Chefs in carts

Newcomers raise the stakes in the annual city food cart review

by

Imagine eating at 60 food carts in two weeks. This is the task taken on by the city of Madison food cart review panel. About 25 volunteers evaluate all currently licensed Library Mall/Capitol Concourse food carts — the first week devoted to Library Mall, the second to the Square. On consecutive Saturdays, the panel squeezes in weekend-only vendors plus all new carts trying for mall/concourse licenses for the 2017 vending season. (Food carts can vend elsewhere in the city without needing to go through this process — this is the hoop that must be jumped through for a coveted mall/concourse slot.)

This year, 19 new carts joined 41 returnees, all vying for 40 mall/concourse spaces. Reviewers are charged with rating the applicants on the basis of food (40 percent); apparatus, i.e., everything about the cart itself (40 percent); and originality (20 percent).

It’s a challenge. A pleasure, largely, but also work. The two-week marathon ended Saturday, Oct. 1; scores should be released by the city later this month.

This is the second year I was on the panel. I first participated in 2014. I skipped 2015 — in part due to a backpacking trip, but also because I remembered what a commitment it was, in terms of both time and, yes, eating and considering all that food.

Since visiting all the carts means hitting up four or five of them each weekday (and a formidable 14 carts on the second Saturday), there’s a lot of eatin’. You can spot panel members not just from their official ID lanyards but from their tote bags bulging with leftovers.

But because food carts are my favorite way of eating lunch, I wanted to get back on the horse this year. And it was a good year to get back on the horse.

The arrival of Banzo in 2011 signaled a sea change in cart culture, with its professionally manufactured trailer, a logo and graphics designed by a graphic artist and active social media accounts broadcasting daily locations and specials.

This year, the scene seems poised to shift direction again, with several new chef-driven carts hoping to join El Grito, the haute taco trailer with Matthew Danky (an alum of Cafe Montmartre and L’Etoile) at the helm.

Take a look at Common Pasta, the appealing new cart from Brian Baur and Thomas Durbin, veterans of Grace and the Bristol, respectively, in Chicago, and Nostrano in Madison.

“We wanted to have a food cart that is like the restaurant of food carts,” Baur says. Their white chef coats and black aprons reinforce that aim.

The contemporary-looking cart even houses a six-burner restaurant stove. Menu mainstays are housemade pastas created with the help of a “beast” of an Italian extruder they picked up in Connecticut, says Baur. There’s a kale-almond pesto on gemelli, a beef short rib and tomato ragu on bigoli, and mac ’n’ cheese made with Carr Valley and Roth Kase cheeses. Housemade polenta-pepita sourdough rolls come on the side. (Common Pasta is currently vending most noons at 1025 W. Johnson St. in front of the Educational Sciences building, so you don’t even have to await the results of the cart review to try this food.)

Or consider the Ugly Apple, which will specialize in breakfasts. Laurel Burleson, who’s been cooking professionally in Madison and Chicago for 15 years, just picked up her cart from the genius makers Caged Crow Fabrication in St. Germain, Wisconsin, two days before the review. Her menu focuses on biscuit sandwiches and steel-cut oatmeal; she hopes to use overstock produce from local farmers in such items as her market veggie sandwich, applesauce and apple fritters.

Braisin’ Hussies made its debut late this summer at office parks. Chef-owner Michael Sollinger went to culinary school and then traveled the world, working in kitchens from Thailand to Southern California, even owning three restaurants and a bakery in eastern Europe. His approach to his tacos, grain/noodle bowls and sandwiches is global; the cart allows him to focus “on the cooking technique, not the ethnicity” of the dish, he says. Sollinger embraces the cart as a path to do simple cooking his way, without incurring the debt involved in starting a restaurant. With downtown rents rising, more chefs in carts may be on the way.

Of course, family-run carts focusing on a single world cuisine, the original hallmark of Madison mobile food, aren’t absent. The new Sabor Catrachos specializes in Honduran food, and yes, pupusa lovers, there are pupusas and curtido along with pastelitos, nactamales and other national dishes. Noosh will reprise its menu of Eastern European Jewish dishes from the short-lived restaurant on South Park Street. Zam Zam will serve Afghani food; dZi Little Tibet its country’s momos, curries and spicy stews.

There’s lots more, but it turns out it’s even more difficult to fit 60 carts into a single newspaper article than it is to eat at them all in two weeks. If the number of aspiring newcomers continues to rise, the current review system may need revamping.

Who will come out on top? Officially, we won’t know until the city tabulates the scores and adds seniority points for veteran carts. I found that most are doing everything, or almost everything, right, with only a few not quite making the grade. Great news for Madison street eats.

Editor's note: The text has been edited to reflect the total of 60 carts, not 59 as originally stated.