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Door County's new Chop is intimate, accessible
SISTER BAY – In my many years of wonderful trips to Door County, one area I've never put much stock in is dinner. For all the delicious breakfasts around the peninsula, lunch and dinner have usually turned into pizza or bar food.
This weekend, as I ambled around Door County for next Saturday's OnMilwaukee.com travel story, I enjoyed one of the better dinners on the peninsula at the new Chop Restaurant, 10571 Country Walk Lane #13, in Sister Bay.
Invited to visit by owner Jody Wuollett, we were pleased to see such an intimate and accessible fine dining restaurant in Sister Bay. Chop is tiny, with an an open kitchen layout behind just a handful of tables and a small bar nestled in the corner.
Because it was so nice out – hot, even – we chose to dine outside, where a local guitarist played for a few more tables overlooking this common area. It's the kind of place where you can feel comfortable in shorts while drinking your wine. Nothing about this great new hideaway feels pretentious or forced.
Door County is not an inexpensive place to eat, but Chop is far from overpriced, even by Milwaukee standards (and especially by Chicago standards).
My nine-ounce Angus beef filet mignon cost a mere $28 – and that included salad and potato. Our $6 cremini mushrooms sautéed butter started the meal, as did some very special homemade pop-over rolls. My fantastic bananas Foster cheesecake (baked by Wuollett's mother) ended dinner; we left full, but not too full.
As I continue to taste better and better steaks from around Wisconsin, it's hard to rank them – so I won't. But certainly, Chop joins Summertime in Fish Creek as the two best dinners I've had in Door County.
The overall experience was just so nice, too. For a new restaurant that admittedly is still finding its sea legs – the young servers were polite and attentive, even though the service doesn't quite match up yet to the quality of the food – Chop is off to a great start.
If you find yourself in Door County, looking to try something new and different, Chop strikes that perfect balance between fine dining, reasonable prices and lovely, unpretentious, summer ambience.
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sandstorm | July 31, 2012 at 9:43 a.m. (report)
Ok, Eastside. I've read the review twice now and i still don't see where Andy said there were no good places for dinner in Door County.
If you are talking about the first line in the review, i read that as the reviewer never had much time to consider dinner in Door Co as he was usually at the bars by then or simply on the go.
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EastSideMKE | July 26, 2012 at 3:33 p.m. (report)
No good dinner places in Door County? Huh? Alexander's, The Cookery, and the Whistling Swan immediately come to mind. And all of those are just in Fish Creek.
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