Bay View's Sisu Cafe adds steakhouse nights
Sisu Cafe in the Bay View neighborhood, a casual breakfast and lunch spot by day, will turn down the lights, bring out the tablecloths and feature live music to turn into its version of a steakhouse by night.
"It’s going to be old school," said Frank Sanchez, the chef at Sisu and its Bay View sibling, Sabrosa, who owns the restaurants with partner Ruben Piirainen.
Dinner hours will be 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. The restaurant, which opened in July at 2121 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., ends cafe service at 3 p.m. This is the first weekend for dinner service, with Friday night being the soft opening.
Sanchez said he and Piirainen noted there were no table-service restaurants at their intersection of Kinnickinnic Avenue at Becher and Bay streets.
So they first began offering table service during the day. To make use of the space at night, they decided a steakhouse would fill a gap in Bay View restaurants.
More:Sisu Cafe opens for quick breakfast and lunch in Bay View
In talking with customers about launching the steakhouse at night, Sanchez said, "affordability was the common denominator."
"We love doing that, we love the supper club vibe," Sanchez said customers would tell him, "but we can’t afford that all the time."
Sisu is serving three steaks: 16-ounce, bone-in ribeye ($38), 16-ounce bone-in porterhouse ($36) and 8-ounce bacon-wrapped tenderloin ($32). Each is served with one side dish, such as roasted-garlic mashed potatoes or roasted brussels sprouts with Dijon hollandaise. More sides can be ordered a la carte.
Sanchez acknowledged three steaks are fewer than on the typical steakhouse menu. "Does that really qualify for us to be a steakhouse? Have we always followed the rules? Well, no," Sanchez said.
Other entrees will range from $19 (portobello mushroom risotto) to $28 linguine with salmon). Other main dishes are pork-shoulder steak with roasted apple and lingonberry, and a half chicken in sherry-mushroom cream sauce. Sisu will start a nightly special later.
Appetizers ($10 to $15) include smoked salmon on Swedish rye crackers with caper-dill cream cheese, and baked kutenjuusto, goat cheese baked in tomato sauce, and escargots on toast.
Some of the cocktails reflect the daytime cafe's Nordic theme; the lonkero is gin, lingonberry juice, grapefruit soda and lemon juice ($12). Sisu also has wines by the bottle, favoring cabernet sauvignon to pair with those steaks, and the house wine is $7 a glass.
Happy hour will be from 5 to 6 p.m. After dinner, patrons can find spiked coffee and other after-dinner drinks.
At one end of the restaurant, a lounge will have soft furniture for customers who want to relax with a drink before or after dinner, Sanchez said. (Drapes for the large windows and a new bar top will be installed later.)
The other side of the restaurant will have about a dozen tables for dinner. "It doesn’t matter where you sit, you’ll still be able to view the stage" where musicians will play, Sanchez said.
Reservations are recommended and can be made at sisucafe.com. Customers can park in the adjacent free lot, which has stalls for 70 cars.
The cafe remains open for breakfast and lunch 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday, serving brunch cocktails daily.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bay View's Sisu Cafe adds steakhouse nights
