and eat/drink at locally owned establishments. You can't go wrong. Unless you just want beer and student food, stay off of State Street. Your best bet for great cocktails/food are:
Old Fashioned, Nostrano or Merchant--great place for cocktails. Nostrano has best pastry chef in Madison, so if you like desert this is your spot.
Tornado (best Steaks in town, although I am in love with the venison loin)
Osteria Papavero (awesome, authentic Italian)
Harvest or L'Etoile (for the high end, local ingrediet dinner)
This is Wisconsin, we have beer everywhere you look.
The plaza was my wife's hangout as an undergrad, my spot during law school there, and is forever the first place I want to go when we're up there. Plaza burger, cheesecurds, extra plaza sauce and a spotted cow. Pure heaven.
I'm actually going to visit a friend and go to a law school gala up there this weekend. If I see you, I'll be ready to photobomb any pictures you're in.
My wife is from WI and we got married in Madison - awesome city. You will have a great time!
Brasserie V has amazing belgian beers on tap, including St Bernardus Abt 12. Also has very good food.
Inka Heritage - delicious Peruvian food.
Graze - kind of a higher end gastropub.
Ian's Pizza - mac & cheese on a pizza? Sure!
Essen House - do it!
Drink bear eat brats and cheese and listen to polka music it's wisconsin.
and get the Old Fashioned burger. It is the best burger in Madison. They also sell every Wisconsin beer.
Can't recommend this place enough.
Very good. It was awesome to go to a place that has 35+ beers on draft that's I've never had before.
I'm liking this town
You can also feel good knowing that you have given your business to good people. I know the owners and they are genuinely nice folks.
All my Mgofriends would also be glad to know that the majority of the locals I know here think that Bret Bielema is just as much of a meat-headed boob as we all do.
how Madison loves Badger football and is so completely indifferent to Bret Bielema. I went to the Great Dane in Fitchburg once as he was doing his weekly radio show and they offered us free food if we would go listen to his show because the rest of the restaurant crowd wanted nothing to do with it.
That Great Dane is about a mile from where my wife and I live. We live down by Fish Hatch and Lacy.
My fiancee and I used to live right across the street from that Great Dane, but we moved out to McFarland recently.
Good to know that there's more people who frequent this site in the area!
March 22nd, 2012 at 11:25 PM ^
from Stoughton.
....for Bret's radio show. We, of course, will be emblazoned in maize and blue.
Cooper's Tavern on the Capitol Square is one of my favorites. Great food + TREMENDOUS selection of tap beer. I'm going out on Friday p.m. with the guys (1st time in a long time), so I'll look for you in the crowds. You can't miss me.
There are honestly a ton of great food choices, as many people have previously mentioned.
Grab a UW-made Babcock Ice Cream at the Memorial Union while people-watching (if the weather holds out).
March 22nd, 2012 at 10:02 PM ^
- have beer and sit outside at the Union Terrace
- lunch or dinner at the Old Fashioned or Dotty Dumplings or Great Dane
- brunch at Marigold
- walk down State Street
- dinner at L'Etoile or Graze or Harvest or Sardine or Osteria Papavero or ...
- walk out to picnic point
- walk through the arboretum
- visit monona terrace
- have a slice at Ian's (mac+cheese in particular)
- walk around the capitol
- wonder why Zingerman's won't open a branch here
Yes, get the mac n cheese pizza from Ian's on State Street. Also, add me to the list of people who would recommend the Old Fashioned. Oh, and Dotty's for a burger! I live on the near east sde of Madison, so hello to my fellow cheeseheads! Not a native, grew up in Toledo, Michigan undegrad and some grad school. Came to WI for law school and never left the state -- no bar exam for in-state grads who practice here!