Coquette Cafe - Milwaukee, WI

Does anyone know anything about the food at one of Sanford's other restarants, Coquette Cafe? We're going there on Saturday. It appears to be a French Bistro type menu. Is there anyting special I shouldn't miss?

Coquette Cafe
316 N. Milwaukee Street
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414-291-2655

stevez wrote:Does anyone know anything about the food at one of Sanford's other restarants, Coquette Cafe? We're going there on Saturday. It appears to be a French Bistro type menu. Is there anyting special I shouldn't miss?

Coquette Cafe
316 N. Milwaukee Street
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414-291-2655

Nothing special, I don't think, but it was very good standard bistro fare. I think you'll be happy.

I've been to Coquette a few times, usually combining it with a visit to the outstanding used book store, Downtown Books, which is but a minute or two away on Wisconsin Avenue.

I usually have the Croque Monsieur, which is made with a high quality Black Forest ham and nicely browned Gruyere. It's a tasty rendition.

My wife has experimented with a few different dishes there, including the Hanger steak and some of the fish offerings. While she thought the Hanger steak was pretty good, she definitely preferred the fish, particularly the salmon.

We always get the creme brulee for dessert--their version isn't quite as good as the outstanding preparation offered by Bistro Campagne, but it's still delicious--and are big fans of their fresh-squeezed lemonade.

I like the big old building that houses Coquette and enjoy the laid back atmosphere there, too. Definitely worth a stop.

I love Coquette, and my husband and I even held our rehearsal dinner there prior to our wedding in Milwaukee. I agree with Kenny - fish dishes tend to stand out for me, especially any salmon preparations. Their salads are excellent too, as is the french onion soup. Enjoy!

I knew I forgot something! Yes, the French onion soup is great--and goes quite will with the croque monsieur. The fries are also very strong.

We had dinner at Coquette Café on Saturday. While I agree that the Onion Soup is fantastic, the rest of the meal (and the kitchen's execution) wasn't all that great. We had a very nice server, but The Chow Poodle's hanger steak turned out to be more like tenderloin tips is a rich gravy. Besides not being like any hanger steak I had ever seen, it had to be sent back due to being cooked to the wrong temperature. I ordered a daily special of yellowtail served over soba noodles. They brought me the wrong dish (it was shrimp served with a gloppy, sweet sauce). Once the server noticed this, she left the shrimp dish for the table to enjoy while she went back to the kitchen to get me the dish I actually ordered. The yellowtail finally arrived over salted and over cooked. It was so salty, I couldn't finish it. The "soba" noodles turned out to be a thin pasta more closely resembling angel hair pasta than soba noodles, although the sesame flavored sauce they were doused in was very good. All in all, I'd give Coquette Café a thumbs down, except for maybe coming in for a light meal of onion soup and better than average baguettes, which are baked next door in the companion bakery (Harlequin), located next door in the same building. I really had high hopes, based on the raves that Sanford universally gets, but those raves didn't seem to translate to Coqutte. I still hope to visit Sanford one o these days.

Coquette Café
316 N Milwaukee St
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414-291-2655

Harlequin Bakery
316 N. Milwaukee St.
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414-291-9866

Coquette Cafe changed hands in 2010. Anyone been there since the switch?

I was there a couple of weeks ago. My sis had mussels, and they were delicious. Nice broth and good amount of mussels. I had the coq au vin, which was also very good. Very rich, deep flavor, and lovely mashed potatoes.

We had the profiteroles for dessert, and while the sauce was reputed to be chocolate, it seemed very pale and was probably caramel. A tad disappointing.

We were encouraged to make reservations, and it was pretty packed as we were leaving. We ate about 6:00 on a Saturday night.

We ate there after having some champagne at Cafe Benelux across from the Milwaukee Public Market. It was lovely on the patio with the outdoor heaters....

On another subject, why can't Chicago have a nice Public Market like Milwaukee? Toronto? Ottawa? etc......

Thanks for the report!

It's always been a mystery why Chicago has no public market. IIRC, Green City Market was started with the idea of one day becoming one, but that doesn't seem to have coalesced.

Milwaukee's market is relatively new, as these things go. I've only been once, shortly after it opened, but as I recall it was pretty pricey and touristy, less like the markets I've been to in Toronto, Philadelphia, Ann Arbor, etc., that seemed more aimed at everyday local shoppers.

What Gene and Judes is to me, I'd say Coquette is to my wife (and she loves GnJ's too!). She just loves the place and cannot be in Milwaukee without going there. We have been there since the change-over, and while there is change in the scope of the place, the food seems roughly similar. We've left nearly always happy. What I like best about Coquette, perhaps this is just a fact of being in another city, but there is something about Coquette that seems so urbane to me, adult, almost a bit Parisian. I guess it's partially the menu, partially the decor which does not veer into that over-realism of say a Rich Melman place,* and maybe the amount of drinking one can see at lunch time. To me, there are places I like a lot in Chicago that are the same in some ways, like Longman or Lula, but those places just seem to swing so much younger in vibe. On the other hand, places around here that do feel adult, from Sabatino's to Tom's Steakhouse, cannot match the feeling of contemporary-ality. Coquette is current and adult--given that my wife is going to work a market for Tomato Mountain this weekend in Milwaukee, I have a feeling I'll be here soon.

As to the Milwaukee Public Market, I've written favorably about it often, but I can also be realistic and say it is not that much different from the Metra French Market in Chicago. They are both, these days, big food courts with good bakeries and better cheese stores (OK, that's not true, the C.Adams bakery in Milwaukee remains better than a good bakery). It's just that the Milwaukee Market looks a lot more like a public market. A lot more.

*Not that I don't also love the Disney school of decor; cf the late, lamented Brasserie Jo.

LAZ wrote:Milwaukee's market is relatively new, as these things go. I've only been once, shortly after it opened, but as I recall it was pretty pricey and touristy, less like the markets I've been to in Toronto, Philadelphia, Ann Arbor, etc., that seemed more aimed at everyday local shoppers.

In my opinon the public market has been a total failure from what they envisioned. It is, as Vital Information stated, a glorified food court. Yes you can get meat and cheese but good luck finding a local vegetable.

I think the cost to construct it was so high that they have to charge expensive rents which no artisans or local farmers can afford. Its sad because there are two indoor farmers markets in the area (West Allis and Oconomowoc) and both of them have exactly what should be in the market. Winter vegetables, heritage pork and other meats, locally crafted sausages, dairy products, local apple ciders, eggs, etc. All of this should be at the public market but it isn't and that is a shame. Here is what is at the Milwaukee County Indoor Farmers Market has: http://www.mcwfm.org/producers.html

Don't get me wrong, I am glad they were able to reinvent themselves into something that works from a business standpoint but its still disappointing.

The MPM is a regular stop when we visit Milwaukee. My recollection is that it used to have a farmer's market component.

The Green City Market operates every other week for a good part of the year. The fact that they don't do it every week, let alone every day, tells me that it is exceedingly hard to make a year-round market work.

Darren72 wrote:The MPM is a regular stop when we visit Milwaukee. My recollection is that it used to have a farmer's market component. The Green City Market operates every other week for a good part of the year. The fact that they don't do it every week, let alone every day, tells me that it is exceedingly hard to make a year-round market work.

It did when it opened. It had two stands selling produce; one was El Rey who sold non-local produce at twice what you would pay if you went to their regular stores and the other was Michael Fields Agricultural Institute which was awesome.

It also had an outdoor component on weekends with local vendors. That too is gone.

In defense of the Public Market, and maybe this means nothing to you if you live in Milwaukee, but the herring from the fish guy at the market is some of my all time favorite pickled/in cream, herrings.

Vital Information wrote:In defense of the Public Market, and maybe this means nothing to you if you live in Milwaukee, but the herring from the fish guy at the market is some of my all time favorite pickled/in cream, herrings.

St. Paul Fish is awesome and I think that is the perfect example of what the market should be...retail sales and a restaurant component. Their fish is usually awesome and its one of only 2-3 places where I will buy shellfish (namely oysters and mussels) in Milwaukee.

Should the posts regarding the market (or lack thereof) be split off into a separate thread (or merged into an existing one--I didn't look to see if one exists). I'm not sure what any of this has to do with Coquette Cafe, nor would anyone looking for info on the state of markets in Milwaukee be looking here for that info