Italian Summer in the City: Tenuta’s in Bay View Satisfies

Tenuta’s Italian Restaurant

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 4PM to 10PM

2995 Claremont Ave., Milwaukee

Pricing: 3$ of 5 (entrees $17 to $26)

Stars: 4 of 5

The sun is still high and hot this early evening and the neighborhood bakes with reflected warmth from the street’s old stones. An aproned waiter straightens cloths on sidewalk tables and waves me in with a smile. The smell of garlic and oil waft through the open door. Italy in the summertime.

Wait a minute. Where am I, anyway? This isn’t Italy. It’s Bay View on June 22, the first full day of summer, and I’m standing in front of Tenuta’s Italian Restaurant. Well, you could almost have fooled me. This Milwaukee restaurant’s initial ambiance echoes the Via dei Castellini in Florence. I’m meeting my friend Michelle here tonight knowing that she, too, has fond memories of her own Italian adventure, and Tenuta’s would have a lot to measure up to. It was a test, however, they easily passed.  

Tenuta’s success starts, believe it or not, with the neighborhood. This isn’t the trendy part of Bay View; Tenuta’s sits on the corner of a residential street, ringed all around by traditional Milwaukee bungalows. It’s more than a destination. It’s a neighborhood gathering place where locals meet. Diners don’t have to search for parking. There are plenty of spots on the street with no time limits.

The exterior sidewalk restaurant is welcoming with five or six tables amply provided for by roomy pavement space. The interior arrangement is somewhere between Italian bistro and Wisconsin tavern—the bar is mostly occupied and stays that way all night. Even at 5:30 a lot of the tables are full, but mostly with families complete with nonnas and papas.

In this post-pandemic restaurant world, we’ve become accustomed to less attention and slower service, but not here. Menus are already on the table when a busperson comes immediately to fill our water glasses and our waiter is right at her heels asking us whether we’d like something to drink. We would.

The favored wine of the region is Montepulciano and they have several, but the first test is whether they’ll have the good stuff. In Italy, Montepulciano is both a region and a grape, but the best Montepulciano grapes aren’t grown in the region by the same name. They’re grown, instead, in Abruzzo.

Did they have any? The waiter didn’t know, but the bartender sure did. She brought us a sample from an open bottle to approve, then opened a delightfully full-bodied and fruity new bottle for us, reminding us that it was Wednesday and all bottles were $10 off. How nice.

Already having decided to sample something from all of the offered courses (they had all 5 traditional options: Antipasti, Insalate, Primi, Secundi, and Dolce), we started with the appetizers, choosing ones we knew well and had enjoyed in Italy. Michelle’s bruschetta was as it should be—light on cheese, using only enough cracker-like bread to act as carrier and heavy on tomatoes and basil.

I thought my Arancini would disappoint because it came smaller and rounder than the usual lunch bucket peasant food it was designed to be—balls of yesterday’s risotto filled with leftovers and deep fried. These, however, were no leftovers. Filled with melted cheese and herbs, they cut like butter and oozed into their tomato sauce bath when opened. Lovely.

Then came the second non-food test. In Italy, no one ever rushes a diner. Ever. A second course is never brought or even suggested until it’s clear you’re done with the first one. So, we waited to see whether this place would succumb to American time-consciousness. And we waited some more. Only after the busperson asked whether we were ready to have our plates removed did the second course arrive. Perfect.

Salads are included with entrees, and we ordered two—a simple tossed salad and Tenuta’s upscale version that included olives, cheese, and two kinds of peppers. Here came the first small disappointment—ripe olives that looked straight off a salad bar rather than the kalamata olives that should have been there.

The pasta, however, was no disappointment. Michelle ordered carbonara, knowing it would give away fake Italian every time, but this pasta’s cream came, as is proper, from the pasta’s starchy cooking water and not from added dairy. Its authentic toppings of pancetta and peas were all it needed.

My basil pistachio pesto fettucine with asparagus, roasted artichokes, and cherry tomatoes was the most complex pasta dish on the menu and it I reveled in it. The texture, both soft and stout, complimented the variety of flavor and color. I ate it all and, quite frankly, could have eaten more. But something else was coming.

We knew we wouldn’t have room for two meat courses, so we chose to share their showcase dish, Manzo, porcini dusted boneless short ribs in a red wine reduction, and asked them to hold the risotto. They gladly did, and it was well worth it. Short ribs are not normally a thing of beauty, but of rich and robust flavor and these had every bit of that and more. The mushroom dust gave them depth and the sauce richness. They themselves were tender enough to cut easily with a fork and worth every penny.

By now, we had dawdled our way well into the evening and the tables had all turned over once, some twice. Grandma and grandpa were gone, replaced by young professionals, some dressed obviously for an evening out and some in shorts in flip flops. No one hurried us.

With dessert came our last two disappointments. They had only two choices, but they were good ones—cannoli and tiramisu. We ordered one of each, and espresso. Oops. They didn’t have any. It was never clear whether they actually had a machine, and it just wasn’t working or not, but no espresso in an Italian restaurant, well, it simply isn’t done.

The tiramisu disappointed, too. Short on coffee, cream, and mascarpone and heavy on sponge, it just didn’t provide the decadent experience it should have. The cannoli, however, was pure heaven. The shell was fresh and crispy and the filling light and smooth and full of chocolate chips. I’ll take two next time.

It was nearly 9:30 when we left, having spent four very pleasant hours at Tenuta’s. It wasn’t Italy, but then, it didn’t have to be. Tenuta’s will be fine just as it is.