Paul Bartolotta

It goes way beyond beer and brats.

Chef Paul Bartolotta, two times James Beard Award winner.

Can I call you the godfather of Milwaukee restaurants? Is that okay?

Makes me sound old.

You know, we don't report on what happens in those neighborhoods as much as we do on the ones that happen downtown or in certain parts of our inner city.

And I just wanna make sure that we, we, we realize that the data shows tremendous improvement.

Chef Paul Bartolotta joining us in studio.

High Stakes, one of nine new restaurants opening this fall alone in Milwaukee, Paul, which is remarkable.

He's got, Joe's going to be trailing at La Pavillon, one of his restaurants.

Um, we have a Paul Bartolotta out in, in, um, Wisconsin going to employ people.

We have Alone Shia in Denver and New Orleans.

I mean, there's just some incredible chefs that are all going to help to hire these people.

some of the coverage, you'd get the sense that Water Street is a war zone and nothing would want to go there.

Paul Bartolotta has been very upfront that he thinks downtown is on the rise and he wants to be part of it.

So bringing this very high-end European and Las Vegas-inspired restaurant steakhouse that is designed to bring people to that area, give them a place to eat before a show or before a game, and really generate more of that foot traffic that is necessary to have the area be the type of vibrant thing that people want it to be.

Water Street's such a fascinating place because the public sense of it as it's dangerous is not untrue, and there's so much nuance in all of this discussion, but the difference between what Water Street is like on a Sunday morning and 2 a.m. on a Friday night, those are very different sort of vibes.