Fairchild Restaurant was opened in March 2020 by 3 men, two of which work as chefs and the third runs the front of house and beverage program.  The trio all worked at “‘Etoile” where they formed the idea of their own restaurant.  In summer of 2023 Chefs Itaru Nagano and Andrew Kroeger were named best Chef Midwest by the James Beard Awards.  A medium sized place, they are open for dinner Wed.- Sun.  One wall of the place was windows to the street with the bar on one side separting it from the dining area with a half wall.  Small bare wood tables were closely set but not so close that the table has to be moved to get in or out.  Lowered lights, hanging plants, and a tin ceiling made up the room but no art was on the walls.  The menu changes with seasons and availability and the service was first rate.  Our server, Nancy, was willing to course things out with us sharing everything, which sometimes would be divided in the kitchen.  Not everything was amazing but it was certainly good enough to get a strong recommendation from me to put it on your list when in Madison.

Set-up

Food

We started with a couple cocktails, a Manhattan made with rye and cocchi vermouth di torino.  It was very nice.  On the right was a Paper Plane made with bourbon, aperol, amara rossa d’arancia and lemon.  It was great – cold, citrusy and yummy.

The maitake tempura was on top of lemon aioli.  I’ve loved this dish at Harbor House and couldn’t resist trying their version.  It came piping hot to the table with the meaty mushrooms in a medium amout of coating.  Nicely crisp but with the aioli underneath it was a bit tricky at first.  I couldn’t decide whether I liked them better on their own or dipped.

Sweet corn fritters were also stuffed with snow crab, charred shishito aioli, kohlrabi, sungold tomatoes and wakame.  The fritters seemed to have more crab than corn.  The tomatoes were the star on this plate – full of wonderful flavor.

Tagliatelle was mixed with little neck clams, Italian sausage, tomato confit, basil, oregano, white wine, lemon and garlic bread crumbs.  This dish had a wonderful balance of flavors and ingredients.   The perfectly cooked pasta was great in the broth/sauce.  A real winner.

The New York strip came with carrots, broccolini, potatoes, vin jaune cream, bacon and bordelaise.  The 4-6 ounce steak was more medium rare than rare and good tasting beef.  The bacon bits topped the lovely mashed potatoes.  Underneath the brocoli were some delicious carots.  Overall, a very good plate.

Sweet corn tres leches was made with miso caramel, strawberries, and horchata ice cream.  Fabulous caramel sauce was under the moist cake with wonderfull sweet flavorful strawberry pieces.  Nice ice cream finished off the very fine dessert.