In The News – Leader Telegram 5/11/04

High Shores Supper Club receives high marks

(Reprinted by permission of Leader Telegram —Audrey Fessler/Jeff Vahlbusch)

Excerpts…

High Shores has all the elements of a classic Wisconsin supper club. It’s a local institution, family-owned and family-run.

The bartender knows what a high-ball is and will make your Manhattan Wisconsin-style, with domestic brandy, unless you specify bourbon or blended whiskey.

The waitresses, veterans all, are witty, knowledgeable and welcoming. Everyone will recognize you on your second visit. After your third, you’ll probably feel like friends.

High Shores’ tidy salad bar updates traditional supper club relish trays. True to its mission, High Shores features meat, poultry and fish simply prepared and presented, with six potato choices.

The prime rib, served rare to medium-rare, was outstanding: tender, juicy, nicely seasoned, moistened by savory jus.

Garlic chicken fettuccine Alfredo sailed to the table in a vessel like a miniature boat, crammed with colorful vegetables, chunks of grilled chicken and just a few strands of slinky fettuccine. This really is a vegetable casserole with chicken meat, not a pasta dish. And it’s delicious.

Many supper clubs can seem, well, a little down-at-the-heel. But High Shores is always festive, elegant and comfortable. Diane and Dennis Schroeder work unceasingly to maintain and improve the buildings, décor and grounds.

By day, huge windows reveal majestic trees and paths that zigzag down to Lake Wissota past waterfalls, over footbridges and amid dozens of plant varieties-a gardener’s paradise that Dennis landscapes and tends himself. Darkness brings magic inside and out as nearly everything in view seems to glisten and glow.

High Shores may well be the most beautiful place to dine on the lake.