This month for dinner club, our host decided to take us all back to her (and most of our) roots – all the way downtown to a new and somewhat strangely trendy Wisconsin-inspired supper club. For those of you not from the Dairyland, the supper club is quintessential Wisconsin. There’s the always popular Friday night fish fry – which is generally a beer-battered cod complete with your choice of mashed potato, baked potato or french fries. And of course every supper club meal would be incomplete without the tried and true cocktail of the Midwest – none other than the Old Fashioned. (Let me tell you – from my days as a bartender in college I learned these real quickly. Either brandy or whiskey, sweet or sour, but always with bitters, a crushed maraschino cherry and an orange slice).

The Butterfly is making the rounds on various foodie media recently, and we were lucky enough that after our host called multiple times, she sweet talked them into saving us a table – (The Butterfly doesn’t take reservations). We all piled in after a long day of work and cheers’d over a few fun cocktails. While I had wine, I tried a sip of the majority of the other cocktails and they were all just right – especially the Old Fashioned.

The space is really cute – complete with old-timey feeling bar and menu. I don’t know who owns the place or what the impetus behind the supper club was, but they were definitely on the mark in terms of ambiance.

I knew the menu would be a struggle for me. American food always is – and throw in that added Midwestern flare and I’m usually doomed. I ordered the Green Market Tomatoes salad sans feta, and a side of fries. While I can say the salad was good and the fries were good – I’m not sure how much credit I can give to the restaurant on my meal choice. After all, how hard is it to throw some fries in a deep fryer and toss some tomatoes and cucumber in vinaigrette?

The girls were all blown away by their meals, (complete with fried cheese curds!), so the place must be doing something right. And I know I can’t expect amazement in the vegan realm from a place based on my homeland…it’s like asking a sushi restaurant to do a croque monsieur. However, there was one thing that did actually blow me away, and took me back to my childhood. The perfect after-dinner drink that my grandfather always loved – the grasshopper.

While done here with crushed ice instead of the ice cream I remember my grandfather dessert-ing on, the flavor was spot on. We weren’t quite sure what the green do-it-yourself-eyedropper was full of, but the minty flavor was also surprisingly creamy. It really made my brain confused, but in a good way. I would go back to The Butterfly, despite my few vegan options, again and again, just to have a grasshopper for dessert. And I think maybe, just maybe, Grandpa would be proud. So if you find yourself in the Midwestern mood, definitely check out The Butterfly – before it gets even more popular and you can never get in.