The plates that define Madison: what they are, and where to eat the canonical version.
The plates that define Madison. what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
The Friday fish fry is Wisconsin's social meal: beer-battered or breaded lake perch, cod or walleye with rye bread, coleslaw, French fries or potato pancakes and tartar sauce.
Where: Tornado Steak House, The Coopers Tavern, The Old Fashioned, Schwoegler's Park Towne Lanes
Price: $16-24 per plate
The Wisconsin Old Fashioned uses Korbel brandy instead of whiskey, muddled with a sugar cube, orange slice, maraschino cherry, Angostura bitters and a splash of Sprite or sour mix.
Where: The Old Fashioned, Tornado Steak House, Settle Down Tavern, Schwoegler's Park Towne Lanes
Price: $10-14 per drink
Wisconsin cheese curds are squeaky fresh cheddar curds, beer-battered and deep-fried until golden, served with ranch or chipotle aioli as a Wisconsin tavern starter.
Where: The Old Fashioned, Tornado Steak House, Tipsy Cow, The Plaza Tavern & Grill
Price: $9-13 per basket
The Wisconsin butter burger is a fresh-griddled beef patty with a pat of butter melted on top, served on a toasted bun with stewed onions and American cheese.
Where: Tipsy Cow, The Plaza Tavern & Grill, Dotty Dumpling's Dowry, Settle Down Tavern
Price: $10-15 per burger
The Plazaburger is a double-stack tavern burger from The Plaza Tavern on North Henry Street, topped with the bar's secret sauce, cheese, lettuce and tomato.
Where: The Plaza Tavern & Grill
Price: $11-15 per burger
Wisconsin frozen custard is a denser, richer cousin of ice cream made with extra egg yolks and slow-churned at low overrun, served in cones, cups and concretes.
Where: Mickies Dairy Bar
Price: $4-7 per scoop
Kringle is a long oval Danish pastry with fruit or pecan filling, baked from layered laminated dough and topped with icing, the official state pastry of Wisconsin.
Where: Clasen's European Bakery, Greenbush Bakery
Price: $15-25 per kringle
Trenton-style tomato pie is a New Jersey regional pizza with the tomato sauce ladled on top of the cheese, baked on a crisp thin crust, brought to Madison by Salvatore's.
Where: Salvatore's Tomato Pies
Price: $18-26 per pie
Wisconsin bratwurst is beer-simmered then char-grilled, served on a Sheboygan-style hard roll with stadium mustard, sauerkraut and a glass of Wisconsin lager.
Where: Tornado Steak House, The Old Fashioned, The Plaza Tavern & Grill
Price: $6-10 per brat
Wisconsin beer cheese soup is a thick, savory soup made with sharp cheddar cheese, Wisconsin lager and a mirepoix base, served with a soft pretzel or rye bread.
Where: The Coopers Tavern, The Old Fashioned, Tornado Steak House
Price: $8-12 per bowl
Wisconsin lake perch is a sweet, mild freshwater fish, traditionally beer-battered or pan-fried, served on rye with tartar sauce, lemon and a brandy Old Fashioned.
Where: Tornado Steak House, The Old Fashioned, The Coopers Tavern
Price: $18-26 per plate
Doro wat is the canonical Ethiopian chicken stew of chicken legs simmered with berbere, onions and clarified butter, served with injera flatbread to scoop the stew.
Where: Buraka
Price: $16-22 per plate
The Friday fish fry is Wisconsin's social meal: beer-battered or breaded lake perch, cod or walleye with rye bread, coleslaw, French fries or potato pancakes and tartar sauce.
History: Wisconsin's Friday fish fry began in 19th-century Catholic Lent observance, when the German and Polish immigrant population avoided meat on Fridays. Through Prohibition, taverns moved beer revenue into hot food, with the all-you-can-eat fish fry becoming Wisconsin's defining social meal by the 1930s. Today every Wisconsin supper club, brewery hall and corner tavern from Milwaukee to Madison runs a Friday fish fry; Madison's Tornado Steak House, Coopers Tavern and The Old Fashioned anchor the ritual with perch and cod every week of the year.
Where to try it: Tornado Steak House, The Coopers Tavern, The Old Fashioned, Schwoegler's Park Towne Lanes
Watch out for: Gluten, Fish
The Wisconsin Old Fashioned uses Korbel brandy instead of whiskey, muddled with a sugar cube, orange slice, maraschino cherry, Angostura bitters and a splash of Sprite or sour mix.
History: The Old Fashioned cocktail originated in Louisville in the 1880s with whiskey. Wisconsin's variant emerged in the 1880s when the state's German and Polish immigrant population preferred brandy, which had been imported in volume from Germany. Korbel Brandy from California, distributed cheaply across the Midwest, became the canonical pour; by the 1950s the Wisconsin Old Fashioned was a defining state cocktail. The Old Fashioned restaurant on North Pinckney took the cocktail's name as its identity in 2005, codifying the muddled-fruit-plus-brandy ritual into a tavern menu.
Where to try it: The Old Fashioned, Tornado Steak House, Settle Down Tavern, Schwoegler's Park Towne Lanes
Wisconsin cheese curds are squeaky fresh cheddar curds, beer-battered and deep-fried until golden, served with ranch or chipotle aioli as a Wisconsin tavern starter.
History: Wisconsin's cheese curd tradition dates to the state's 19th-century immigrant Swiss and German cheesemakers, who sold the byproduct curds from cheddar production fresh at the dairy door. The fried cheese curd, deep-fried in a beer batter, became a Wisconsin tavern staple in the 1970s when state cheesemakers and brewers cross-promoted. The Old Fashioned in Madison codified the Wisconsin curd as a downtown bar appetizer; today fried curds appear on every Madison tavern, brewery and supper club menu.
Where to try it: The Old Fashioned, Tornado Steak House, Tipsy Cow, The Plaza Tavern & Grill
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
The Wisconsin butter burger is a fresh-griddled beef patty with a pat of butter melted on top, served on a toasted bun with stewed onions and American cheese.
History: Kenneth Salmon, known as Solly, popularised the butter burger at Solly's Coffee Shop in Milwaukee in 1936, and the style spread across Wisconsin as a tavern lunch counter staple. Madison's Tipsy Cow, the King Street tavern off Capitol Square, codified the butter burger on a downtown bar menu in the early 2010s; the Plazaburger at the Plaza Tavern, the secret-sauce double-stack served since 1964 on North Henry Street, runs in parallel as Madison's other defining tavern burger.
Where to try it: Tipsy Cow, The Plaza Tavern & Grill, Dotty Dumpling's Dowry, Settle Down Tavern
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
The Plazaburger is a double-stack tavern burger from The Plaza Tavern on North Henry Street, topped with the bar's secret sauce, cheese, lettuce and tomato.
History: The Plazaburger was created at The Plaza Tavern on North Henry Street in 1964, a block off State Street between the Wisconsin State Capitol and the University of Wisconsin Madison. The double-stack burger with the bar's secret sauce became the signature of the tavern's long lunch and dinner trade, and remains the canonical Plazaburger version in 2026. The Plaza Tavern hasn't changed locations since.
Where to try it: The Plaza Tavern & Grill
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs
Wisconsin frozen custard is a denser, richer cousin of ice cream made with extra egg yolks and slow-churned at low overrun, served in cones, cups and concretes.
History: Wisconsin frozen custard emerged from Coney Island beachfront stands in the 1910s, then found its Wisconsin home when Leon Schneider opened Leon's Frozen Custard in Milwaukee in 1942. Madison's frozen custard tradition runs through Culver's, the Wisconsin chain founded in nearby Sauk City in 1984, and Michael's Frozen Custard, the Madison-area chain operating on Atwood, Schroeder and Monroe. The dense low-overrun custard with high egg yolk became Wisconsin's defining dessert by the 1970s.
Where to try it: Mickies Dairy Bar
Watch out for: Dairy, Eggs
Kringle is a long oval Danish pastry with fruit or pecan filling, baked from layered laminated dough and topped with icing, the official state pastry of Wisconsin.
History: Danish immigrants brought the kringle to Racine, Wisconsin, in the late 1800s; by 1949 the O&H Danish Bakery in Racine was producing them at scale. The Wisconsin Legislature declared the kringle Wisconsin's official state pastry in 2013. Today Madison-area bakeries including Clasen's European Bakery in Middleton bake kringles year-round, especially around the Christmas holidays, with almond, cherry, pecan and cream cheese fillings the traditional canonical options.
Where to try it: Clasen's European Bakery, Greenbush Bakery
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy, Eggs
Trenton-style tomato pie is a New Jersey regional pizza with the tomato sauce ladled on top of the cheese, baked on a crisp thin crust, brought to Madison by Salvatore's.
History: Trenton-style tomato pie originated in Trenton, New Jersey, at Papa's Tomato Pies in 1912 and DeLorenzo's Tomato Pies in 1947, where the sauce-on-top construction allowed long bakes without scorching the cheese. Patrick DePula and Nichole brought the style west, opening Salvatore's Tomato Pies in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, in 2011, then expanding to the Madison Livingston Street location and Monona. The tomato pie at Salvatore's is the Trenton recipe with Wisconsin mozzarella and a longer-fermented dough.
Where to try it: Salvatore's Tomato Pies
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
Wisconsin bratwurst is beer-simmered then char-grilled, served on a Sheboygan-style hard roll with stadium mustard, sauerkraut and a glass of Wisconsin lager.
History: Bratwurst reached Wisconsin with the German immigrant wave of the 1840s and became Madison's tailgate and Brewers-stadium food by the early 20th century. Sheboygan, an hour north, claims the hard-roll style; Madison adopted the bratwurst on a hard roll at the Dane County Farmers' Market on Capitol Square, where multiple vendors grill brats every Saturday May through November, and at Camp Randall and Memorial Union tailgates each fall football season.
Where to try it: Tornado Steak House, The Old Fashioned, The Plaza Tavern & Grill
Watch out for: Gluten
Wisconsin beer cheese soup is a thick, savory soup made with sharp cheddar cheese, Wisconsin lager and a mirepoix base, served with a soft pretzel or rye bread.
History: Wisconsin beer cheese soup emerged from the state's brewing and dairy industries in the 1940s and 1950s, when German immigrant cooks combined leftover sharp cheddar with the abundant local lager to create a thick warming soup. By the 1970s it was a Wisconsin tavern staple; The Coopers Tavern on Capitol Square in Madison and many supper clubs still feature it on the seasonal menu. It is the unofficial soup of the Wisconsin winter Friday night.
Where to try it: The Coopers Tavern, The Old Fashioned, Tornado Steak House
Watch out for: Gluten, Dairy
Wisconsin lake perch is a sweet, mild freshwater fish, traditionally beer-battered or pan-fried, served on rye with tartar sauce, lemon and a brandy Old Fashioned.
History: Wisconsin lake perch has been the canonical Wisconsin fish fry fish since the early 20th century, when commercial fishing fleets out of Milwaukee, Sheboygan and Two Rivers landed perch by the ton. The Wisconsin DNR limited commercial perch fishing in the 1990s after stocks declined, but recreational fishing still supplies area restaurants, and Tornado Steak House, The Old Fashioned and Coopers Tavern in Madison feature it on the Friday fish fry.
Where to try it: Tornado Steak House, The Old Fashioned, The Coopers Tavern
Watch out for: Gluten, Fish
Doro wat is the canonical Ethiopian chicken stew of chicken legs simmered with berbere, onions and clarified butter, served with injera flatbread to scoop the stew.
History: Ethiopian doro wat reached Madison through the Buraka Ethiopian restaurant, which opened in 2000 on State Street and reopened at its current 1210 Williamson Street location in 2016. Buraka is Madison's flagship and longest-running Ethiopian dining room; the doro wat there follows the canonical Ethiopian recipe of chicken simmered with berbere spice blend, slow-caramelized onions and niter kibbeh clarified butter, served on a platter of injera with a hard-boiled egg.
Where to try it: Buraka
Watch out for: Eggs
Madison's signature dishes include Wisconsin Friday fish fry, Wisconsin brandy Old Fashioned, Fried Wisconsin cheese curds, Wisconsin butter burger, Plazaburger. See our signature dishes chapter for where to eat each.