By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer Published Jan 21, 2005 at 5:29 AM

{image1} The Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum looks so yummy, you could just eat it up, couldn't you? Well, thanks to the Milwaukee ChopHouse and The Café at Hilton Milwaukee City Center, you can, at least for a limited time.

Now that the new Milwaukee mark has been unveiled, a number of local businesses are using it. In fact, yesterday The Greater Milwaukee Convention & Visitors Bureau (GMCVB) announced it is changing its name to Visit Milwaukee and adopting a new logo inspired by the new Milwaukee mark.

But the two restaurants in the Hilton are certainly using the mark in the most scrumptious way: as part of a Brew City dessert.

What looks like an otherwise typical chocolate mousse dessert, with a cracker crust at the bottom, a chocolate leaf, some whole hazelnuts and a sprig of mint on top, and garnished with fresh raspberries, gets a Milwaukee-centric boost from a white chocolate square emblazoned with the sleek new Milwaukee mark showing the soaring wings of MAM's Quadracci Pavilion.

"We think the Milwaukee mark is a great, beautiful symbol of Milwaukee, and we want to support it," says Milwaukee ChopHouse general manager Tanya Habeck. "Since ChopHouse does great food really well, we thought we'd make the mark edible and in everyone's favorite form: chocolate!"

The dessert is available now at both restaurants in the Hilton City Center, at 5th Street and Wisconsin Avenue.

Give up dessert for 2005? Don't worry, look all around town for the mark as it will be on sides of buildings, on windows, public transportation and more over the next several weeks and months.

Meanwhile, Visit Milwaukee will officially unveil its new logo at its Annual Meeting lunch, Thursday, Feb. 17 at the Midwest Airline Center.

"Visit Milwaukee and the new logo personify the evolution of the city," says Doug Neilson, president and CEO of Visit Milwaukee. "The new name in its simplicity sends a direct message and the logo with the Calatrava addition symbolizes the progressive 'rebirth' of our city as a major convention and visitor destination."

The Visit Milwaukee Web site is visitmilwaukee.org.

Other Milwaukee mark sightings this weekend:

  • Lights -- On Friday and Saturday, Jan. 21 and 22 the Milwaukee mark will be projected by light on buildings and at locations throughout Milwaukee County and possibly at a location in Waukesha County (after dark, of course).
  • Cookies and mints -- On Friday, Jan. 21, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. specially wrapped Milwaukee mark cookies will be distributed at the Shops of Grand Avenue. Also on Friday, Milwaukee mark packaged mints will be distributed at downtown banks. Lapel pins will follow soon. Stay tuned for more giveaways and promotions highlighting the new mark.

Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.

He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.

With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.

He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.

In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.

He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.