Sights to behold: Lemon Meringue (above) and Lingonberry Sour Cream (below).
I have to believe that anyone who has passed through the northwestern corner of Wisconsin knows the Nook. The Norske Nook serves massive pies dense with sour cream richness, bubbling over with fruit juices, heaped a mile high with meringue. Its locations in Hayward, Osseo and Rice Lake are bastions of upper Midwestern Norwegian heritage.
When the restaurant announced it was expanding to heavily Norwegian DeForest — where the high school mascot is the Norskie, for Pete’s sake — it seemed like a match made in Valhalla.
Business has been brisk at the new Norske Nook, which sits on a choice corner lot in the heart of town. You can, of course, come and just buy a pie. (Be sure to pre-order if a holiday is approaching.) But beyond the stuffed bakery cases, folks in the dining room are also sitting down to hearty breakfasts, simple lunches and the occasional gravy-smothered dinner plate.
Perhaps the best thing about the Norske Nook, other than the pie, is the warmth and good intent of the service tableside. A server near my party offered to bring out a to-go cup for one person’s coffee as the bill was delivered. Another explained that a particular pie wasn’t in any shape to be cut into yet; it was too warm and it’d be a sloppy mess. Yet another ran out into the brisk January morning to make sure an elderly woman didn’t leave without her magazine.
However, service out from the kitchen is uneven. I experienced forgotten sides, misunderstood orders and a long wait for fish on Friday (an hour after being seated), despite a fairly quiet crowd. Entrees, too, vary in execution.
The Reuben was creative, served on cranberry wild rice bread; the bread is a house specialty and worth trying. A whole lefse-wrapped Norwegian meatball platter was the Platonic ideal of comfort food, with ethereally light mashed potatoes and browned meatballs the size of a racquetball, all doused in the Nook’s hallmark jiggly gravy.
The Frisco burger was underseasoned, and a Norwegian smelt lefse wrap was fishy and dusty with raw flour. And for Friday’s fish fry, two pieces of beer-battered cod emerged, looking great. One actually was great; the other was translucent as lutefisk, clearly undercooked. The blond oily fries were further salt in the wound.
The breakfast menu is wide-ranging and served all day. The corned beef hash was skimpy on the meat, a shame since the sliced corned beef I’d had in the Reuben was excellent. Norwegian pancakes were more pale and spongy than I expected, but the lingonberry sauce made up for it. The Ultimate Potato Pancake redeemed the meal, coming as advertised with ample bacon, egg and hollandaise.
The Norske Nook is an established Wisconsin food entity; it should have its act together better than this, and if there hadn’t been errors in every visit, I’d write them off as a fluke.
But then there’s the pie.
Oh, the pie. The Old Fashioned Butterscotch pudding pie, nearly as rich and salty-sweet as the budino at Osteria Papavero. The Coconut Pineapple Dream cream cheese pie, like a piña colada rendered densely solid and complex. A stellar Lingonberry Sour Cream pie where each mouthful popped with whole lingonberries, tartness perfectly tempered by a blanket of whipped cream.
There’s a Pecan Stout pie that could stand to be more aggressively candied on top, but the custard is really something, with hints of beer flavor. Fresh Raspberry is just what it sounds like, basically four vertical inches of solid raspberry, given structure by gelatin. And that towering Lemon Meringue? It’s a sight to behold, and the quality is unimpeachable.
For fans of the Norske Nook, DeForest is a heck of a lot closer than Rice Lake or Osseo, and the heart of the operation is as warm as ever. I hope the bumps will smooth out. And the Nook is still always worth it for the pie.
The Norske Nook
100 E. Holum St., DeForest, 608-842-3378, norskenook.com,
6 am-8 pm Mon.-Sat., 8 am-8 pm Sun., $3- $15
