Oconomowoc grill's cuisine sizzle

By Dennis R. Getto
Journal Sentinel dining critic

Published: Dec. 5, 2003

Deep-fried walleye that tasted as fresh as if I'd just caught it. Breaded pork schnitzel that would make a German grandma proud. And crunchy fried chicken that could compete with the best the South has to offer.

Those were three of the pleasures I found at Todd's Grill in Oconomowoc, a casual place that specializes in homemade meals and reasonable prices.

It also specializes in something else - the best chili-cheese fries ($4.95) I've ever eaten.

I'm not kidding. If you're one of that small slice of the population that likes the combination of chili and melted cheddar spread atop sticks of crisp, deep-fried potatoes, you need to head for Todd's pronto. Owner and chef Todd Heppe has raised chili cheese fries from the depths of mediocrity to something close to art.

Mom is part of the secret

Chili cheese fries often appear on menus at informal bars and pubs, but few are very good. Either the chili and cheese are commercially made and awful, or the fries beneath are so limp that they droop under the weight of the toppings.

Todd's fries had neither shortcoming. They started with thick wedges of skin-on potatoes, fried crisp so they remained straight as good pickle spears. Then came a combination of Todd's excellent chili (he'll tell you it's his Mom's recipe, without the onions) followed by primo Wisconsin cheddar, all melted on top. If there hadn't been entrees coming, I could have made a meal out of these.

But there were other dishes coming and, like those cheese fries, they offered the kind of flavors that reminded me more of my home kitchen than a restaurant. I learned later in an interview with Heppe that that's the way things are supposed to be at his Oconomowoc restaurant.

"We make the soups and a lot of the other things fresh every day," Heppe said.

The "we" in that statement is Heppe and cook Jason Tomczyk. Heppe cooks by day, Tomczyk by night. The two team up on busy Friday and Saturday nights.

Heppe took over what used to be Hornburg's just next to the Oconomowoc Courthouse in September 2002. After re-carpeting and some repainting, he reopened the 95-seat, casual restaurant as Todd's Grill.

It wasn't Heppe's first food-related venture. He had been a partner in the Golden Anchor on Pewaukee Lake for three years before opening his own place, he said.

Passing the fish fry test

The Grill does a busy bar business and is especially popular on Fridays, when its fish fry (which offers cod, bluegill and perch) can draw more than 250 diners in a night, Heppe said.

One of my two recent dinners at the Grill was on a Friday night, and I can vouch for its basic cod fish fry ($8.95) as a solid one. The pieces of fish had been lightly breaded, fried to a crunchy light gold and delivered hot with fresh, homemade potato pancakes. Soft rye bread, apple and tartar sauce rounded out the plate, along with a mix of freshly sauteed zucchini, summer squash, carrots and pea pods (which appeared with all the entrees we sampled).

Two of those other entrees were fried fish, but each had its own charm. Fresh walleye ($14.95), which our server recommended, was some of the best I've eaten - perfectly fresh, lightly breaded, deep-fried and served still steaming. While it may be one of Wisconsin's most frequently served fish, walleye this good is hard to find anywhere. (At the Grill, it's also available pan-fried or baked.)

One bite of beer-battered shrimp ($14.95) catapulted me back to the days before pre-breaded, frozen shrimp found their way into restaurants. The seven large shrimp in our order were made the old-fashioned way - hand-dipped in a batter that clearly tasted of brew, then plopped into fat hot enough to set their crusts perfectly before the fat seeped in.

One good way to check quality at a Wisconsin restaurant on a Friday night is to order fried chicken. ($9.95). At good places, the chicken will be fried separately from the fish so it won't pick up a fishy flavor.

The chicken at the Grill not only passed that test, but it also had been rolled in Tomczyk's specially seasoned blend of flour and crumbs. The result was a dark golden crust with hints of onion and garlic that prompted me to eat the chicken's skin as well as the moist meat beneath it.

A bargain that tastes good, too

I found myself further impressed with the house steak ($11.95). At most places, $12 doesn't buy much of a steak. Todd's proved to be the exception. The chef had taken chuck steak, marinated it in a mix of Worcestershire sauce and spices, seared it in a cast-iron pan and finished it off on the grill. The result was exceptional flavor and more tenderness than I had expected from a slice of chuck.

And then there was the pork schnitzel ($10.95) - three slices of tenderloin pounded flat, dredged in crunchy crumbs, and pan-fried until the last trace of pink had vanished. Each was tender, moist and delicious. The only distraction was the instant mashed potatoes served beside them.

Soups and salads weren't extraordinary.

For dessert ($3.75 each), cheesecake was rich and creamy beneath butterscotch topping. A dense, dark torte satisfied our yearnings for chocolate.

What made both meals so much fun was the service provided by waitress Nancy Jenkins, who told us, "You gotta have a sense of humor in this business," and combined it with a thorough knowledge of the menu.

On one visit, a friend and I were seated about 7:30 p.m. My friend noticed a crab-legs-in-the-shell special ($12.95) and asked about it.

"It's good, but you have to work for it," Jenkins said, adding that the shells needed a fair amount of cracking.

"But it shouldn't be a problem," she said. "We're open until 9 o'clock."