Chef Dan Jacobs has had a similar experience since leaving his longtime home in Chicago in 2011. “I never planned on staying in Milwaukee, but it sunk its teeth into me and my wife very hard,” he said. “The dining scene has comefar from what it was eight years ago. If I were to move now, there are 20 places I would want to work for.”
Luckily he doesn’t have to pick. Jacobs and Green Bay native Dan Van Rite helm two very different restaurants in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward: DanDan, which serves frisky Chinese-American food, and EsterEv, which specializes in experimental multi-course meals.