THINGS TO DO

Pastiche settles into new home in Brown Deer

Geoff Bruce
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Pastiche offers many French delicacies, with entrees featuring seafood, duck and steaks.

BROWN DEER – It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Mike Engel and Pastiche.

Engel’s French restaurant made the move from its original location in Bay View to its current home in Brown Deer in February 2016

“We were in Bay View for a number of years, but it became apparent to us that we had to leave. We had several issues with our landlord, and when we looked around, there just weren’t any other affordable places down there,” Engel said. “We do really miss it, but staying there just wasn’t an option.”

Engel and his wife, Angela, were friends with the owners of the River Lane Inn, which previously occupied 4313 W. River Lane, and thus the seed was planted for the move. But the transition was far from easy.

“We were a tiny restaurant down there. We only had 10 tables, now we’ve got 30-plus tables here. The entire restaurant, our old Bay View location, could fit in the bar here,” Engel said. “This was a huge transition for us.”

Pastiche had just 10 tables at its original Bay View location, but its Brown Deer place has more than 30, which caused some struggles in the early months after the move.

The first few months in Brown Deer were the toughest for Pastiche and its staff, many of whom had stayed on after the change from the River Lane Inn.

“We had way more people coming in than we could handle. It’s terrible when you see that, because you want to have good quality and you want to have a good experience for people,” Engel said. “There was a lot of inconsistency at first. We didn’t do a good job.”

A number of adjustments helped Pastiche to endure the early struggles, including adapting to a new clientele and its new expectations.

“When we were in Bay View and first moved up here, every dish had — for example, the halibut had asparagus and dauphine potatoes. Or the trout had green beans and roasted potatoes. The starches and the vegetables were there to compliment the dish,” Engel said. “In Bay View it was rarely an issue, but when we got here people would want to substitute a lot. We’re happy to do it, but what happened was it slowed everything down.”

To address that issue, Engel decided to make an audible on his menu that would help customers to customize their orders while smoothing the process for kitchen and wait staff.

“We took off all the starches and vegetables from the dishes, and they can choose whatever they want,” Engel said. “Everybody loved that. It’s been smooth ever since.”

Pastiche moved to Brown Deer in early 2016.

The specialties at Pastiche are centered largely around seafood, but there are plenty of other options to enjoy as well.

“The fresh fish is the No. 1 thing here. We have fish specials, and all the fish is fresh every day,” Engel said. “We’ve always been known for that, even when we were down in Bay View.”

Other favorites include the cassoulet, the ratatouille, short ribs and the rack of lamb.

Pastiche's serves frog legs Provencale.

Engel, a Glendale native and Nicolet High School graduate, got his start in French cuisine while learning the chef trade from his mentors at Milwaukee Country Club.

“The chefs were German by nationality who were trained in French cuisine. So we had the French cuisine along with the German discipline,” Engel said. “It provided me with a great learning experience. I’m eternally grateful to them for that. They were tough, but it was what I needed as a kid.”

Engel’s favorite part of Pastiche is getting to work alongside his wife, Angela, who serves as a hostess and the pastry chef, and their sons, save for Mike’s oldest, who is a chef in Nashville, Tennessee.

Pastiche is owned and operated by Mike and Angela Engel.

“We’ve got this nice, really cool family business. Especially in times like now, when it’s so hard to find staff, we’re glad that we have family working here because you can always count on your kids,” Engel said. “Being able to work with them, that’s really the joy of my existence.”

Pastiche originally opened in Bay View in 2010 with the name quite literally coming to Engel on a whim.

"I was sitting on the couch late one night, about halfway through my business plan, taking a break, drinking a bottle of wine. It just popped into my head and I wrote it down on a scrap of paper," Engel said. "I had no idea what it meant. Later, I looked it up and it was perfect for what I was doing. 'Pastiche' is a term of art, but it really fit well for the restaurant."

Pastiche is open for lunch and dinner five days per week but is open only in the evenings on Saturdays. It is closed Sundays.

Engel also operates a second Pastiche location in downtown Milwaukee, but he is not even considering a third restaurant. In fact, he intends to downsize. 

“There’s no desire for a third. As a matter of fact, it’s my intention, once the lease runs out downtown, I’m going to give that to Rachael, the chef down there,” Engel said. “I’m just going to give that to her. I want to start simplifying my life.”

But despite that intention to consolidate his efforts in his more northern location, Engel, citing a return to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Carol Deptolla’s list of the best restaurants in the Milwaukee area, has noticed plenty of reason for optimism.

“At this particular point in time, the restaurant business is a really difficult place to be,” Engel said. “But we got back in the Top 30. Not that those things are that important to me, but it’s meaningful to customers, so it’s meaningful to us. For the last year, we’ve been able to get back on good footing.”

Pastiche

ADDRESS: 4313 W. River Lane, Brown Deer

PHONE NUMBER: 414-354-1995

WEBSITE: www.PasticheBistro.com

PRICE RANGE: From $14 for ratatouille up to $36 for a filet with crab meat and bearnaise

HOURS: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 to 10 p.m. Friday, 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday