News

A British pub feel — right down to the fish 'n' chips
December 22, 2006
Dennis R. Getto
Full Article: A British pub feel — right down to the fish 'n' chips

Looking for a good pizza or some crisp battered cod with thick steak fries? One good place to find them is under the photographs of Winston Churchill and Roger Moore.

Those pictures, and a varied collection of handbills, signs, posters and soccer jerseys, adorn the walls of Carleton Grange, a casual 80-seat restaurant that owners Michael Rusch and Eric Ellsworth opened in May.

The two owners got the idea for an English Pub during a year they spent studying in England. Carleton Grange was the name of the residence hall where they and other foreign students lived. And when the building was torn down recently, they managed to secure the building sign to display on their pub.

Actually, it's not completely accurate to call this restaurant a pub. Sure, diners will find classic English fare such as fish and chips ($10.95) and grilled sandwiches called Pub Toasties. But listed with them on the menu are American dishes such as wood-fired pizzas, burgers and smothered chicken ($12.95), two breast fillets topped with a flavorful baked-on mixture of wood-roasted mushrooms, apples, bacon and cheddar cheese.

If you take a quick walk around the restaurant, you'll see the wood-fired oven built into a brick wall back in the kitchen. It's that oven that gives much of Carleton Grange's food so much character.

Even though there's only one steak choice on the menu (a 10-ounce top sirloin, $15.95), it's a good choice, thanks to the extra outdoorsy flavor imparted by the oven. Like most of the other full entrées, that steak came with two sides - brightly colored, still-crunchy carrots and summer squash, and skin-on mashed potatoes blended with mild Italian mascarpone cheese.

Yet if I had to pick my favorite entrée, it would have to be Carleton Grange's pizza, which I first heard about from a reader who phoned me last spring.

The two we tried both had traditional English names - Piccadilly Circus ($9.95) and Holloway Road ($9.25 with chicken, $11.75 with shrimp) - but they proved to be English in name only.

The Piccadilly Circus was topped with barbecued chicken bathed in a sweet American-style barbecue sauce. Beneath it lay blended Italian cheeses, wood-roasted red onions and bell peppers and a puffy thick crust that was crisp on the edges and bottoms.

More unusual was the Holloway, which we ordered with shrimp. In this case, the pizza sauce was Alfredo - rich cream and Parmesan cheese - to which fresh basil and diced fresh Roma tomatoes added both color and extra flavor.

The plump shrimp that dotted the top of the pizza delivered bursts of fresh seafood flavor that kept us cutting off small slices and snacking on them through the slower moments of the meal.

"White sauce" pizzas like this can be pretty bland. Carleton Grange's version was a welcome departure, thanks to the Parmesan and basil.

Among entrées not from the wood oven, Norwegian bronzed salmon ($16.75) earned high marks for its fresh flavor and moist texture. The hearty fish would have tasted fine by itself, but a thin sheet of shrimp cream sauce (complete with three fresh shrimp) provided an extra dimension of sweet shellfish.

The restaurant's best English pub offering, hands down, was fish and chips. Even the most persnickety Milwaukee fish fry enthusiast would go for the three large pieces of boneless cod carefully coated in beer batter and fried for a glimmering golden crust that crunched musically with each bite. The flaky white cod inside was sweet and steaming and did not need the tartar sauce served with it.

In solid Milwaukee form, the fish and chips came with a half-slice of marble rye and small container of fresh red cabbage-carrot coleslaw with creamy dressing.

The one Pub Toasty that I tried ($6.95) put three distinct flavors together - sharp English cheddar cheese, thick-cut smoky bacon and tomato slices. The addition of two Italian touches, a hearty Italian roll and pesto mayonnaise, raised the sandwich above the flavor level normally associated with English food. It would be a competitor in any sandwich class.

The same was true for a steak sandwich ($10.50), which delivered lots of varied flavors thanks to the addition of blue cheese, wood-grilled onions and an Italian-style onion ciabatta roll.

And Carleton Grange's approach to fries is both all English and all fun. Thick-cut slabs of fried potato are available as in England with curry sauce ($5.75).

For fans of American fry toppings, there's the Grange Chip Bowl ($7.95), in which diners get a selection of toppings ranging from melted cheese to the house chili.

Our selection - topped with cheese chili and marinated Roma tomatoes - was so tasty that my dining companion and I nibbled on the fries throughout our meal.

If there was any department in which Carleton Grange was weak, it was dessert.

Our server suggested something called caramel apple a la mode ($5.95), which turned out to be sliced sautéed cinnamon apples with vanilla ice cream. Our server brought it to us with forks, which didn't work well on either the ice cream or the abundant apple sauce, so we had to ask for spoons.

The forks were better suited to Chocolate Stout Cheesecake ($5.75), but we ate very little of it because it had a strong taste of artificial flavorings. We had to wait until we got home to a plate of freshly baked Christmas cookies before our sweet teeth were satisfied.

That criticism aside, service at both meals was well-paced and attentive, and the Grange's brick interior with its dark woodwork and pool table in one corner provided a great atmosphere for relaxing and chatting.

In summer, owner Rusch told me, Carleton Grange opens its extensive patio area with additional seating for 125.

I'm looking forward to a return visit then.