Transcript
Rachel Bernhard on Dining, Reviews & Food Trends (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Thu Apr 23, 2026
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From Washington to Hollywood and right back to Wisconsin.
It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.
You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.
It's news and culture without the noise.
Yeah, come on!
Here's Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Dude!
Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.
Happy Thursday, everybody.
Great to have you here.
We are live on the Civic Media Network broadcasting across, well, much of Wisconsin.
I am Pete Schwabba.
Joining me from Radio Park in Racine, just down the coast, that does sound exotic, Greg, is Mr. Greg Bach.
Hey, buddy.
I live on the coast, man.
Yeah.
The coast, yeah.
LA, New York, no.
Lake Michigan.
Yeah, Lake Michigan.
It wasn't a char day that said coast to coast, LA to Chicago.
It's
like, there's a coast there.
Wow.
You just made a, you made a Shade reference.
Oh my goodness.
Shade.
I would say
Shade.
Which is, you know what's funny is that Shade, it's not her name.
Her name is Helen.
It's a band, right?
It's a band is called Shade.
Her name, her name, I think our last name is Shade, but she is not Shade.
I
didn't know that until you, I think you said that like last week or something.
And that would be like, if I had a band and called it Schwabba, people go.
Yeah, his real name is Pete, but oh,
his last name is, what?
That still works.
Helen Follisade adieu.
That's her name.
Paract name isn't even Shade.
It's just, that's amazing.
I love it.
So how do you know the band name Shade, but it's S-A-D-E?
That's a great question.
I'm sure I can find it somewhere in a place called Wikipedia, but,
uh, the worldwide interwebs.
You got to have a really strong personal, like, you know, like,
I heard the story, the same story like with Alice Cooper.
Alice Cooper was not the guy.
Alice Cooper was the name of the band.
And then
after a
while, he just became Alice Cooper because he had no choice.
So I wonder if at any point she was like, it's Helen.
Oh, you're Shaday.
No, my name is Helen.
Oh, you're Shaday.
I'm Shaday.
You know,
what's Alice Cooper's real name?
It's
like Vincent Furnier.
Oh, that's kind of a cool name.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I
like that name a lot.
I think Vincent is a cool first name.
That's a great first name.
I mean, if I give you, here, I'll give you a, this is fun.
This is, this is an off the cuff game.
One round.
That's it.
I'm going to give you one name and tell me who the person is.
And nobody on the live stream or the text line help him cheat.
All right.
All right.
By the way, you can be part of the conversation.
James Newell Ulsterberg, Jr.
Rick
Astley Iggy Pop.
Oh, OK.
And I've heard stories from people say things like, yeah, when he's on stage, he's Iggy Pop.
When he's offstage, he's like, hi, my name is Jim, because he's just a dude from Michigan.
It's awesome.
I love that.
Iggy Pop is from Michigan.
He's from Michigan.
Yep.
Get out of town.
That's kind of cool.
So
didn't mean to
interrupt that whole thing.
No, listen, what are we doing here?
This is what we do here at Nightlight, especially on a Thursday.
We've got a lot going on here tonight, folks.
We've got Rachel.
Burnhard.
We said Burnhard, right?
It's Burnhard.
It's Burnhard.
Yep.
Rachel Burnhard.
She is the dining critic for the Milwaukee Journal of Sound.
I'm very excited to talk to Rachel because I don't know if you know this, Greg.
You probably do because you live on the outskirts of Milwaukee.
Pretty damn good restaurant on town.
Oh, yeah.
Milwaukee.
You know, honestly, I have to say,
Wisconsin is a great restaurant state.
There are great restaurants in this place here and you know you can you can go like that of course Milwaukee you'll have super fancy places you'll have you know your Dutch Asian fusion that kind of stuff yeah but then there's those places that I love the most where you just walk in and it's it's under it's it's unassuming
And it's got the best burger in the region.
And it's just a guy named Stu who has been doing the same recipe for 50 years going, I just make burgers.
I don't know why everyone, I don't know why everyone's getting excited, but they're just good.
There we go.
That'll be 750.
And it's 750.
I just made that up.
I just made
that part
up.
I almost moved to Milwaukee based on that info.
So we'll talk to Rachel.
That'll be fun.
A good conversation.
And then in hour number two, ladies and gentlemen,
is the third installment, I'll stop saying
that eventually,
but it is our third installment of the night fourth installment.
Fourth installment, yes.
Fourth
installment of the night like movie club in tonight's.
There you go.
Tonight's film is the breakfast club.
We're going to do, we're going to drill down on this great John Hughes film that came out in 1985.
So if you've seen it, join the conversation.
You might have time to catch some of it if you want to pop it in there and watch some of it and refresh your memory, but join the conversation.
You can always
Be part of nightlight movie club and anything we're talking about here on nightlight at eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five civic the phone lines Never close at least not while we're on the air.
So
Yeah,
exactly.
Well dom No
dom stays
there the entire time doms.
He's always here.
He's a real genius
rise character That's a great move
That's a great, there's a nightlight.
That
is
a great movie.
Oh my gosh.
Oh
my gosh.
I love that movie so much.
I do too.
Val Kilmer burst onto the scene.
Val Kilmer.
We've got a lot going on though.
We got a great question tonight.
We've got some business we should get out of the way.
There's a public service commission meeting, a public service commission of Wisconsin, an open meeting taking place tomorrow morning at 10 30 a.m.
in regard to data centers, Greg.
Yes.
So there, there is a deal on the table for we energies to finagle some percentages and some, yeah, it's basically so like there, there is pushback from groups like Walnut Way, Milwaukee, clean Wisconsin, Sierra club, Wisconsin industrial energy group and others.
But this is going to be important, especially if you are in the world of data centers.
If you are someone who is concerned about this, you can go to the, I believe it's, if you go to the
State of Wisconsin's YouTube page, we will watch it, or we will put that link in our show notes, go to civicmedia.us slash shows, look for Nightlight, and you can click on that, watch it tomorrow morning, 10.30 a.m.
This is probably, next to the election, data centers is probably the biggest topic people are talking about in this state, with everything going on in Port Washington, and in, oh gosh, DeForest, it's really becoming a thing in this past year, so if that's something that's important to you,
Check that meeting out tomorrow morning 10 30 a.m.
Live on YouTube
my my personal interest in that is will the costs for energy be passed on to the consumer?
That is the big I mean there's other issues certainly with water in the environment all that but man I equated kind of to when a professional sports team that's privately owned wants public funding to build a stadium
Stop
it,
you know, and that and that's that's you're right that that is a huge concern for communities and Some politicians and come forward and said we cannot push this burden on to the taxpayers under the community community members and I think there's They're kind of outed last year by all this nefarious activity of NDAs and going back door back behind the back door deals and all this stuff and just like really It's now out in the lights and if you live in an area
that has a data center on the docket or one's being built or just, you know, you live anywhere in Wisconsin.
It's all over the country.
It's not going away.
That's the problem for some people, but we need to be informed.
That is
the
most important thing.
So again, you can go to the state of Wisconsin's YouTube page.
You can go to civicmedia.us slash shows.
Look at the nightlight show notes.
That link will be there, but please watch.
And if you, you know,
Report back.
If you watch it, let us know how it went.
We'd love to hear from you.
Absolutely.
And if you got a pen, youtube.com forward slash at PSCWI.
There you go.
Oh, so the PSC has their own, wow, everyone has their own YouTube page.
Amazing.
Exactly.
Technology is beautiful.
Most
of the time,
yeah.
Trying to operate my phone.
Let's get to our night like question the night, fellows.
Agreed.
It is National Bucket List Day, folks.
So our question tonight at Nightlight is what's on your bucket list?
Okay.
You know what?
It's funny.
That's a phrase that I didn't hear, I think, until Morgan Freeman said it like 30 years ago on whatever movie that was.
It's called The Bucket List.
It's
called The Bucket
I mean, in Shawshank, I was in prison because I didn't execute my bucket list.
No, yeah.
Oh, that's great.
It's that it's sort of, yeah, fine.
I
mean, fine.
Yeah.
So let us know 855-752-4842-855-755.
Civic, you can also text us on the app or drop us a stream comment.
If you're watching the radio at YouTube, Facebook or ex Twitter, we would love to know what's on your bucket list.
I've got one and it's attainable, Greg.
That's all I'll say right
now.
I'm not
shooting for the moon here.
That could be on someone.
Oh, mine is trying to shoot the moon like literally just like.
every single of my neighbors have complained to the cops.
It's just, I think it's because I try to do it at like two AM.
I was always trying to do it at two AM.
So
just shooting off your guns and
smoking your
wacky tobacco
and sacking my hack and just, you
know, I don't know what's going on down there in, uh, in Southeast Wisconsin.
Um,
But let us know, folks.
Let us know.
Be part of the show.
As always, you can comment on anything we're talking about.
And I hope you guys participate in hour number two because we've got great stuff regarding the Breakfast Club, one of John Hughes's classics.
And we'll talk about that too in hour number two.
So there you go.
Greg, you want to save your aunt's story or you want to tell us what happened?
That's a horrifying story you told us off the
air.
Yeah, I could tell it really quick basically how you know woke up this morning to My wife just comes up to me and says we have ants and I said Excuse me and yeah, we went I went down to the kitchen and we were looking around we saw some ants crawling around the counter and like oh good Lord and Luckily they weren't coming from the walls or the floor or anything like they're not inside the building like infesting but I picked up our
coffee maker and there was just a pile of them right there so there must have been like just a piece of something got underneath there and I spent a better part of like an hour and a half clearing, cleaning, scrubbing, re-scrubbing, re-washing, sweeping, swiffering, that's not an ad for Swiffer and just really just kind of in
I didn't totally clean the kitchen, but I cleaned that area really well.
And so it just, it went from a morning that was nice and relaxed, like I'm gonna do some reading.
I'm gonna get caught up for the show today.
And then I got here this morning for something.
I'm like, I've done nothing because I'm covered in ants.
I was horrified to hear that, but I have to say, there are so many more worse things you could have, not the down player situation, but roaches or like termites, mice, yeah.
At least with mice, you're gonna have like two or three, like the amount of ants, there were hundreds.
And they were all, yeah, it was nothing.
I'm glad it's done.
I'm glad we found it.
I'm glad it's done.
It's good to go.
There we are.
That is our one of our de facto big three stories, but we've got a actual big three stories.
We should probably get to Mr. Lee He's coming this one Greg.
Yeah, please
this is coming out of nature nature.com the headline reads staggering quote quote staggering unquote number of people believe unproven claims about vaccine raw milk and more This is a very interesting story.
I'd love for people to check out in the show notes because
A lot of times we look at, you know, vaccines or Tylenol causes this or vaccines cause that or raw milk or whatever.
We equate that to a certain group of people or to a smaller percentage of individuals.
And what this story is telling us is not only is that number not a small percentage, it's a larger percentage.
Like 32% of people believe animal protein is healthier than plant-based protein.
Now, whether or not that's true or not, like the fact that
Well, here's another one.
Fluoride in water is harmful or unhelpful to health.
32% of the people they polled said yes.
32%, not 10%, not 5%, 32%.
And these aren't people who are living, and I'm gonna generalize in this moment, it's not backwoods, mobile home people, I come from backwoods, mobile home people.
These are people who are college educated, who are, you know, they are,
They are not the people you think they are.
And we can talk more about this on the other side, but it is a mind-blowing article.
It is.
Well, we'll talk more, like you said, after the break.
We're going to just pop out just for a second here, folks.
Don't go anywhere.
This is Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach and Nightlight on the Civic Media Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
We're back.
It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Great to have you here on this Thursday night.
It is a Night Light movie club night.
We'll be talking about the film The Breakfast Club in hour number two.
And we've got Rachel Bernhard coming up at 535 Milwaukee Restaurant Critic for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
She does great work there.
And excited to talk to Rachel about food coming up after the news at the bottom of the hour.
Right now, we were in the middle of our big three stories, and we were sort of, were we done, Greg, with vaccines?
I would love to know.
What those percentages would be basically before the break folks we we at nature.com They said 67% of people have issues with vaccine or doubt them and My friend who was a nurse said a buddy of his came up to him and said what do you think about this?
That was the COVID vaccine.
He said I think you should get it.
He goes really I'm hearing some things You're getting your information from guys on bar stools like
I would love to know what those numbers are before the age of social media.
In that article in Nature, which will once again be in the show notes, it says here, the results quote, blow the lids off the idea that such beliefs are held by only a fringe population of individuals who are uninformed or ideologically driven.
It goes on to say, this is not a small problematic group.
And it really is, I mean, and it really comes from the fact that we are just surrounded by information.
all the time, and there's no qualifications that people have to take to be on social media to talk about this stuff.
And you're more likely to believe someone that you find interesting, entertaining, funny, attractive than maybe say a doctor.
Unless that doctor is charming, interesting, funny, attractive.
Or a president who
finds ways to rip on the vaccine, but then gets it.
himself or the nephew of a former president who just can't really talk about Tylenol in a way that makes sense.
But yeah, this is very disturbing.
We have Jack from Merrimack on the line who wants to talk about this as well.
Good evening, Jack.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
Oh, just peachy.
Just peachy today.
Beautiful day out here.
Glad to hear it.
What's on your mind, Jack?
The vaccines and yeah.
The other idiocies that are coming out of this White House and have for like, what, since about 2016, that's a decade now, repeated lies.
And these are lies that are aimed at a specific purpose, and that is to create fear or hate or anger in anybody that listens to them.
And the purpose
According to the historian Hannah Ernst, who studied the Nazis, by the way, extensively, the purpose is not so that everybody believes alive.
It's to get people questioning the statement of anything so that you don't know what to believe, what's true, what's not true anymore.
Those people aren't the
are the ideal subjects for authoritarian governments, whether it's communism or not.
I mean, that's what this is all about.
It's about this authoritarian government trying to confuse everybody, and their statements are intentionally misleading so that people don't trust anything.
And sewing
chaos.
That's a great point, Jack.
Thank you very much for calling Jack.
We appreciate you.
Yeah.
I mean, so I
encourage
people to go to the show notes and check out this article and, and, and stop treating it like, you know, it's your idiot cousin, you know, who lives in, in your aunt's basement.
It's not, it's people who have whole, whole degrees who have families and jobs there.
It's more than just the fringe.
So, uh, we should probably, let's move on to the next story.
Good news in this next year.
This is great news, Greg.
The Milwaukee Bucks have a new head coach.
I will miss Doc Rivers voice, but we have a new head coach and his
name is Taylor Jenkins.
And he is no stranger to the Bucks either.
He actually served under coach bud back in the late teens.
He
was,
he was insisting coach with coach bud for the 2018, 2019 season before taking over in Memphis.
So he's got some experience here in Milwaukee.
I don't know if he's, I mean, he's coached with the honest, but
It's cool to see a face back of an old friend back.
It's interesting though, in this journal Sentinel article that he went to Memphis and he had a couple of rough years, both at the beginning and at the end, but he, he was fired in what looked to be a winning season so far.
He was, it says here that he, the team rebounded after a bad season, 44 to 29 mark.
He was, he was dismissed nine games before the regular season was over this season.
And he was a 44 29 record, which I don't feel like is bad.
I mean, I, I mean, it doesn't, it says here also in the article that he was, uh, he was told that he was had to fire a handful of employees that I guess he didn't want to do, but, uh, he is going to be back in Milwaukee in the big chair.
And that is going to be interesting to see how he handles it.
Uh, coach bud.
quoted in this article, sparkling reviews of this human being.
And so I'm interested to see what happens because I feel like we, I feel like the Bucks have one or two shots left with Yanis.
If he stays, they got to make it count.
And I, you know, for the little bit I know about basketball, or at least with the Bucks, I felt like Doc Rivers was never the best choice, but
what do I know?
I know it's, it's weird.
I liked Doc Rivers and I like him.
It kind of is a person, but yeah, I agree with you.
And
Uh, yeah, we'll see what happens.
The bucks also fired a coach who had a winning record a
couple of years ago before they hired back.
So this will coach bud.
Uh, yeah.
Oh, no, no, no.
Adrian Griffin.
Adrian Griffin.
You're right.
You're right.
Yeah.
I, that, that was all, that was at one point the bucks were paying playing, paying three coaches, three coaches.
All right.
Let's squeeze in our last story.
We only have to say one line and you'll get it folks.
This is also national talk like Shakespeare's day, Greg.
That's what they do at a th the end of everything.
And you know what?
I national talk like Shakespeare day.
Wonderful.
I was in a Shakespeare play.
It was absolutely wonderful.
Had a blast and found out in a Shakespeare class in high school.
They didn't talk like that back then.
That was for the stage and theater only, but people back in those days did not speak in those terms.
Well,
I take exception with you with we will be right back with more nightlife.
Welcome back.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
I'm Pete Schwabba.
Greg Bach is just down the coast at Radio Park in Racine and Dom Lee is holding down the fort in Madison.
We are the Otterhay Triangle and we are thrilled to be with you on this Thursday night.
It is a nightclub movie.
a nightlight movie club night.
So we'll be talking movies in hour number two and tonight's movie is the breakfast club.
So join the conversation.
Let's have some fun.
And our question of the night is what is on your bucket list?
855-752-4842-8557-577.
You can also text us on the app.
or drop us a stream comment and let us know what you want to do before you die.
That sounds a little more dark than just saying bucket list.
Especially when you say it like that.
What do you want to do before you die?
Our first and only guest of the evening writes about dining because she is the dining critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
She joins us now over the stream.
I assume from Milwaukee to talk food.
It is our pleasure to welcome Rachel Bernhard.
Hi, Rachel.
How are you?
I'm wonderful.
How about you?
Doing very well.
Thank you.
It's great to have you here tonight and we were talking during the break about how I'm in the middle of a fast and Greg is already starving.
So let's jump into some food talk.
Love your articles and you obviously are really passionate about writing, about restaurants and dining.
Tell us, just give us an overview right out of the gate here, if you will, about Milwaukee and what kind of a restaurant town it is.
Is it known for its restaurants?
I think it's a great restaurant town.
Yeah, I think especially now, since we're talking, it's really
Our star is really rising in the dining scene across the country and the world.
I mean, I think a lot of people maybe outside of Milwaukee might think that we're just cheese and brats, but we are so much more.
We have a very diverse dining scene.
We have a lot of great fine dining and we are about to be on the world stage.
So it's a really exciting time.
Wait, we're about to be on the world stage?
Like that's a tease.
She's leading us to the next question.
And I think I know
what it
is.
Yeah, sorry to take over your show.
Yeah, so just a few weeks ago, it was announced that for the first time ever, Milwaukee's restaurants will be evaluated by the Michelin guide.
Yeah, if you don't know, if your listeners don't realize, the Michelin Guide is one of the top, if not the top guide for evaluating and rating the world's best restaurants.
So Milwaukee's never had its own guide before.
It still doesn't have its own.
We are a part of an American Great Lakes guide that
is
going to launch next year.
Excellent.
When in consideration for a mission because you can if I'm not mistaken you can have up to three Michelin stars at one restaurant What is the consideration?
What goes into from like is it a matter of like?
Restaurant X in Milwaukee says we want to do this or are they chosen to be evaluated?
What is the process if they want to be part of this?
So, Michelin is very secretive about their process.
I have asked people at Michelin to divulge a few of their secrets and I'm getting nothing back.
But I can tell you what I know.
I can tell you that Michelin's inspectors have already been out in Milwaukee evaluating our restaurants.
They
have been for months, even years.
The reason we were chosen is because inspectors have been out in the field for so long and kind of deemed Milwaukee ready to be evaluated in the guide.
So that's a pet on our back in itself.
But aside from that,
They have their own criteria.
These restaurants need to reflect the city and the culture where they come from.
I think we have so many restaurants in Milwaukee that do that very, very well and represent the Midwest very well.
Surprisingly, they say service is not
a part of it.
They do not evaluate service.
They do not evaluate the wine list.
They don't evaluate decor or the design.
It's just about the food.
This is
what
they say.
We'll see.
Well,
I'll go on Pete.
Yeah, go on.
No, if you have a follow up.
Well, because because this thing is like, I feel like when we think Michelin star restaurants, we think
fancy.
We think a lot of people probably think the bear, they think expensive, they think hoity-toity, but there are a lot of Michelin restaurants around the world that are
just they serve such amazing food, whether it's like a beautiful taco or a burger that they come in and they say, you know, you win this star because you are doing exactly what we want to see.
And so I feel like if there's any city in the country that can break the stereotype of what people see as Michelin, it's Milwaukee because it has a great deal of class in their dining, but it also still retains that Midwestern feel of like laid back fun, we're have a good time, but you're going to eat real well and you are going to enjoy it.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that goes from, you know, some of our fine dining restaurants all the way down to, you know, our more everyday establishments too, you know, like, like a restaurant like Sanford, you know,
I
throw that out there as a potential restaurant that could get a star.
It has wonderful elevated food, but it's still
really Midwestern.
It really shows off Midwest ingredients and it doesn't take itself too seriously.
So I feel like a place like that could get a star.
But also I love to throw a dark horse out there.
What if a place like cops could get a star or a bit gourmand or something,
you
know, like showing off our custard that is such a part of our fabric of the dining scene here.
It's been really fun to kind of think about which restaurants Michelin could recognize
here.
Our guest is Rachel Bernhard.
She is the dining critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
She does great work there.
Check out her articles.
Speaking of your articles, Rachel, I read this one.
I just love your article about the refugee chef's dinner series.
Can you tell us more about that?
Sure.
This is the Tables Across Borders dinner series.
This has been going on since about 2019, and it's held at both Amalinda, a restaurant downtown in Trickleby Cafe near the Milwaukee's west side.
This series puts chefs, refugee chefs,
It brings them into these restaurants and anyone can buy a ticket to these events and the chefs share about their culture, their background, their stories, and the type of cuisine from their home countries and their homeland.
So you really get this really special experience to meet the chef, hear their stories, and taste the kind of food that you may have never had and may not be represented anywhere else in Milwaukee.
And 100% of
the proceeds do go to the refugee chefs and their families.
I think that kind of goes back to the point I was making before that Milwaukee has that attitude and that belief of not only just of its food, it's of its community as well.
And that's fantastic.
So going back sort of to the Michelin thing as far as people come in and they'll taste the food and they critique the food and then they make the decision, that's
Kind of what you do as well you go in and you you're gonna go to a place I'm gonna try this place Are you are people aware of you and whether or not you're going to be there?
Do you sneak in kind of like I'm gonna put a hat on I'm gonna eat the food and I'll do my article or is it is it like this thing of Oh, there's Rachel.
She's here or do people sometimes freak out because they see you there and they want to you know Make sure it's all the best presentation.
The food is great.
Like what is it like for you when you go into a restaurant?
Yeah, well, I if
People have clocked me at their restaurant.
I haven't noticed it.
I certainly haven't seen anyone freak out.
I don't know if they do that behind the scenes, but, you know, modern dining critics now, it's really difficult to be completely anonymous
We have dining critics at the New York Times and the Washington Post and these big outlets that are no longer anonymous.
I mean, if you Google my name, my picture is going to show up.
I'm not wearing any disguises.
I am going in under fake names for reservations, though, and trying to be as low-key as possible.
You know, part of my job is that I don't want any special treatment.
I want to dine just like any of you would any other diner.
I think that's the most fair way to evaluate a restaurant.
And I'm sure some people have, I've caught here and there, maybe a little whisper, but I figure by the time I get to the restaurant, there's not a whole lot they can do to change the way they make the food at that point.
Wash your hands.
Cook the burger all
the way through this time.
Right.
Where can I get
great Mediterranean food.
I thought you were like, we're going to get a Michelin star.
That too, sure.
Well, we'll have to wait for that one, but great Mediterranean food.
You know, interestingly, there is a brand new restaurant that opened up called Aya in downtown Milwaukee.
just a couple of months ago.
It's by the owners of saffron and Indian restaurant in the third Ward.
And I have had a little a little bite at a few bites at their restaurant.
And it's fabulous.
Their food is really fresh.
The chef is super creative.
The space is is gorgeous.
So I would recommend that if you're looking for somewhere new.
Yeah, it's always do that.
You know, Milwaukee, you mentioned it earlier.
Milwaukee is, you know, we're Wisconsin, we're Midwest.
We have a certain aesthetic.
We have a certain way of talking.
We, you know, whatever.
And more so like the way people assume we are in our lives and, you know, beer and cheese and that kind of stuff.
But when you have conversations with folks about restaurant scenes and you say, Oh, Milwaukee is great.
I'm sure sometimes you may get like a really, what is your response to people who say things like that?
Like you go into mode, like you're like,
you go into like defense mode of like, oh, well, I got a list here.
You're gonna like, well, those conversations where you can almost have to convince people or at least say, no, we're not what you think.
It's a lot better than that.
And let me tell you about that.
Like those conversations happen at all.
All the time.
All the time.
You know, I was just, I was just, you know, I grew up in Ohio and I was just back home recently and
talking to family and friends about what I do here in Milwaukee and they can't believe I'm so busy and I have so many restaurants to go to and I have to remind them Milwaukee and its surrounding suburbs are they have excellent food and really diverse food and they're you know we hear the stories about our favorite restaurants closing all the time but there are a lot that are opening now too.
You know, I just, when people ask me for recommendations or, you know, where should I start in Milwaukee?
I say pick neighborhood.
That's where,
you know, because
there's, obviously we're a city of neighborhoods
and
each neighborhood has such a different dining personality, I think.
So I say, tell me neighborhood first and then I'll point in the direction of like five great restaurants you have to try.
Great system.
We've got about a minute before we have to do a break I'm just gonna put this out there family of four Where can they get a nice hot meal at a fair price?
And I mean that like price wise because you can go to a McDonald's and spend 20 bucks and we go out to eat for two people It's easily a hundred.
Is there a really moderately priced restaurant that comes to mind?
it is harder these days because we do know you know ingredients are going up you know labor costs are going up so those are more hard to come by but but there are still a few favorites out there I mean like that we have some some great diners that I love I mean I I'll tell you today
I went to a place I couldn't believe.
I went to Night Owl Burger on Layton Avenue.
I couldn't believe I had the biggest burger of my life for 10 bucks.
So that
certainly isn't going to break the bank.
So
that's a great answer.
That's outstanding.
All right, let's pick up there when we come back.
We're going to do a very short break.
Our guest is Rachel Bernhardt.
She is the dining critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and we will have more food talk with Rachel coming up next.
This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Civic Media Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Welcome back.
This is a Thursday night edition of Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Dom Lee is working the board producing the show in Madison.
Our guest right now is Rachel Bernhardt.
She is the dining critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
We're talking about all things food in Milwaukee.
This is a really fun conversation.
I will say you had a great article too recently, Rachel, about going back home to Ohio, as you mentioned, and talking about family dinners.
And I remember growing up, you know, we used to go out.
I grew up in Chicago.
When I was young, we'd go out to the suburbs and have dinner at my grandma's.
We'd have our own family dinners.
And we still did that with my own family, but less and less.
Can you talk about the importance of just the social aspect of eating and dining together and how important that is?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I don't know about about you all, but I feel that
A lot of us don't stop and sit and really look at each other and talk unless we're across the table from one another.
Those are the moments that we really get to slow down.
We get to talk about, you know, choose what we want to eat, kind of make our game plan with each other at the table, which I think is another fun ritual to do too.
But, you know, just sitting there sharing food, sharing a meal, talking about our days, I think that's, you know, a really
important part of the dining process too.
I mean, when I, when I haven't seen a friend in a while, the first thing naturally for me, but I think most people is let's go to dinner.
You
know, I mean, there's something to be said, you know, like if you say, let's go to dinner that I have, you know, we're going to go to dinner, we're going to go to a place.
If you say to me, come over for Sunday supper, I know that I'm being invited to something that is
important.
And yeah, it's again that notion of community, whether it's a small family or it's a neighborhood thing.
But yeah, that's very, very important.
You were wonderful enough to come on a morning show program.
I did a couple months ago and talk about this, but I wanted to get your thoughts.
Now we're in spring and we're into 2026 a little further.
What are you seeing in Milwaukee that's popping up, opening, whether it's a restaurant or it's a style that you're seeing that you want people to know
about?
I think when we talked last, I talked about the influx or the boom we've been having with Southeast Asian food.
We've been having some great Korean restaurants.
We have this excellent Filipino pop-up that's now at this great cocktail bar called Agency.
Their name is Cinta, and they do a lot of awesome Filipino food that you can't find anywhere else in the city that I love.
But since then,
You know, we've heard about a lot of restaurants closing, but it's been kind of an amazing year for new restaurants in Milwaukee as well.
At the beginning of the year, we had Casice, this new French restaurant from the owners of Birch in downtown Milwaukee.
You know, it's super popular, really well-regarded restaurant downtown.
And Casice is this shiny little thing in the third ward right along the river.
It's really fun.
It's very inventive.
It feels like you're going on a night out there.
But it also is really like homey and comforting too.
That's a really big opening we've had.
I mentioned Aya, the new Mediterranean restaurant before.
That place is really something special too and a new one we've had.
I mean, I think right now we're going through a sushi boom as well.
We've had quite a few sushi restaurants opening.
And the biggest, the highest profile one so far this year is called Nakama.
And it is a an omakase restaurant.
So, you know, we had 1033 omakase, which is a James Beard finalist this year.
That was our first omakase restaurant.
And now we have our second one opening, you know, Kitty Corner from Birch on the Lower East Side too.
And that restaurant just opened, I think, last week, two weeks ago.
chance to try it yet, but I've been in this space and it looks pretty spectacular.
That's great.
I'm trying to write all these down.
I agree with you, Rachel, about community.
But let's be honest, sometimes you just want to be alone with your food and not be judged.
Oh
boy.
And you want to
scarf it down, man.
That's the same.
I know you like movies as well.
I was reading your bio.
Have you ever seen the movie Big Night?
Yes.
Yes.
That is a fantastic.
And one of the best food movies we have.
Yes.
All right.
Good.
That's a great one.
Maybe a potential nightlight movie club Stanley Tucci and Wisconsin's own Tony Chaloupe.
Have you seen the breakfast club?
Oh, yes.
All
right.
She could have been on second hour too.
I mean, there you go.
While we're talking about that, Ardith on the live stream says, I love the movie The Hundred Foot Journey, which is about trying to gain a Michelin star.
We have about a couple of minutes left, really quick.
With Michelin coming to Milwaukee, does that open up the doors for other cities in Wisconsin, like Madison or Green Bay?
Once they come here, will they say, well, let's look at other places here in the state?
I sure hope so, because
outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin is a really, really great food state.
Madison is a wonderful food city.
And there are also two James Beard finalists up in Door County, like you can't sleep on Door County in a couple weeks, I'm going to be there eating at a new restaurant that the chefs opened that they had three Michelin stars in California.
Last year, they moved
to
Door County.
So it's like,
Don't sleep on the rest of the state, too.
I really hope they can get their feelers out and kind of explore a little bit more.
I
might ask you, off the air, where that is, because I was just at the Dora County Film Festival a couple of months ago, and I think that those people came up and they're doing kind of a cool thing there.
So I would like to, because we're going there shortly, too, I would love to get the name of that place.
Rachel, this is so much fun.
Thank you.
Please come back.
We need a resident food critic.
We've got a resident dentist for the show, which is very important for any radio show.
Which is very hard to do on the air, by the way.
He does not look at teeth well when you're like in the camera.
But
he's a magician.
And so we'd love to have you back sometime too and continue our conversations about great food in Milwaukee.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
I'd love to come back.
You're welcome.
All right.
Check out Rachel's work in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel folks.
Great articles and not just about food, too.
I know she talks movies and all kinds of fun stuff.
So give her a follow on social media and check out her work at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
We have got our question of the night is what's on your bucket list, folks?
It is National Bucket List Day.
And when we come back in the second hour, we're going to read some of your texts about the bucket list, and we're going to talk about our movie tonight, The Breakfast Club, for Night Light Movie Club.
Lots to come.
Glad you're here.
It's Night Light with Peech Wahaba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Note.
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