Theres nothing quite so invisible in a citys culinary landscape as the hotel restaurant. Unless youre a staying at said hotel and theres nothing more enticing located nearby, youre probably not giving that in-house chef a second look. These places tend to be a place to sit and eat room-service quality food options and not a lot more.
Unless theyre not. Bistro 525, located in the first floor of an otherwise nondescript DoubleTree Hotel at the downtown edge of the UW-Madison campus is the kind of place that parents of graduating seniors and alumni in town to catch the Badger football game stay. The hotels been around for decades (most of them as a Howard Johnsons).
The Madison edition of Bistro 525 only has two years under its belt, but its clearly ramped up quickly. Featuring an eclectic menu that has been honed to a sharp edge, this is a place where youll find some surprisingly delicious and gorgeously presented dishes. As long as you can stomach paying moderately inflated hotel prices for them, youre going to leave both startled and satisfied.
Bistro 525s vibe lives down to the expectations of a hotel restaurant. The color scheme, with chrome-metal stools and chairs and grayish marble-tiled floors, a little too modern and bright to approach elegance and a little too streamlined to be overly comfortable. Servers dress like theyre working in a four-star black-tie joint, but the upholstery on the uber-cozy booths screams hotel durable.
But youre not here for the chairs and the stools. Youd expect a place like this to offer popular basics like a hamburgerbut not this hamburger. Not a wagyu beef burger ($21) topped with five-year aged Hooks cheddar cheese, quite possibly the crown jewel of Wisconsin artisan cheeses, and a tidy pile of flavorful caramelized shallots. You wont even need to add a single condiment to enliven the taste, and thats saying something.
A set of tacos from the appetizer menu looks dainty on the plate, but their size belies the kick they offer. Depending on whether you choose street or fish tacos (both versions are $16), that kick comes from a habanero vinaigrette or a chipotle aioli. Neither dish is overpowering, visually or from a taste standpoint; the heat is just about right. The presentation is also smokin: The prep chefs at Bistro 525 pay close attention to plate geometry and visual appeal. That also proves true for the chicken pesto ($22), a thick and solid breast coated with mozzarella cheese and a zig-zag of bright green pesto sauce.
Both pizza and flatbreads are part of the mix here. A 14-inch pizza ($15) is just enough to satisfy two, but the flatbread ($18) available with southwestern barbecue chicken or adorned with figs, prosciutto and blue cheese, is more than enough to fill a single diner up. Like the chicken pesto, the presentation elevates the dish. The barbecue sauce on the chicken flatbread isnt spread underneath the melted cheddar-jack cheese, but rather latticed across the top of the entire crust. Its an attention to detail that turns a modest entr矇e into something more wow-worthy. And the taste lives up to the tantalizing visualits crunchy-crisp and spicy.
As weve noted, prices here are not cheapremember, this is a hotel restaurant were discussing, and they rarely are in a place like thisbut for the value and flavor of what youre getting, the options feel less out of line than you think. Its easy, for instance, to look at the $15 queso blanco appetizer and ask yourself why youre paying that much for what sounds like a jumped-up plate of chips and dip. And then it arrives at your table, and it all starts to make sense. The white cheese blend is copious, thick and addicting, punctuated by bright-red strips of Hatch chili peppers enough for a second and probably a third round of the Bucky-red tortilla chips that accompany it.
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