Dylan Brogan
Patricia Davis and André Darlington in the extensively remodeled 10 W. Mifflin space.
The Capitol Square’s newest restaurant, Field Table, 10 W. Mifflin St., will fill several gaps in the downtown food scene. First on the list: doughnuts.
“The people have spoken,” says co-owner André Darlington. “We’ve been hearing we need doughnuts downtown for years.” So these doughnuts will be made fresh, in-house.
Darlington (former Isthmus contributor and author of The New Cocktail Hour) describes Field Table as a “mini-emporium” that will transform throughout the day. It is slated to open soon and will reap the bounty of the Dane County Farmers’ Market as soon as possible.
The space has undergone extensive remodeling to increase its visibility from the street, says Darlington. Heliotrope Architects of Seattle designed a new facade and a new entry with direct street access.
Twenty-foot-high windows overlook the Capitol Square and can be opened during warm weather. An 18-seat bar divides Field Table into two parts: a restaurant/bar and a market/coffee shop. The dining area will seat 70 and a Chef’s Table room will be available for private functions. Darlington is most excited about a four-seat “cheese bar” that looks into the restaurant’s three cheese caves.
Field Table will start the day as a cafe serving coffee from Ruby Coffee Roasters of Nelsonville, Wis., a recent winner of a 2016 Good Food award for its single-origin Ethiopia Guji Uraga. Lunch will focus on grab-and-go items.
Field Table shifts into full restaurant and bar mode at happy hour. Head chef Shannon Berry — whose last gig was at the Nordic restaurant Aquavit in Manhattan — has been working with Darlington on the menu for over six months. Save for a few regular items like a burger, the restaurant menu at Field Table will be “chalkboard style,” with items changing daily depending on the season and availability.
The farm-to-table ethos will also extend to cocktails and a natural wine program (focus on biodynamic, organic, sustainable wines). Bar manager Mike McDonald, formerly of Bittercube in Milwaukee, says the cocktail program will be “one of the most competitive in the city.”
“The emphasis will be on using ingredients primarily from the Midwest,” says McDonald of the homemade syrups and liqueurs that will anchor the cocktail program. “That’ll make it challenging, because it hasn’t really been done before. But it should set us apart.”
Co-owner Patricia Davis is handling the business side of Field Table (Darlington and Davis are also partners in life). Davis, who has an MBA from UW-Madison, grew up on a family cattle farm in South Dakota that raises hormone-free beef. She shares Darlington’s vision of bringing “farm-to-table principles” to a new level in Madison.
“We had both toyed with the idea of opening a restaurant over the years,” says Davis. “When you love food as much as we do, it’s inevitable.”
True to its name, Field Table will take full advantage of the farmers’ markets and make direct connections with farms. This includes offering single-origin dishes, where the entire meal comes from one farm.
The common thread that unites all the elements of Field Table, says Davis, is “impeccably sourced” ingredients. “If we can’t do it the right way, we won’t be doing it at all,” says Davis.
