Chicago chefs Timothy and Elizabeth Dahl will move to Madison to open a new restaurant this spring. Tim, formerly pastry chef at Chi-town's Blackbird, and Elizabeth, pastry chef at BOKA and Landmark, are expecting their first child - any day now. But after the birth, Tim Dahl says in a phone interview from Chicago, the couple will head to Madison to complete plans for the new restaurant.
The site will be 11 S. Hamilton in the historic Jackman building, currently home to Peppino's. That Madison dining institution will close in December as proprietor Peppino Gargano retires.
The Dahls want to give Gargano the space to go out with a bang, and are still very much in the planning stages. Whatever the exact nature of new restaurant, says Dahl, Mediterranean will be the focus. "Central Italian, fresh pastas and charcuterie; some northern Italian, because it's Wisconsin and there's all that dairy. Maybe some dishes from eastern France and eastern Spain, but not too huge a scope," says Dahl. "I don't want to get into Algerian."
Tim Dahl is from Madison and worked at Restaurant Magnus early in his career. He was named a "Rising Star" pastry chef for Chicago by StarChefs.com in 2008. Elizabeth Dahl has worked as a pastry chef at Charlie Trotter's and Naha.
The Dahls recently came up for the Food for Thought Festival and met other chefs and possible local food suppliers. But right now, says Tim, the focus is on the baby.
