Old World Wisconsin's chef pairs seasonal food and local brews for beer dinners
If you haven’t been to Old World Wisconsin in a bit, it might be time for a return trip. That’s particularly true if you like good food and beer.
Pairing Wisconsin history with seasonal menus and local beers, chef Nick Katona shares a different side of the historic site than what we’ve seen in the past. That’s particularly on display with the Plates and Pints dinner series, which launched its second season in May.
This is more than a place for your fourth grader’s field trip (though those will always be popular). Old World Wisconsin, W372 S9727 Highway 67, Eagle, is drawing in beer lovers, foodies and history buffs, too.
Last year the historical site debuted a new brewhouse, and as food and beverage manager, Katona helped launch the dinner series to highlight beer made onsite with brewmaster Rob Novak. They’ve also been bringing in other local brewers, highlighting different styles of beer. They’ve even done collaborations, including creating Two Red Barn Ale with nearby Duesterbeck's Brewing Company. That was one of the beers featured in the first Plates and Pints this season. Cans are now available on-site.
The next dinner event will be an outdoor Brews & Bites picnic featuring New Glarus Brewing on June 23.
The Plates and Pints events, held in the Clausing Barn and featuring five courses with beer pairings, are scheduled for July 28 with Chicago-based Mikerphone Brewing, Aug. 25 with Lake Geneva’s Topsy Turvy Brewery, and Sept. 22 with Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery. Dinners are $99 per person, registration required. Attendees must be 21 or older.
Fish fry is available select Fridays through September. Soft serve frozen custard is made daily. The new beer garden opens this summer, and an expanded cafe space is in the works. Katona expects the new restaurant space to open to the public next year.
For more on Old World Wisconsin and their upcoming events, see oldworldwisconsin.wisconsinhistory.org.
Creating historic connections with food
My parents had a restaurant. I was always interested in cooking. When I was 15 I started at Culver’s. I went to Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago. ... I developed an interest in historic foods and showing that parallel between what we do today and what we used to do. There are a couple interesting YouTube channels — Townsends, they do 17th and 18th century stuff. I fell into it hard. This job seemed like it could be something really fun. I could have a creative outlet. My job is to do the private events and our modern daily food venues.
What to expect when you visit Old World Wisconsin
This season we are really just doing sandwiches and snacks. We’re scheduled to start construction at the end of this calendar year. If all goes to plan, they tell me I should be able to open the cafe May or June of 2024.
The brewhouse officially opened in June of last year. We also started the beer series last year. There is so much potential. At least in Wisconsin there is no other place like Old World and the offerings we can provide. There are a few places across the country that do things kind of like we do, but definitely different. Most are not state-run facilities — they get private funding, like Greenfield Village, which has Henry Ford.
Pulling in new visitors with Plates and Pints
Most of the banquets I’m allowed to do here are catering for foundations that support us, or weddings. Those have a pretty strict menu structure. When you have 150 people coming to have one of three options it is a whole different animal than getting a bunch of foodies here to geek out about an ingredient.
Our brewing experience manager Rob and I felt these dinners would be a good way to expose people to what we do. Let’s showcase what we can do with the brewhouse and also showcase local breweries and beers. When I started in 2019 one of my goals was to bridge the gap between what we did and to bring us as current as folks will allow us to be.
More than a field trip destination
Yes, people know us for the field trips they take as a kid. I want people to realize that is not all we do here. Exploring Midwest heritage in this space is not going away, but that doesn’t mean we can’t explore the connection between food and immigration in a different light. While all these foods may not be what immigrants ate when they came here, we still take inspiration from the historic recipes.
What drives his menus
I think seasonality is a very, very important part of living on this planet. It is important for all people to strive to eat seasonally. Let’s not get strawberries in December. As much as I love them, it is not the way it should happen. Asparagus is lovely this time of year, so for this first dinner we did a raw asparagus salad.
Rooted in Wisconsin history
The German dinner will be interesting. Lakefront (Brewery) was the final dinner we had last season. Russ and Jim (Klisch), the owners, were really happy with what we did. We decided it would be a perfect space to do an Oktoberfest meal with them in September. I’m not German, but as much as I can figure out, this is close to a fancier Oktoberfest traditional meal we're planning.
The sauerkraut will be made on-site. We make sauerkraut all the time in the historic kitchens as part of teaching demonstrations, but I will be making my own. We can’t serve the stuff made in those kitchens. I made gooseberry vinegar last year, and we grow gooseberries on-site. When available, we do use the produce from the gardens.
What else is available now, and looking ahead
Every day they are making a batch of beer in the brewhouse over an open fire, with some ingredients from on-site. We grow hops here. Noon each day, there is a “brewery tour” where folks can be walked through the process on-site. ... We are selling flights now. You pay general admission to get in, and that includes the brewhouse and a sample of the beer they brew that day.
Typical daily operations at the Clausing Barn are not open right now, nor is the creamery. ... We do have soft serve frozen custard. We purchase from a local dairy and make the custard daily.
Food and fun on (select) Fridays
Our fish fry began in May. They are the second Friday of each month through September. Beer dinners are the fourth Friday. Fish fry is a three-course and comes with clam chowder. The first one I made New England style, the next may be Manhattan. The fish, first we did smelt, cod and perch. We’ll probably just do two kinds going forward. Then I include tartar sauce, coleslaw, baked potato or German potato salad, and rye bread, plus a dessert.
You can come in and just do dining for the fish fry. There is a bar and live music for the fish fry, and we also sell a whole lot of old fashioneds. SoulBoxer does a ready-to-drink old fashioned. We use that. The next fish fry we’ll have Central Standard’s two ready-to-drink options, including a bourbon smash. The ticket price for the fish fry includes one drink. You can purchase more. Tickets for dinners do not include admission to the site. Our site closes at 4 p.m. Dinner doors open at 4:30 p.m. We only have one seating. We’re not operating as a normal restaurant all the time. We don’t have daily service.
How he finds historical recipes
I am not bound to any rules, thankfully. The Historical Society has an online archive of a large number of menus and things dating back to maybe 1880 up to modern times. Then there are a bunch of online resources that have brought the cookbooks of antiquity into modern domain.
A lot of cookbooks have been digitized. Project Gutenberg has a few classic cookbooks free to read. University of Michigan has a program called Feeding America. That’s a large searchable database of historical cookbooks. Then there are obviously a lot of Escoffier techniques and French things that never fall out of favor in my mind. I try to riff on things and bring things current. Having said that, there are a lot of historic foods that are not palatable, to be kind.
When he's not working
I’m kind of starting to get my feet with fermentation, but that is a longer process. I don’t know that I’ll have any of it ready for this year. I have a fermentation cabinet and I’m trying to start a Midwest soy sauce (using Wisconsin wild rice).
Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email psullivan@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Old World Wisconsin's chef pairs seasonal food, local brews for beer dinners
