Food/Dining : Ephraim

Chef’s Hat Café
3063 Church Street
Ephraim
920-854-2034

Opened in July 2004, Chef’s Hat Café adds to the needed number of good restaurants in Ephraim. An experienced owner/chef offers a creative selection for breakfast, lunch and dinner right in the heart of Ephraim.

In a beautiful building that faces the water, this tastefully decorated restaurants seats about 50 or so. With green walls, white woodwork and artwork, the ambiance is very pleasant. The tables are nicely spaced, so you do not feel crowded, and therefore it is conversation friendly. The menu is diverse, and offers just about something for everyone, with some vegetarian selections and nightly specials too. Ephraim is a “dry: town, so you cannot order any alcoholic drinks with your dinner, nor can you bring your own. But Chef’s Hat is worth the stop anyway!

For breakfast, you can get a limited assortment of egg “scrambles,” all made with 3 eggs and served with roasted baby red potatoes and a choice of one of their scones or toast. In addition, you can get other egg dishes from a “chef’s traditional” which includes eggs, bacon or ham and toast or roasted baby red potatoes, to a “sunrise wrap” with eggs, smoked turkey, scallions, snow peas, tomato, fresh spinach and pepper jack cheese all rolled into a flour tortilla. Other items include waffles, oatmeal, and special “toasts” all prepared in unique and creative ways, like a “chef’s toast” with Mascarpone cheese, caramelized pears, powdered sugar and maple syrup.

Lunches include penne pesto, and many other items including a meatloaf (which comes with spring onion mashed potatoes, broccoli and lots of gravy) – we heard the meatloaf was excellent. Creative lunch item include a honey line blackened tuna, a salmon salad, or a pan-seared tenderloin. There are also sandwiches and salads, and all the accompanying soft drinks, coffees and so on.

Dinner

We dined here for dinner, on a cool, rainy evening. Entrée’s after 5PM include a choice of soup or salad, fresh vegetable of the day, and a choice of starch: rosemary red potatoes, spring onion mashed, wild rice, or parmesan risotto.

Entrée choices include the menu fare, of baked whitefish parmesan, baked whitefish almondine, fresh basil and rosemary her encrusted salmon, a 24 ounce demi-glazed pork shank, a 12 ounce NY strip, a slow roasted duck and more. There are also some special each evening, and the night we were there, they included lobster ravioli, pan-fried walleye, and a couple more including a vegetarian dish.

We order the lobster ravioli, and the pan-fired walleye, with soup as our choice. We elected to both get the black bean soup with Cajun andouille sausage. The soup came and we dug in – a rich cup of Mexican black beans, just-spicy-enough andouille sausage, and a slightly kicky blend of spices. Chunks of onions, red peppers, croutons and a mot more packed the bowl – “you can make a meal of this,” said out one reviewer. Excellent – we loved it and recommend it highly!

When the lobster ravioli was placed upon the table, it was a work of art – the presentation was superb. Raviolis lined the outer edge of the plate, while lots of asparagus spears pointed like arrows from the center of the plate (under the heap of veggies) to the edge of the plate. Heaped atop were cherry tomatoes, snow peas, portabella mushroom chunks, yellow zucchini, tail-on shrimp and scallops! All this was sitting in a creamy sauce that had hints of rosemary, basil and its base, a rich fish stock. Parsley was sprinkled along the edges of the white plate – it looked awesome, and it tasted even better. I finished everything, and the sauce was so good, I had to spoon it up (I did it discreetly though!).

The pan-fried walleye was devoured by a walleye aficionado – it was plated well, and included a large portion of walleye, rosemary red potatoes, and served with several broccoli heads. The walleye was lightly breaded, had a great texture, moist and perfectly fried. Our review said it was among the best walleye he has ever had.

We were stuffed from the main course (no bread served with the meal – but we didn’t need it). We had to leave. But, just to be fair to our DoorCountyNavigator.com readers, we had to order dessert. Choose from changing offerings, like tiramisu, turtle cheese cake, carrot cake, fruit crepes, or fruit pies.

We forced ourselves to eat a tiramisu and a turtle cheese cake. The tiramisu was a 3 inch square of potent tiramisu - it was plated with four dollops of whipped cream, each supporting a slice of strawberry, sitting atop a chocolate-drizzled plate. The turtle cheese cake was a standard cheese cake slice size, with nuts and caramel atop, and also plated as above with the whip cream and strawberries and chocolate drizzles. We washed these down with a huge mug of fresh coffee, and now we were finished.

OK, we liked this place a lot. Of course, with any new restaurant, consistency is the key, so we will be back again . . . and again. They are off to a great start. For 2 people, we spent about $66 for the dinners described. You can easily dine less expensively at Chef’s Hat if you want to. We tip our chef’s hat to this one – try it – and tell them that DoorCountyNavigator.com sent you in!

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