Paulius Musteikis
Jacs Dining and Taphouse
Like luck, inspiration and fate, craving is a fickle visitor. It holds to no schedule; it respects no existing meal plans or even a decent hour of the day. Put another way: Sometimes you need -- like, need -- a stack of pancakes at one in the morning.
The truly late-night dining scene in Madison is still in a growth phase. We're too small a market to support the "everything, all the time" model of the bigger cities, but not so small that there's nothing better to do than keep the diner open all the time to serve the third-shifters.
Demand, though, is on the rise, and the downtown area is turning more and more night-owl. But sometimes, that craving, it hits you when getting to the Square isn't convenient. What then? What options are there for those whose off-hours hankering hits farther from downtown/campus?
Other than its somewhat fringe location, there is no more accommodating operation than the Pine Cone Restaurant, nestled between Madison and DeForest on Highway 51. It's a truck stop diner, but not a greasy spoon. The corned beef hash is rich and crisp around the edges, and the pancakes come with just the right-sized dollop of whipped butter. This is a menu a person could spend a long time exploring, and the Pine Cone is open 24 hours to enable your dedication.
Near-west and west-siders needn't feel left out, as they sometimes might given the number of high-profile restaurants popping up east of the Capitol. Serving until 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday, jacs on Monroe Street will lay down a fine chicken Francaise, brightened by lemon, atop rich herbed potatoes; a skewer of remarkable almond-stuffed, bacon-wrapped dates (they are the glorious concentrated essence of their components); or something as simple as an order of thick-cut frites with aioli.
Farther west, Harold's Chicken Shack is also open until 11 p.m., and there are few joints in Madison that can keep up with Harold's and its fried-to-order chicken when the kitchen is firing on all cylinders.
Plenty of bars will serve you a frozen pizza at midnight, and if that's your craving, you're set. But if you want a little more from your beer-centric late-night options, Next Door Brewing serves from its full dinner menu until about an hour before closing, which means 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The mix-and-match skewers seem like the most convenient order, but if you want a Caesar salad or a pile of rich poutine, you can get them.
The regular menu at Ale Asylum cuts out at 10 p.m. every day, but the pizzas it serves until close (11 p.m. during the week, midnight on Friday and Saturday) are made by local pie-slinger Falbo Brothers, and are never frozen.
Tell me more about this "pizza" concept, you say. Well, all right. What do you know about Grampa's Pizzeria? This fairly new entry in the Williamson Street scene serves its full menu until close every night, which is midnight every day but Sunday. Take a seat at the bar if you can, order one of Grampa's crisp thin-crust pizzas and maybe a bowl of olives, or an excellent dessert like the sticky ginger cake, and close out the day happy.
The north side's Cafe La Bellitalia has a menu full of hearty Italian classics. You'd be well advised to put your pizza and dinner main course together with the eggplant parmigiana pizza, available until 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and midnight on Friday and Saturday. If you'd rather stay in pajamas, the cafe has a generous delivery range as well.
One thing the downtown area has going for it is the growing prevalence of late-night food carts. Steamed buns and tacos are the kind of food I love most from food trucks, and thankfully, you can scratch those itches even outside the immediate downtown. Umami Ramen and Dumpling Bar is only a mile down from the Capitol on Williamson Street. You have until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday (10 p.m. Monday through Thursday) to enjoy the best pork buns in Madison, some excellent ramen, or the hiyayakko, a chilled tofu starter that's a favorite of mine.
Also convenient to east-siders (there's even a parking lot) is Brearly Street's Burrito Drive, which has been serving goofy Tex-Mex to late-night diners for over seven years now. There's plenty of novelty on this menu -- the Spam and tater-tot-filled White Trash Burrito, for example -- but fried wontons filled with chorizo and Maytag blue cheese are both delicious and good for taking the edge off a pint or three. What the bacon-wrapped Tijuana hot dog lacks in subtlety, it makes up in the ability to soothe a salty snack craving, available until 3 a.m. every day of the week.
Taqueria Guadalajara, just south of Monona Bay on South Park Street, has successfully relaunched after its kitchen fire. It's turning out excellent lengua and chorizo until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 10 p.m. on Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday.
