Milwaukee is a burger town. You expect to find them in bars and family restaurants, but even our seafood restaurants and steakhouses have burgers on the menu. So, with no shortage of places to get a burger, do we really need another option? In the case of CRAVE Café, the answer is most definitely yes.
The best part about having an abundance of burgers is that there’s a style of burger and burger joint that fits everyone’s needs. Craving fast food but prefer local? Kopp’s. A diner with malts? Mazos. Want to impress a business client but you’re a picky eater? Stella Van Buren. Where Crave Café fills a niche in the market is a quick, takeout-heavy business model with food that’s high in quality and low in price.
Opened a little less than two years ago, CRAVE Café in Shorewood (not to be confused with Crave Bar in Mequon which opened a year earlier and has no relation) quickly made a name for itself as having some of the most creative and memorable burgers in town. Owner David Wu grew up in the restaurant industry, and it shows. His parents opened East Garden Chinese Restaurant right across the street in 1983, and Wu operates that restaurant as well. That experience makes the tiny CRAVE Café run like a well-oiled machine with employees that are all smiles behind the counter.
There are maybe 12 seats in the space and about the same number of menu items. Seven beef burgers have international and classic American flavors and are made with a third-pound patty of 80/20 Angus beef. I’ve eaten a whole lot of burgers in my life, and if the menu didn’t tell me otherwise, I’d have guessed these were half-pound patties. They’re cooked to medium unless otherwise requested, and indeed, were medium and juicy in my two burgers. Seasoning, especially black pepper, is heavy on the beef.
The Korean BBQ Burger ($7) is glazed with a sweet and tangy sauce, then topped with American cheese—two slices is the norm here—a spicy mayo, kimchi and cabbage slaw. The kimchi, which is a spicy variety, lends fermented funk, while the fresh cabbage in the non-creamy slaw keeps things cool and crisp. These are not typical flavors you find elsewhere on a burger, and Milwaukee is all the better for it.
Mushrooms on the Mushroom and Swiss Burger ($6) are portobellos, cut into fat slices and mounded into a pile as thick as the beef patty below them. It's plainer than the other burgers, but thanks to the attention paid to the basics, like the crunchy butter-toasted brioche bun and deep crust on the beef from the griddle, it's still a satisfying sandwich.
Mexican flavors inspire the Hamburguesa ($6) which is topped with American cheese, chipotle aioli, pickled jalapeños, onion, tomato and romaine. The signature burger, called the CRAVE Burger ($8) gets a little fancy with Swiss, caramelized onions, arugula and white truffle aioli. Hamburgers and cheeseburgers with ketchup, mustard and pickles can’t be beat in value at $4 and $5 each.
The menu also includes a number of non-burger “burgers.” A thick, crunchy, panko-breaded pork loin chop is the base for the Japanese Katsu Burger ($7). American cheese, garlic aioli, cabbage slaw and katsu sauce—a thick, dark, sweet and savory sauce for fried pork—are barely held in by the sturdy bun. It’s messy, unusual and very delicious.
A Soft-Shell Crab BLT ($9) comes with not just one, but two deep fried crabs on a bun along with bacon, arugula, tomato and garlic aioli. It’s worth the splurge—if you can even consider a $9 sandwich that—and has a following all its own among CRAVE customers.
The side of choice here is fries, of course. They come in two sizes ($2-$3), which I hesitate to call small and large. Really, they’re large and larger. Served spilling out of a Chinese takeout container, it’s a playful presentation that hearkens to Wu’s background. Get them seasoned with either ranch, cheddar, Cajun or barbecue seasoning for 50 cents more. The ranch is a little bland on the thin, crisp fries, but the Cajun has heat.
CRAVE also offers fish and chips ($9) and a cod sandwich ($6) every day of the week, along with a few salad choices that seem like an afterthought on the menu. And really, they should be, because your focus should be where the chef's is: on the burgers. I doubt I could convince myself to order anything else when they’re this superb anyway.
