The Corner Table: Top Chef Wisconsin

This week on the podcast, we're talking ballpark food. 

Loren B. Rue grew up loving baseball, and now has his dream job — executive chef at American Family Field, home of the Milwaukee Brewers. Rue manages everything from the concession stands to the on-site brewery, J. Leinenkugel's Barrel Yard, and a new market hall serving arepas, smoked brisket nachos, tortas and sushi. 

The architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright inspired the challenges this week, on episode 4 of Top Chef Wisconsin. Host Lindsay Christians talks with Taliesin executive director Carrie Rodamaker, who hosted film crews at Frank Lloyd Wright's historic school in Spring Green. 

Farm-to-table is a cliché, but its roots among the farmers and chefs of south-central Wisconsin are deep, vibrant and resilient. From brats and burgers to bibimbap, Madison’s food scene looks substantially different than it did just a decade ago. 

This is the final episode of Reopening Sardine, a limited series from The Corner Table podcast. This week, hosts Lindsay Christians and Chris Lay expand their scope to restaurants around Madison. 

Some, like Bar Corallini on Atwood Avenue (shown here), reopened for dine-in service more than a year ago. Others, like Ha Long Bay, have been seating diners inside for a few weeks. At Mint Mark, staff has noticed new regulars who joined for takeout during the pandemic.

Chris spoke with Jennifer DeBolt at The Old Fashioned. Lindsay caught up with the new owners of Marigold Kitchen. And of course we went back to Gates & Brovi, Sardine’s sister restaurant, to hear how things have changed there.

A few things have changed since we last checked in with the folks at Sardine on opening day, May 19. For one, Dane County mask mandates have changed. Staffers are navigating a variety of diner comfort levels with regard to COVID-19 safety, and how many people feels like too many. Brunch is back, and Mondays and Tuesdays are busier than they have ever been. 

Now a month in, we're catching up with co-owners Phillip Hurley and John Gadau about what it's been like to be back in the restaurant nearly every single day. We chat with general manager Susan Schueller too, about what she's noticed. Everyone is reading every customer comment, and they're already thinking about what 100% capacity could look like, somewhere down the line. 

Reopening Sardine is a five-episode series of The Corner Table, a podcast about food and drink in Madison. The Corner Table is produced and hosted by Cap Times food editor Lindsay Christians and Chris Lay.

Well, friends, we’re finally here. After more than a year of uncertainty, fear and frustration, on May 19, Sardine was ready to open its doors to the public again. We start this episode a few days before that, as the behind the scenes crew gets ready. 

We hear from pastry chef Jeff Doyle-Horney, and chefs de cuisine Jason Taylor and Tim Smith. Lindsay talks with maitre’d McKayla Kratowicz and Kelsey Burkett right before the doors opened. 

And as the doors reopen, Chris chats up the very first diners through the door -- Sardine superfans, so happy to be back. Welcome to opening day!

Sardine, a French-inspired restaurant in downtown Madison, had 70 employees when it closed in 2020. As staff prepared to reopen in mid-May at half capacity, they were a tight team of 38. 

Reopening Sardine is a five-episode series of The Corner Table, a podcast about food and drink in Madison. Produced and hosted by Cap Times food editor Lindsay Christians and Chris Lay, this five-part series goes behind the scenes at the reopening of one of Madison's most beloved restaurants. 

This week we're talking with staff as they adjust to changes in tipping processes, new menu items, fresh cocktails and different ways of working with diners. The staff is fully vaccinated, but the ways of service have changed. 

We'll hear from general manager Susan Schueller as well as bartenders and servers about their pandemic year, and what it takes to reopen a restaurant as ambitious and beloved as this one.

When quarantine kicked in last spring, we refocused The Corner Table to examine and document effects the pandemic was having across so many facets of food service, cocktails, grocery stores, and local farmers markets.

Now as we emerge, we’re getting ready to close the book on that dismal chapter. 

We decided to take a deep dive into what it means to reopen a restaurant that’s been closed for over a year, and to illustrate that process we decided to focus on one of our shared favorite places in town: Sardine.

For this first episode, we interviewed Sardine's co-owners John Gadau and Phillip Hurley about what it was like to shut down for over a year, their discussions with employees and the factors they weighed during the summer and fall. How were they feeling? What was the financial impact? Where are they now?

In future episodes we’ll sit in on staff meetings and check in with kitchen staff and servers to find out what their COVID year was like. We’ll take you to Sardine on opening day, and we’ll be looking forward to what dining could look like as we emerge, slowly and as safely as we can, from this dining drought.

We are extremely excited about this, so make sure you’re subscribed for all the future installments that will be coming out over the next several weeks.

Chef Molly Maciejewski has made hundreds of gingerbread houses. As the executive chef and general manager at Madison Sourdough on Madison's east side, Maciejewski hosted yearly workshops, all about making a beautiful, (technically) edible gingerbread home. This week on The Corner Table, Lindsay and Chris chat with Maciejewski about how the gingerbread you build with is different than the gingerbread you eat. We talk candy selection, how to make your icing like spackle, and reflect on why people love making edible constructions like this. And, as a bonus at the end of the episode, we also hear from some of Cap Times' very own in-house gingerbread constructors. (Thanks Quincy and Sawyer! You're champs.) 

The pandemic has put an undeniable damper on the Wisconsin way of life, and probably cut down on the number or quality of old fashioneds we're drinking. But while it may be a while any of us are sidling up to the bar at the local watering hole or enjoying ice cream cocktails at our favorite supper club, it's never a bad time to talk about Wisconsin's signature drinks. This week, food editor Lindsay Christians and co-host Chris Lay talk with "Wisconsin Cocktails" author Jeanette Hurt. Jeanette explains why our state loves boozy milkshakes and brandy over whiskey, and she offers us some hope for how we can bounce back once we can return to our neighborhood dives.

If you've spent time around the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus in the last year, you've probably spotted the adorable white robots rolling along the sidewalks or waiting to cross a busy street, carrying lunch to a hungry student or professor. Last year, UW-Madison became the fourth and largest university to try out Starship food delivery robots, and they captured the attention of students and faculty, who'd rescue them from snowbanks or stop them mid-delivery for a selfie. Lindsay and Chris had a lot of questions about this fleet of delivery automatons, so they asked Peter Testory, chief robot wrangler and director of dining and culinary services for campus housing, to explain just how they work.

One of our favorite things to do lately is check Instagram to see what “Heavy Kevy” is making for dinner. Kevy is not a chef. He’s not a brand ambassador or social media influencer or an ad rep for anything. He’s just a dude who likes to cook and decided to start making videos about it, and they're pretty great. But we wanted to know more of his story: Why does he say to salt meat like an icy sidewalk? How did he get so good at cooking outdoors? Where the heck is his accent from? This week on the podcast, we get the answers.

Thanks to summer vacations, we're repurposing an entertaining and educational episode from the archives that doubles as a kitchen safety public service announcement for you, our dear listeners. On this episode, which first ran in March, Rockhound Brewing Company kitchen manager Adam Haen shares some great stories about how not to handle your knives, and offers some very pointed reasons to keep them sharp. Maybe now’s the time to sharpen your knives and in the process take out that pent-up quarantine-related frustration on the edge of a blade.