Chef Paul Bartolotta’s Faith in Milwaukee Keeps Paying Off

Paul Bartolotta’s European steakhouse, High Stakes by Bartolotta, opened in downtown Milwaukee in September with a menu that would fit in on the Vegas Strip: caviar, langoustines, foie gras crème brûlée and a Filet Oscar topped with Dungeness crab and Sauce Foyot. Bartolotta admits the response caught him off guard. “We’re offering more luxury products on one menu than we ever have, and people are embracing them,” the co-founder, chef and owner of The Bartolotta Restaurants told Observer.

High Stakes joins eight other Bartolotta restaurants in the Milwaukee area, including the supper club Joey Gerard’s, two Mr. B’s steakhouses and the flagship, Ristorante Bartolotta dal 1993. Three decades in, Ristorante Bartolotta dal 1993 is having the best financial year in its history, according to Bartolotta, who credits constant reinvention.

The group also co-owns The Commodore with HF Hospitality, which made Wine Enthusiast’s list of the 50 Top New Restaurants in 2025 and received a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. Its catering arm has been the exclusive caterer at the lakefront venue Discovery World since 2006. In October, working with SSP America, the group opened Bartolotta’s Bar & Ristoro at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. Across all its operations, the company serves about 17,350 guests a week.

Bartolotta, a 2026 Nightlife & Dining Power List honoree, first made his name as part of the generation of chefs that brought Italian cooking to the upper echelons of American fine dining. He cooked at San Domenico in New York and was executive chef and managing partner at Spiaggia in Chicago. Scott Conant and Michael White both trained under him, and he won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest in 1994. He spent a decade at Bartolotta Ristorante di Mare at Wynn Las Vegas, a restaurant licensed under his name where he won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2009.

Taking his skills to Milwaukee was his brother Joe’s idea. “They’re starving for something better, and they are ready,” Joe, who was co-owner of the Bartolotta Restaurants before he died in 2019, told him. Bartolotta spoke with Observer about believing in Milwaukee, what people get wrong about supper clubs and how to delight diners who have a flight to catch.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You built the company with your late brother, Joe. What’s the decision he made that you’re most grateful for today?

Joe believed in Milwaukee before I did. At the very beginning, I was working in Europe and New York and was already running the kitchen at a successful restaurant in Chicago. Joe asked me to help him open a restaurant to support his family and build a future for them, and I told him, “I don’t think there’s a market for what I do in Milwaukee.” He said there was more sophistication, more travel and more wealth here than people could see.

That optimism about the market carried through Joe’s entire life. He believed that if we delivered something better for Milwaukee, the city would reward us. When we outgrew Ristorante Bartolotta dal 1993 and opened Bartolotta’s Lake Park Bistro, I suggested we lean in on my French background. He wasn’t sure at first, so I showed him a few books on rustic French cooking, and he said, “Okay, let’s do this.” He trusted me, and he trusted Milwaukee to embrace it. Milwaukee showed up.

You left Wynn Las Vegas after a decade to come home to Milwaukee. What made you go, and did you ever doubt it?

Did I ever doubt it? Never. I was involved in the Milwaukee operations from day one. Plenty of people saw it as Joe’s company, but we always collaborated on the concepts, the food, the design and the steps of service. I was more involved than people realized, so coming home was a natural transition.

My work at Wynn Las Vegas was my own venture. I licensed my name and was behind the concept and menu. When that relationship concluded, I was exploring a project in Los Angeles. Joe was starting to slow down and wanted to position the company for the future, and he asked me to come home and work on a transition plan so I could take over the company we built together. We spent almost a year on that plan, starting with upgrading our fine dining restaurants: Ristorante Bartolotta dal 1993 in 2018, then Bacchus in 2019. Fine dining has always been our core, and it still is. Everything else we do grows the brand and creates career paths for our people.

High Stakes brings “Las Vegas flair” to downtown Milwaukee. What does a Milwaukee diner want from a steakhouse that a Las Vegas one doesn’t?

High Stakes by Bartolotta is a European steakhouse, a concept that stands apart even in Las Vegas. It pulls from my years in Las Vegas, my European apprenticeships, the aesthetic of London’s Mayfair and the Art Deco period. The menu reads like a classic American steakhouse, but the flavors, ingredients and sauces take a European approach. For example, our shrimp cocktail comes with Sauce Aurora, a rich aioli built on crustacean stock with sherry and red wine vinegars. With our steaks, we serve Sauce Foyot, a béarnaise made with a red wine reduction, brown butter and demi-glace. It’s intense and screaming with umami.

When you think about Las Vegas, the diners come in layers. Some want a classic Caesar and filet, and some want to celebrate big with wagyu, caviar and the most expensive Cabernet on the list. Milwaukee has surprised me. We’re offering more luxury products on one menu than we ever have, from caviar and langoustines to foie gras crème brûlée, and people are embracing them. Our Filet Oscar, topped with a generous amount of Dungeness crab and Sauce Foyot, has been a standout since opening night. My philosophy is simple: cook what I want to eat, share my journey and trust the city to follow.

Michael White and Scott Conant both came up under you. What were they like as young cooks, and what did you see in them?

I am proud of both of them. They were curious, ambitious and hardworking, and they respected the people working next to them. They understood the team. Most importantly, they both had palates. When I teach flavor, I invest my energy in cooks who actually taste what I’m teaching, beyond the mechanics. What makes a real chef is whether the food speaks to you and you understand how to build flavor. Technique and years in the kitchen come second. Both of them had that.

Ristorante Bartolotta changes regions every four to six weeks. Which region of Italy do you keep coming back to, and why?

We’ve circled through all of them, and now we are even more granular by focusing on cities: Cucina Veneziana, Milanese, Napoletana and Palermitana. Italian cooking is a melting pot of every culture that passed through a peninsula sitting right in the middle of the Mediterranean. In Alto Adige, you’re eating knödel, strudel and goulash, and they call it their own. In Sicily, couscous is Sicilian. Even the baba on our menu sparks a debate about whether it’s French or Neapolitan. So the joy for me is showing diners more.

Ristorante Bartolotta dal 1993 is 33 years old, and this year it’s having the best financial performance in its history. That tells you everything about reinvention. They say restaurants don’t get tired, owners do. Our best work is still ahead of us.

Your group runs a supper club, Joey Gerard’s. What is it about the Wisconsin supper club that the rest of the country doesn’t understand?

The supper club is a hybrid of American culture. It sits somewhere between a family restaurant and a night out, with a menu that works for adults and kids and roots in continental European cooking that became part of the Wisconsin lexicon. What’s uniquely Wisconsin is the Friday fish fry. At Joey Gerard’s, we serve a Friday night fish basket. We honor those traditions and let them evolve, because Milwaukee expects a certain level from the Bartolotta name. Whenever Joe and I played it more mid-market, our guests told us they wanted more from us. So we’re doubling down on being a high-quality supper club.

With the restaurant in Milwaukee’s airport, what’s the challenge of cooking for people who are about to catch a flight?

You have to surprise people with something better than what they get everywhere else. To SSP America’s credit, they have embraced the idea of authentic Italian food in a lively, fresh environment that’s approachable and, most importantly, fast. Take the chicken Caesar. We cut the breast thin, roast it quickly so it caramelizes, and serve it warm on the salad in about five minutes. It’s absolutely delicious.

An airport restaurant may be someone’s first or last impression of our restaurant group. It’s also a stepping stone: travelers who know the Bartolotta name try us there, then visit our restaurants.

See all of Observer’s 2026 Nightlife & Dining Power List honorees.