Some of the most creative food in town is coming from chef John Raymond’s kitchen. Winter isn’t the most inspiring time of year for seasonal cooking, but you wouldn’t know it by Raymond’s menus. They’re pure energy during a lethargic time of year.  It’s pretty telling that the three eggs, cooked any style, is not a hot seller on the Roots menu. What is: the waffle Monte Cristo-smoked turkey, Canadian bacon and Swiss cheese between two waffles. And also: all-spice pancakes with coconut fruits, vanilla ice cream and Nueske’s bacon (nifty, I’ll agree). The Roots Benedict has gone all Japanese, and it works: poached eggs, seared rare tuna, tempura nori (nori is dried seaweed) and wasabi hollandaise sauce. Every week, Roots has a crêpe special and fish of the day. Most dishes in this stylish two-level joint with a marvelous view of Downtown still have a connection to tradition, to what we typically define as a first meal of the day. There’s a classic Benedict, a tofu scrambler, a chorizo and black bean burrito with fried eggs, as well as the option to build your own brunch from 18 ingredients (eggs, crab cakes, grilled tofu, shiitake-daikon radish hash, yucca chips, plain old toast and more).

Milwaukee Magazine, March 2007
MILWAUKEE’S BEST BRUNCHES

On a muggy September evening in Milwaukee, under an ominously darkening sky, a friend and I are lingering on the brick patio outside Roots, a young, hip restaurant in the old, changing neighborhood of Brewers Hill, at one time the home of Pabst and Schlitz beer barons and brewery workers. From this perch we can admire not only the city and lakefront views but the edible landscape of herbs and flowers cascading down the hillside. Then the raindrops get serious, so we duck into the welcoming, softly lit dining room.

For two travelers, a soup of heirloom tomatoes and mascarpone cheese jazzed up with hot peppers is as energizing as the thunder-clapping pyrotechnic show that lights up the night. Wisconsin weather doesn't pussyfoot around, and neither does John Raymond, Roots’ chef and co-owner. In a subtler vein, his grilled lamb loin with peaches, a fennel-potato gratin, and a cherry-cider reduction has “Made in Wisconsin” written all over it. So, in fact, does nearly every green and root vegetable animating Raymond’s cooking, thanks to Joe Schmidt, Roots’ other owner....Even on the West Coast where cooking with regional organic produce is encoded in a chef’s DNA, few restaurants grow their own. In Milwaukee, a farm-to-fork restaurant celebrating freshness and seasonality is a true pioneer.

Gourmet, July 2006

It’s difficult to decide if I prefer days to evenings at Roots. Daylight provides time to enjoy the gardening and sit on the deck or patio. Evenings are the time to be dazzled by the lights of the city. Whenever you choose to go, you’re guaranteed to find some of the best food in Milwaukee along with some very good service.

Shepherd Express, June 22, 2006

John Raymond is a seasoned authority on “tomato abuse.” Ask this chef/owner of Roots Restaurant and Cellar how many ways he can manipulate 500 pounds of Heirloom tomatoes and be prepared to take notes. “We’ve done ice cream, sorbets, soups, martinis,” he says.

“We’ve even done a ‘Naked Bloody Mary,'” adds Raymond’s business partner, Joe Schmidt. “We had pureed about 500 pounds of tomatoes, and at the bottom of it, we were left with this clear, white water that tasted really strongly like tomatoes. The bartenders infused the same spices that you would use in a Bloody Mary right into the water and then pulled them out so the drink would retain the flavor but not the color.”

Such culinary creativity has guided the vision of Raymond and Schmidt since they started serving their California-style cuisine in February 2004. Since then, the two have banked on a unique business partnership still rare on the Midwest restaurant scene.

wkndTRIPS, May-June 2006

A sweeping view of the downtown skyline is the biggest reward at this chic, multi-level patio on a hill, with two tiers for eating and for sipping cocktails. The natural setting matches the menu, which features many locally grown foods and fresh seafood.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,  June 10, 2005

Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable to open an up-to-the-minute, back-to-the-earth restaurant in Brewer’s Hills....But along with new condo developments and well-heeled Milwaukeeans came Roots Restaurant and Cellar. Joe Schmidt, one of the three owners, is also an organic farmer, and he gets many of the ingredients for the restaurant’s creative American regional cuisine from his greenhouse and four acres. You’ll taste the farm in dishes like pumpkin-dusted halibut served with celery root hash in a buttermilk-pumpkin emulsion.

Bon Appétit, April 2005