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If I made a shoebox diorama of myself in my natural habitat, I’d put my cardboard self at a bar in a tranquil neighborhood restaurant. I’d have a glass of rosé and a novel open in front of me. This is my personal native land.
So when I say dining at Fairchild, a not-technically-new-but-still-kind-of-new restaurant on Monroe Street, felt like coming home the first time I went there, that’s what I mean. Let the record reflect my personal bias for tranquil bars and frigid rosé, service that feels personal but doesn’t hover, and thoughtful plates of food.
In each of these ways, Fairchild is as close to perfect as a restaurant gets.
Fairchild, open a breath before the pandemic in 2020, is the collective dream of former L’Etoile chef de cuisine Itaru Nagano and chef Andrew Kroeger, who moved back to Madison after five years in Austin, Texas, with the ELM Restaurant Group. Kroeger is a L’Etoile alum, as is their third partner, Patrick Sierra.
Fairchild is the kind of restaurant that puts not only the name of its chefs on its website, but also the line cooks and servers. It’s a place where you can ask about the build on the Jasmine cocktail (gin, Campari, Cointreau and lemon) and bar manager Marlee Schutte will pause to give you the recipe.
Fairchild is the kind of place where the server will probably remember you, particularly if you’re seated by Nancy Sorensen, an industry vet who dabbled in restaurant reviews herself back in the ’90s. A potter from Cambridge wood-fired the plates and bowls. A florist from Daffodil Parker filled the shadowy, cozy dining room with curling vines.
Server Nancy Sorensen checks the reservation list at Fairchild at 2611 Monroe St.
While Fairchild’s menu is tiny — a handful of snacks and appetizers, a few entrees, a couple pastas and sides — it can change almost daily. And diners are likely to find something unexpected, like a deeply prosperous bone marrow with fava bean toast, or head cheese so fine it seems held together by intention alone.
Technical flourishes, like petite croutons cut exactly the same size as trout roe on top of a silky asparagus gazpacho, are second nature to Nagano and Kroeger by now. So is the precise ratio of tangy Dreamfarm goat cheese to melt-in-your-mouth halibut and recent potatoes. The presentation looks princely, but the restaurant vibe is boy next door.
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While I acknowledge the phrase “new American” when applied to cuisine means everything and nothing (like “farm to table”) I’m tempted to utilize them for Fairchild anyway. “Neighborhood restaurant” in Madison usually means a bar — and there are Wisconsin classic deviled eggs, creamy and keen with mustard, among Fairchild’s bar snacks.
But lightly coconutty, vegan-friendly broccoli dusted with nutritional yeast would be at home at a vegetarian café. I’ve had a version of the market greens at a half-dozen restaurants around town, but I have no memory of the last time octopus tasted so tender, set off by shaved radish and ribbons of cucumber.
At Fairchild, asparagus gazpacho with trout roe, almonds and croutons is served alongside an entree of halibut with asparagus, potatoes, lemon and Dreamfarm goat cheese. At right is a cocktail called the Rhunette, made with vodka, rhubarb, mint and moscato.
Kroeger takes charge of the pasta, lately a stuffed shape called agnolotti with cauliflower, and flat, egg-enriched pappardelle with tiny ribs or lamb. These are among Fairchild’s heartiest dishes, tossed with fresh market finds like green garlic and ramps.
As a reduced team of two for much of the past year, Nagano and Kroeger had time to work out their collaboration. When they head to the market each week, they split up who will take the morels and who wants to work with strawberries. Dishes swap out more quickly during the growing season, even if diners — or the chefs themselves — love them.
“We both get sick of stuff really fast,” Nagano said. “Even if it’s a dish we really like, we’ll change it because we’ll get sick of it.”
Diner eat on the sidewalk patio at Fairchild at 2611 Monroe St. The restaurant, which opened just before the pandemic in 2020, is now serving at full capacity.
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That level of change, combined with Fairchild’s dabbling in whole animal butchery, led to the way I plan to order here in perpetuity: dinner for two. Recently a friend and I split a plate of Pinn-Oak Ridge lamb, rosy slices surrounded by smoked and roasted beets and pickled mustard seeds. It combined Wisconsin supper club levels of generosity with a sophisticated understanding of texture.
The wine list, though tiny and a little tame, has winners by the glass and the bottle, including an austere chardonnay from Austria and ripe raspberry-scented 2020 Teutonic rosé from the Willamette Valley. Schutte’s cocktail list incorporates classics like a perfectly calibrated rye senior fashioned alongside well-balanced seasonal variations made with berries and fresh herbs.
Though usually open for dinner Wednesday through Saturday, for this week, the restaurant is closed. The owners have been going nonstop since October 2019, Nagano said — they need a break. Brunch will go on hiatus for awhile too, in order to focus confined staff energies on dinner.
Fairchild bar manager Marlee Schutte shakes a cocktail at the restaurant. Fairchild’s list contains an extensive selection of bourbon and wine.
“We’re training new cooks in the kitchen and new front of house staff,” Kroeger said. “Once we get them all up to speed, I can see the menu getting bigger or more intricate. We’re taking it as a day by day thing.”
With an abundance of talent in the kitchen and marvelously good ingredients, Fairchild feels a bit like the fine dining spot next door.
The difference is simplicity. At L’Etoile, folks pay for a show. Not here.
“I don’t have to put bells and whistles on everything,” Nagano said. “A lot of times at L’Etoile, I would try to come up with new techniques not so much for the flavor profile, but something nobody else is doing.
“Here we’re going back towards basics. We’re focusing on the true vegetable, the true protein, trying to get the wow factor from the flavors and the quality. If it’s a good tomato, we’re just going to give you a really good tomato.”
That’s Fairchild: fresh yet familiar, intentionally elementary. After the pressures of a pandemic year, it is very good to be home.
