The Harvey House, announced in 2018 by Joe Papach and Shaina Robbins Papach, veterans of multiple Michelin-starred kitchens, finally arrived in July. Back Crazy people atmosphere on the menu (“We can suggest … pre-dinner MARTINI”), an upscale supper club aesthetic, and recently Esquire select as one of the best up-to-date restaurants in America in 2021. Madison has a real phenomenon on her hands.
Drawing on their experiences at Chez Panisse, The French Laundry and Gramercy Tavern, the Harvey House duo reinterprets a supper club in an ancient train depot in Western Washington – but don’t expect buttered parcels and cheese and onion hash browns. Harvey House is a steakhouse version of a supper club, more New York than New Holstein, and if not fine dining, then certainly neighborhood fine dining.
Here, the tray of goodies, the pinnacle of Wisconsin supper club iconography, is not a pile of crunchy roughage. Vegetables are peeled, trimmed, and subjected to some kind of alchemy that transforms them into glassy, tender versions of themselves. You have to see it to understand it. Whipped dill ranch, luxurious deviled eggs, and gorgeous pastrami-style sturgeon make this a tray of delicacies worth paying for on your own (which will cost you around $18).
The magic of Harvey House isn’t just about turning ingredients into a transportable meal, like at Ishnala or Toby’s in Madison. No, the real trick is that Harvey House takes each carefully sourced and prepared ingredient and turns each one into a marvel of texture and balance that often leaves guests struggling to understand the illusion.
Standard French onion soup is transformed into an impossibly luxurious onion broth served at the table with diamond gruyere cream. The bowl dotted with miniature croutons is pure French onion soup, but it doesn’t look like you might expect. The seasonal behind schedule summer sweet corn soup was glossy as silk.
Impressive bone-in chicken cordon bleu, so golden brown in its crumbs that you can’t assist but touch it, is a year-round dish. And I would miss the Superior zander if it went away, with its gaunt, crispy but not tough piece of fried pumpernickel on a generous portion of fish – more texturing skill at work here.
Slow-cooked salmon serves a similar purpose with its crispy skin, but mine resulted primarily in frustration. The skin was too crispy, ruining the texture of the tender salmon underneath with each forkful. It was the only real miss, delicious but defective in delivery.
Real rib eye is more steep with Madison ribeyes at $69, but the sous vide cooking technique makes it tender and well-cooked. The approximately 10-ounce serving balances meaty weight with a tender bite, and searing on the outside provides a textural contrast similar to the bark of the best Texas brisket.
This ribeye isn’t quite modernist, but it’s close, with two perfect portions of glossy whipped potato and a dramatic splash of Bordelaise. I’d love to see the creamed spinach underneath (also available as a garnish) presented a little less chastely. From generously charred potatoes to a neat wedge salad, I know the Harvey House kitchen has access to good bacon lardons; add some spinach! At least make it as creamy as the name suggests.
Reservations are managed through Resy online and can be complex to obtain without proper planning – although one of my visits was a preliminary one (6:45 p.m. on a Wednesday) and we were able to get a table right away. The host praised our good fortune.
Although even seats at the bar fill up quickly, a quick meal of drinks and petite treats is quite doable. Yes, the shrimp in the shrimp cocktail is wonderful, but for heaven’s sake, the cocktail sauce is spectacular; without broad pieces of horseradish, but with lots of horseradish flavor. Toast with wild mushrooms is a lively mix of earthy, buttery and sour flavors.
Chicken liver mousse is pure luxury, spread on toast with a shadowy and tempting jam (plum in one case, port in another) and can be the star of appetizers, although the smoked sausage in a blanket is also second to none. Yes, it’s basically a cheddar cheese brat, but the dough that surrounds it is impressive, and the sauce that adorns it is intricate, perfectly glides, and adorably reminiscent of Secret Stadium’s bougie sauce.
Desserts are more fluid than any other part of the Harvey House menu. Rich but not ponderous, the banana and toffee pudding was a specialty on one visit, on the regular menu on the next, and on the third. The chocolate cake on the cookie dough was similarly airy and looked fluffy. There’s always the option of the very clubby Brandy Alexander for a really glossy dessert.
The service reflects the polish brought to Harvey House by its owners, showing attentiveness and warmth without being obsequious.
There are some problems with this institutional formality; paying for a tray of treats can be one of them if you prefer your supper clubs not to be reinterpreted. The bar also prefers that customers order cocktails from the house menu. Before I knew it, I was ordering a classic old-style rye, as opposed to the cognac-focused Call Me Old Fashioned on the menu. Still, the bartender served me probably the best old-fashioned dish I’ve ever had. Cherry may have been fancy, but a great ancient fashioned will always make me feel at home.
The Harvey House
644 West Washington Avenue.
608-250-9578
theharveyhouse.com
17:00-21:30 Tue-Sat
$8-69
