This February, Le Rêve Patisserie and Café, 7610 Harwood Ave., will close for a few weeks to allow for an interior facelift.
"We have grown so much in the past four years that our kitchen is becoming too small to handle the amount of guests we have," says Cat Yee Cramton, Le Rêve's manager.
In 2011, the owners decided to renovate and add seating around a bar. Cramton reports that the 2013 remodel will allow for an expansion of both the kitchen and dining areas. The historic building, which was once a bank, will lose a bit of its identity in the process.
"We will be removing the vaults from the upstairs dining room and the main floor dining room," she says. "This will open up space in both areas."
Construction is scheduled to begin on Monday, Feb. 18. Updates will be available from the restaurant on the web and Facebook.
As a passionate champion of the local dining scene, Lori has reimagined the restaurant critic's role into that of a trusted dining concierge, guiding food lovers to delightful culinary discoveries and memorable experiences.
Lori is an avid cook whose accrual of condiments and spices is rivaled only by her cookbook collection. Her passion for the culinary industry was birthed while balancing A&W root beer mugs as a teenage carhop, fed by insatiable curiosity and fueled by the people whose stories entwine with every dish. Lori is the author of two books: the "Wisconsin Field to Fork" cookbook and "Milwaukee Food". Her work has garnered journalism awards from entities including the Milwaukee Press Club. In 2024, Lori was honored with a "Top 20 Women in Hospitality to Watch" award by the Wisconsin Restaurant Association.
When she’s not eating, photographing food, writing or planning for TV and radio spots, you’ll find Lori seeking out adventures with her husband Paul, traveling, cooking, reading, learning, snuggling with her cats and looking for ways to make a difference.
