwestern comfort food.” That fairly generic blend of food buzz words could mean next to nothing. Same for anyplace with burgers and curds and Spotted Cows.
Pierogi Identity
But an identity seems to crystallize around the pierogi section. It seems bold, or maybe unaware, to focus here, just blocks from Wioletta’s, Milwaukee’s newest and best and actually Polish deli. But Hot Dish is really using the meat transfer pockets as blank canvas. Just check some varietals—crab Rangoon, aloo chaat topped with mint cilantro yogurt, loaded baked potato crowned by bacon. All glistening buttery exterior, and crunch-and-mush taste tango, the lot, which will rotate periodically, remains highlighted by the pepperoni pizza. It is an artistic take on those hot dog stand Sysco fried pizza puffs you’ve certainly ordered for kids in your life and then stolen a bite or two of.
Afterall, what the hell? Most cultures offer some kind of carb-and-protein packaging. And even if such stabs at artistry feel a little Eastern Bloc meets Eater, there seems to be no way there could be too many such offerings.
Then, of course, there is Hot Dish’s hot dish. Or, a Minnesota-style casserole, apparently: ground beef, grilled corn, roasted carrots and peas, mushroom cream sauce, all topped with cheese and one thousand steaming tater tots. It’s a bit of everything, like an upside-down plate of Polish nachos. It feels part Jim Gaffigan joke about birthday pie—“somebody’s drunk in the kitchen,” part adult hamburger helper mélange meant for underhanded vegetable delivery, and a bit like a spiritual cousin of that unholiest of amalgamations, the Rochester-style “garbage plate.” It might be the last thing one wants or needs on such a meaty menu. One already so heavy on wallop, so full of Germanic meals fit for fortifying, heartening, soul nourishing on the type of day where slush finds its way into your boots. Over-ordering here might leave an appetite punished rather than appeased. But most all of those feelings, in the belly, on the breath, in the lower intestines the day after, seem satisfyingly worth it.
In the days after the Bucks playoff exit, there was much chatter and debate about Giannis philosophizing, pontificating on the nature of failure, on shortfalls acting as a step toward success. We all wondered. I’ve been wondering too: had Iron Grate failed? Had I failed Iron Grate by not showing up enough? Did the unidentified crimson stains on my hoodie strings indicate I’d failed at adulthood? There remains plenty to ponder, as the weather softens and the patio opens and expands and Howell gains another destination, takes another step, and offers another hint of hope again.
