Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [180]
Milwaukee, WI
LD | $
Speed Queen is Milwaukee’s best barbecue, serving pork, beef, and turkey cooked until ridiculously tender and served in a glaze of spicy sauce. The mild sauce is robust and slightly sweet. Hot sauce is explosive, a dark orange emulsion that reminds us of Arthur Bryant’s dizzying potion in Kansas City. For many customers, the mild is a little too mild, the hot is too lip-burning, so it is not uncommon to hear orders for “half and half.” (Sauce is sold in bottles to take home: highly recommended!)
There are two kinds of pork available: shoulder or outside meat. Shoulder is thick slices that are almost chunks, tender as velvet. Outside meat is a motley pile of nearly blackened shreds and nuggets, some of which are tender, some of which are crusty, and some of which quite literally melt on the tongue. It is smokier-tasting than inside meat, like essence of barbecue. A favorite way to eat at Speed Queen is to order a half-and-half plate (ribs and outside, rib tips and shoulder, etc.) that consists of meat, sauce, a couple of slices of spongy white bread (necessary for sopping sauce), plus a cup of coleslaw. Beans and potato salad cost extra. You can also get a sandwich, but beware: these “sandwiches” are, in fact, lots of meat and sauce piled onto white bread in such a way that it is inconceivable to hold it in your hands like a sandwich.
Everything is delivered at the order window in a Styrofoam container, and while most business is take-out, Speed Queen offers a row of functional booths for dining-in. Décor is minimal, consisting of two identical photo murals of the Wisconsin Dells on opposite walls. While there is a jukebox, it seems seldom to be plugged in or playing. Room tone is a hush punctuated by lip-smacks, sighs of pleasure, and the quietest kind of reverential conversation—the pensive hush induced by truly wonderful barbecue.
Three Brothers
2414 S. St. Clair St.
414–481–7530
Milwaukee, WI
D | $$
The story of Three Brothers is a dramatic one. “My father bought this tavern in 1950,” recalls proprietor Branko Radiecevich. “He chose the name Three Brothers in anticipation of his three sons coming to the United States. Alexander, Milutin, and I escaped Yugoslavia in 1956. It was a real reunion; I had not seen my father for fourteen years, when we were separated in a Nazi concentration camp.”
Branko’s family restaurant has become a Milwaukee landmark that attracts eaters from all walks of life and all ethnic groups. Accommodations are polite but humble—dine at a bare-top, steel-banded table—and the ethnic food is grand. We started with lemon-and-wine marinated rice-stuffed grape leaves, which were served with black olives and firm sticks of nut-sweet kashkaval (a goat’s milk cheese) and a “Serbian salad” of tomatoes, green peppers, and onions showered with finely grated Bryndza, a soft goat’s-milk cheese.
One autumn a while ago when we came for supper, Branko reminded us that it was leek season and brought out a savory pastry pie layered with caramelized peppered leeks. He was even more enthusiastic about roast lamb, a Three Brothers signature dish that is basted four hours in its own juices with tomato, pepper, onion, and garlic, and served just barely on the bone. Poke it with fork tines, and bite-size hunks of meat separate from the haunch and fall into the juice on the plate. The menu describes it as a must for the lamb lover, but we suspect that even non-lamb lovers might find its refined taste irresistible.
The building in which Three Brothers serves these fine meals is a corner tavern that was built in 1897 and was owned and operated for decades by the Schlitz Brewing Company. The Schlitz insignia—a globe—still crowns the peak of the roof. There are no longer seats at the old bar, which runs the length of the front room and is now a service area, but the wood-floored saloon retains the warmth of a community gathering place.
Watts Tea Room
761 N. Jefferson St.
414–291–5120
Milwaukee, WI
BL&T Mon–Sat | $
When we wrote the cookbook Square Meals in 1984,