The Poutine Is Served: All-New Shepherd's Open for Business

Pere Marquette would be proud. Wauwatosa is home to the Milwaukee area's newest French Canadian dining spot.

Shepherd's reopens Friday night, but it's nothing like the Shepherd's you knew – if you knew it at all.

Formerly a sports bar festooned with memorabilia, Shepherd's, 6715 W. North Ave., was bought over the winter by Marty Beaudoin, owner of the Red Dot on Milwaukee's east side, and transformed into a casually up-scale restaurant and lounge.

It doesn't look any different on the outside – yet – but inside is another story.

The walls have been stripped to the brick and building tile, and fine art hangs where sports posters once did. Suspended ceiling – gone. Now, it goes all the way up, and features some nice exposed beams. Sconce lighting sets the mood.

One feature the kids will love (before you hustle them to the dining room) is the bar top, paved with pennies.

"When we started this project it was, ah... not so great in here," general manager Kathryn Goral said. "Understatement?

"There have been some major, major renovations done, and I think everybody involved in this project is so please with the way it came out.

"We had a lot of opinions about which way we were going to go, but once the brick was exposed – it was a natural." 

Shepherd's will open at 4 p.m. and serve dinner until 11 p.m. every day, with the bar staying open until bar-close hours.

Goral said that fixing up the exterior of the building is in the cards, but Beaudoin is hoping for a little help from the city in the form of a grant.

Likewise, outdoor seating is somewhere, and farther, down the road. Beaudoin also bought the neighboring property that is still home to Maytag Coin Laundry, and the business owners will be staying.

"It'll be nice for us to have some extra parking after 10 p.m.," Goral said, "but the laundry isn't going anywhere. They do a good business, and we're not going to change that anytime soon. That's way out."

Closer is a change of name. Beaudoin wanted to open as Sherbrook, the name of his Canadian hometown. But a liquor license can only be transferred under the same name, and in some eagerness to get the place open, it was easier to keep the old name for now than wait through the application process for a new permit.

This weekend's menu will be limited, with the full menu planned but not quite ready for prime time. Opening on a Friday here, though, of course means fish fry.

"We're going to be serving a pan-fried grouper over merguez dirty rice topped with a crab and tomato cream sauce," said head chef William Ramos. "It's going to be fantastic. That's the big thing that we're proud of."

If that doesn't sound like a classic Milwaukee fish fry to you, never fear. Also available is panko-breaded lake perch, served with a crispy potato latke, coleslaw and rye bread. Ahhh.

There are also hors d'oeuvres, salads and burgers to choose from, and more entrees will be added Saturday and going forward.

As for the stylistic approach to the full menu,

"It's inspired both by North Woods Wisconsin and French Canadian cuisine," Ramos said. "We're playing with those flavors as much as we can, bringing them together.

"We're going to be running many game specials, we're going to put duck on the menu, both a half roasted duck and a duck confit on a burger."

And, of course, no French Canadian restaurant worth the name would fail to offer its most famous dish – poutine, the classic concoction of French fries with cheese curds and gravy.

"It's always been on the menu at Red Dot," Goral said, "and it's the most popular thing. I love it. I'm going to gain 60 pounds."