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Club Land
A LUSH PUBLIC GOLF COURSE IS A BEAUTIFUL THING. A CLUBHOUSE SERVING GOOD SIT-DOWN FOOD IS ANOTHER.
Ann Christenson
Milwaukee Magazine
The palaces in Hartland's Bristlecone Pines could backdrop a Fellini movie about people with too much money and not enough architectural smarts. It's exhausting work driving around looking for the homes of controversial professional football players. But the paparazzi have to eat, too.
A year ago, we wouldn't have told you to drive out of your way for dinner at Bristlecone's clubhouse restaurant. The situation was altogether confusing, doomed by perception problems. Is this a private golf club or can anyone eat here? How do I find it once I'm out in Lake Country? There are no signs for it on Highway 16. Answer to first question: As long as you've got the appropriate method of payment, a table is waiting for you in this sparse, pleasant, white-tablecloth dining room on a public golf course. Answer to second question: The lack of signage is still an issue. Jungbluth Road is the requisite exit from 16, but you wouldn't know it if you hadn't asked ("I'm looking for someone to give me a piece of dirt on Jungbluth [for a sign]," says owner Norm Eckstaedt). Now that we've set the record straight, we can back up another claim – that the new-named Pines restaurant is worth the drive.
We probably wouldn't say this if someone like Norm Eckstaedt hadn't taken over the clubhouse food operations (which he did in February, with wife Martha). Eckstaedt's is a name of some renown in the Lake Country restaurant world. He and chef/restaurateur Nico Derni teamed up to run Elm Grove Inn and later, Red Circle Inn, but dissolved their partnership early this year so that Eckstaedt, as he says, could evolve. Derni kept the inn in Elm Grove, Eckstaedt the Red Circle in Nashotah.
Ironically, the golf club setting isn't a completely new game for Eckstaedt. He started his food service career at Brynwood, a private country club on 62nd and Good Hope Road. Bristlecone is working on its image to better convey the full story here – elite perks (they've got a crew of golf bag schleppers, by the way) without the uppity membership dues. The theme carries over to The Pines, which keeps Eckstaedt on familiar footing – what the white tablecloth folk call continental dining. And yet The Pines is not Red Circle redux. Executive chef R.C. Schroeder, whose history includes Steven Wade's, Zydeco's and the Country Inn, has a light touch – a penchant for beurre blancs and other flavored butter sauces, fresh seafood, pretty starches and other flairy strokes. The Pines doesn't have any bad arboreal or golf clichés hung on the walls or unloaded in a corner. Eckstaedt has gone the opposite extreme. Wood, white linen, a few plants, a hanging tapestry – no unfair competition for the food.
To be endearing from the precincts of the kitchen isn't an easy job these days. Schroeder makes it look easy. The menu he's written reflects the wisdom of experience. Crab cakes and smoked salmon Napoleon on the appetizer side, citrus/soy-marinated duck breast and whiskey-barbecued tiger shrimp on the entrée end, Caesar salad and oyster and spinach bisque in between. You'll want to begin your meal with something like charred beef tenderloin carpaccio. It's almost deceptively simple and entirely ravishing – shaved slices of rare beef covered with grated Parmesan cheese and served with a little balsamic-dressed mesclun salad ($7.25). And although they're à la carte, you should build the soup and salad course into your budget. Both are excellent. Schroeder makes a caramelized five-onion soup (garlic, chive, leeks and red and white onion) that's virgin pure, not a mucked-up French variety ($4.50). Swoosh around the Parmesan-garlic flan in the center of the bowl to underscore its richness. For a straightforward take on greens, the mixed seasonal arrangement with crumbled bacon, onion, tomato and shallot/herb vinaigrette is very unpedestrian ($2.95). For something jazzier but still close to home, you ought to appreciate the flat-leaf spinach salad, even if spinach salad isn't your thing. Here, it isn't the idea but the products that make it leap – smoked bacon, hard-boiled eggs, shallots and warm cider vinaigrette ($4.95).
When it's good, a recycled dish can play to packed houses. At Zydeco's way back when, we had the whiskey-barbecued tiger shrimp – not a hit-you-over-the-head barbecue, just sweet and spicy enough to cause some dissension in the mouth – and here it is again, in fine form, at The Pines, arranged around some decadent potatoes gratin – dauphinoise, if you're French ($19.95). Schroeder's current approach to beef is tenderloin tournedos seasoned with Szechuan pepper and mustard sauce ($23.95). It's just the right mate for those rich creamed potatoes he's fond of and a cluster of cooked spinach. Specials are where the fish is, because everybody knows that if it's listed on the standing menu, the seafood is most often frozen. On many evenings, you'll have your pick of salmon, Chilean sea bass, swordfish, blue nose grouper or halibut. Schroeder is heavily into light beurre blancs and broths – sauces that treat the creatures with respect. We had one of these creations – tender grouper medallions in butter-wine sauce, with angel hair pasta and sautéed vegetables ($22.95). There's also a duck dish with a strong personality, a duck that will sway you with its soy-citrus marinade and chipotle peanut sauce ($18.95).
At dessert, we're willing to take chances if the chef is, too. But tiramisu and chocolate decadence are timid, as are the sweets we try. A miniature round cheesecake is a vision on its chocolate cookie base, topped with whipped cream and fresh raspberries, but the texture and flavor baffle us – soufflé-like and not particularly sweet ($4.95). A creamy custard confection like crème brûlée is a good standby, as is tiramisu, but here's a formal request to be more, well, provocative – take some cues from spirited Bristlecone Pines. Clearly, it has a good appetite.
* Prices and items may have changed since the publication of this article. *
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