1033, a restaurant with a raw bar, small plates and wine, is coming to Walker's Point

A restaurant that will serve raw bar items, small plates and wines — in an atmosphere its owner sees as combining elegance and grittiness — is due in spring in Walker's Point.

The owner of the restaurant at 1033 S. First St. is Rob Levin, who operates 2A Wine Merchants, the wine shop and tasting room in the Third Ward. The chef designing the menu is Justin Carlisle of Ardent, who previously operated the Laughing Taco at that location, from 2017 until 2021.

The design firm Three Sixty will overhaul the look of the space. The restaurant, which will be in first-floor retail space in the Trio apartment building, has two walls of large windows; the other two walls will be covered in graffiti.

Levin said 1033 will juxtapose an urban grittiness — to reflect South First Street as well as his own wine shop's design — with elegant touches that reflect the Ardent aesthetic, like modern china in the vein of Rosenthal.

The idea is to "flip the perception" of what a diner is walking into, Levin said, so that "you walk out going, 'Wow, so many of my senses were just poked.' "

The menu is still being developed, but it will have small plates designed by Carlisle, who's known for his modernist style of cooking, and raw bar seafood, totaling perhaps 25 items. (Another chef will be hired to cook at the restaurant.)

Raw bar items would include oysters, clams, mussels, crab in season, and caviar service.

Levin said the wine list would be "small and curated," totaling around 30 wines, and would change throughout the year. Wine also would be sold by the glass.

Customers would sit along a 16-seat counter. "Everyone is part of the energy — clients, staff," Levin said.

"Like being in your kitchen," Levin said, "the best way to enjoy life is around a bottle of wine and some nibbles."

1033 would be open for dinner and happy hour. Seatings for dinner — by reservation only, secured with a deposit through the Tock platform — would likely be at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m.; the restaurant is expected be open Wednesday to Sunday, Levin said.

No reservations are needed for the daily happy hour with raw bar, though; diners just drop in.

The dinner menu will be a la carte and will have suggestions for wine pairings. Levin said the wines will be from all over the world, but which ones they'll be, exactly, will depend on the final menu.

"The food is going to lead this journey," he said. "Although we’ll have some one-offs we really love that don’t make so much sense for the menu, per se... every bottle will have a relationship back to Justin and the food."

Levin said he's hoping 1033 will be a springboard for the company, WACH Hospitality (Wine, Ambiance, Culinary, Hospitality), to open other intimately sized restaurants.

His own hope for the next one: a sushi restaurant, perhaps a 10-seater. "I just think we have an opportunity there to do it right, a little bit more so," he said. By that, he means an emphasis closer to the Japanese style of sushi — "a focus on the fish and not the mayonnaise mentality," Levin said.

1033 could debut with soft-opening events as soon as late April and open fully in early May. The website will be at 1033mke.com/, and the restaurant will post updates at instagram.com/1033mke.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 1033, with small plates, a raw bar and wine, coming to Walker's Point