It wasn’t long ago that a bowl was just a convenient serving vessel for soup or cereal. Over the last couple of years, the bowl trend—serving nutritious, hearty meals attractively presented in a bowl—has taken the foodie world by storm. The aptly named Bowls, a fast-casual restaurant that opened in Walker’s Point in June, has an entire menu dedicated to smoothie bowls, grain and green bowls, and even pudding.
Bowls is the brainchild of Chef Nell Benton, owner of The National, and Andy Larson, who owns Float Milwaukee in the space next to Bowls. Bowls’ crisp white, purple and lime green modern décor has an energetic feel when you walk in the door. Large display monitors behind the service counter show menu options, with vivid photos and lists of ingredients (there are also printed menus on the counter), and customers place orders at a nearby hostess stand.
There are five smoothie bowl options ($8): Berry Acai (acai bowls are often credited with kicking off the food bowl craze), Apple Pie, the mega-healthy Super Green, Mango or Chocolate Peanut Butter. All smoothie bowls are gluten-free and either vegetarian or vegan.
Cuisines of the world are represented among 10 different grain bowls ($9-$12). During my first visit, I tried the Soba Noodle Bowl, with soba noodles and a nice mix of broccolini, grilled pineapple, carrots, bean sprouts, tomatoes and cucumber, tossed in a creamy vegan ginger miso dressing and topped with crisped shallots and cilantro. The noodles and veggies were perfectly cooked and the dressing was flavorful. I later went back for the North African Bowl, with quinoa, red onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, pickled sweet peppers, pistachios, feta cheese and arugula, accented with golden raisins, dried apricots and pomegranate molasses. Raisins were buried in every forkful, which, along with the apricots and peppers, tilted the entrée toward the sweeter versus savory end of the scale.
Other creative grain bowl choices include the Mediterranean Tuna Bowl, with seared Ahi tuna, tomatoes, olives, fingerling potatoes, greens and goat cheese, topped with cilantro-lime dressing; the Teriyaki Bowl, featuring rice, marinated tofu, pineapple, broccolini, red peppers, mushrooms, scallions and cilantro; and the Spiced Sweet Potato & Eggs Bowl, with sweet potatoes and fingerling potatoes, mushroom, arugula, spinach, poblano pepper, sriracha and two over-easy eggs.
Four different salads comprise the Green Bowls menu ($9-$10): Chopped Raw, Power Berry, Kale & Beet, and Apple & Spinach. For a slight upcharge, proteins, veggies and extra grains or sauces can be added to all bowls. Soup du jour is offered in eight-ounce ($4) and 16-ounce ($6) servings.
For dessert, Bowls offers Chocolate Hazelnut Chia or Blueberry Chia ($5) pudding. The vegan Blueberry Chia is refreshing, lightly sweetened with a nutty, mild fruit flavor. Bowls serves Anodyne coffee, Nessalla kombucha on tap, and MobCraft canned beer or Unity Vibration Kombucha Beer from Ypsilanti, Mich. There’s also a cooler with grab-and-go teas, Juiced! cold-pressed juices and San Pellegrino or La Croix sparkling water.
Bowls’ healthy food nourishes people, but they also strive for a healthy planet. They’ve partnered with several other restaurants to participate in The Last Plastic Straw campaign, which discourages use of non-biodegradable, single-use plastic straws. According to Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup data, plastic straws are among the top 10 items consistently found on beaches and coastlines.
