Nicole Franzen
A star of the starters, the smoked kielbasa in a blanket features a complex, swipeable sauce.
The Harvey House, announced in 2018 by Joe Papach and Shaina Robbins Papach, veterans of numerous Michelin-starred kitchens, finally arrived in July. With a throwback Mad Men vibe to the menu (“May we suggest … a MARTINI before dinner”), an upscale supper club aesthetic, and a recent Esquire pick as one of the best new restaurants in America in 2021, Madison has a genuine phenomenon on its hands.
Drawing on their experiences at Chez Panisse, The French Laundry and Gramercy Tavern, Harvey House’s power duo reinterprets the supper club at the old West Washington train depot — but don’t expect butter packets and hash browns topped with cheese and onions. The Harvey House is a more steakhouse-y version of the supper club, a touch more New York than New Holstein, and if not fine dining, certainly fine dining-adjacent.
Here the relish tray, pinnacle of Wisconsin supper club iconography, is not a heap of crunchy roughage. The vegetables are peeled, trimmed and subjected to some sort of alchemy that converts them into glassy, delicate versions of themselves. You have to see it to understand. Dilly whipped ranch, rich deviled eggs, and superb pastrami-style sturgeon make it a relish tray worth paying for on its own (which you will have to, to the tune of $18).
The magic at Harvey House is not just turning the ingredients into a transportational meal, as at Ishnala or Madison’s own Toby’s. No, the real trick is how Harvey House takes each fastidiously sourced and prepped ingredient and turns each one into a marvel of texture and balance that will frequently leave diners trying to figure out the illusion.
Standard French onion soup becomes an impossibly luxurious onion broth poured at the table over a diamond of gruyere custard. Dotted with tiny croutons, the bowl is pure French onion soup, but looking nothing like you’d expect. A seasonal sweet corn soup of late summer was smooth as silk.
The dramatic bone-in chicken cordon bleu, so golden brown in its crumb coat you can’t help but tap it, is an all-year kind of dish. And I would miss the Superior walleye if it left, with its thin, crisp-but-not-hard slice of griddled pumpernickel atop a generous portion of fish — more textural skill at work here.
The slow cooked salmon has similar aims with its crispy skin, but mine resulted primarily in frustration. The skin was over-crisped, marring the texture of the tender salmon underneath with every forkful. It was the only real miss, delicious but flawed in delivery.
The true eye of the rib is on the more expensive side for ribeyes of Madison at $69, but the sous vide cooking technique keeps it tender and cooked to a precise target. The roughly 10-ounce portion balances meaty heft with a tender bite, and the sear on the outside offered a textural contrast similar to the bark of the best Texas brisket.
That ribeye isn’t quite plated in modernist style, but it’s close, with two perfect dollops of smooth whipped potato and a dramatic splatter of Bordelaise. I’d love to see the creamed spinach underneath (also available as a side) presented a little less virtuously. From the amply-topped baked potato with the works to the tidy wedge salad, I know the Harvey House kitchen has access to good bacon lardons; put some in the spinach! At least let it be as creamy as the name implies.
Reservations are managed via Resy online, and can be difficult to get without sufficient planning — though one of my visits was a walk-in (6:45 p.m. on a Wednesday) and we were able to snag a table right away. The host praised our good fortune.
While even the bar seats book up fast, a quick meal of drinks and little treats is quite doable. Yes, the shrimp in the shrimp cocktail is lovely, but goodness, is the cocktail sauce spectacular; no chunky horseradish bits but plenty of horseradish flavor. An order of wild mushroom toast is a lively blend of earthy, buttery and acidic flavors.
Chicken liver mousse delivers pure luxury, spreadable on toast along with a dark and alluring jam (plum on one occasion, port wine on another), and it may be the star of the starters, though the smoked kielbasa in a blanket is also a contender. Yes, it’s basically a cheddar brat, but the pastry work that wraps it is impressive, and the sauce that adorns it is complex, eminently swipeable, and charmingly reminiscent of a bougie Secret Stadium Sauce.
Desserts are more fluid than any other part of Harvey House’s menu. A rich but not heavy banana-butterscotch pudding was a special on one visit, on the regular menu by the next, and gone by the third. Chocolate pie on a cookie crust was similarly light-bodied for looking positively fudgy. And there’s always the option of a very supper-clubby Brandy Alexander for a truly fluid dessert.
Service reflects the polish brought to Harvey House by its owners, displaying attentiveness and warmth without obsequiousness.
There are some snags in that institutional formality; paying for a relish tray might be one if you prefer your supper clubs un-reinterpreted. The bar also prefers customers order off the house craft cocktail menu. Before I realized this, I ordered a classic rye old fashioned, as opposed to the cognac-centric Call Me Old Fashioned on the menu. Even so, the bartender served me perhaps the best old fashioned I’ve ever had. The cherry might have been a fancy one, but a great old fashioned will always make me feel at home.
The Harvey House
644 West Washington Ave.
608-250-9578
theharveyhouse.com
5-9:30 pm Tue.-Sat.
$8-$69
