Door County restaurant centered around farm-to-table ethics

Rachel Sankey

Past Staff

July 29, 2024

ELLISON BAY – A new restaurant has settled into the former Wickman House (11976 Mink River Road) with fresh, farm-to-table cuisine and a plan to make its mark, all while honoring the history of the building.

Osteria Tre Tassi opened its doors in May and since then, Co-owner Joey Ouimet said the restaurant has been “well-received by the community.”

“Sometimes you see the same faces two, three or four times a week,” he said.

From Italy, to London, to Wisconsin

The journey to opening Osteria Tre Tassi, Co-owner and Executive Chef Robin Brown said, dates back to 2018 when he traveled to Milwaukee from London to help his uncle open a new restaurant – San Giorgio Pizzeria Napoletana.

“My family runs the program (Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana) that certifies Neapolitan pizzerias in the United States,” the Naples, Italy, native said. “They’re (based out) of California.”

Milwaukee was only supposed to be home for a few months, Brown – who has dual citizenship – said.

Little did he know at the time, a couple of months would turn into five years and a whole new adventure.

This also meant Brown was still in Wisconsin when the COVID-19 pandemic hit – and with living in a large city, he said he sometimes needed a break.

“During COVID, I was riding my motorcycle every weekend to Door County to get out of the city and all the craziness,” he said. 

It was then, Brown said, that he made a vow.

“I promised myself I would open an Italian restaurant in a couple of years,” he said. “It took me four, but here I am in Door County.”

Getting to the point of opening the restaurant, Brown said, was not something he did on his own. 

Enter Ouimet, a friend of Brown’s and one-third of the leadership team at Osteria Tre Tassi.

“I met Robin the second day he was in Milwaukee…,” Ouimet said. “Around COVID times, he was operating (San Giorgio), trying to keep everything open for the staff.”

At the time, Ouimet said he lived two blocks from the restaurant and was over there often to support Brown.

“We started spending more time together, and Robin said, ‘you know what? Let’s go into business together,’” Ouimet said. “(I said), ‘I don’t know if I want to – I’m good where I’m at right now.’”

Fast forward a few years later, and Ouimet said Brown approached him again about going into business together – now with the former Wickman House in mind.

“He said, ‘check out this (spot) in Door County,’” he said. “‘It’s a great place to be…’ I said, ‘let’s do it.’”

Now enter the third piece to the ownership puzzle, John “Jack” Gross.

Brown said he helped open Della Porta in Ellison Bay, which is where he met Gross.

“We are avid clay shooters – the three of us,” he said. “That bond became even stronger (between us) on the shooting course.” 

Gross, Brown said, is the owner of the property where the restaurant is located – which he purchased in 2023.

“He owns the grounds and the building,” he said. “He and his significant other revamped the name The Griffin Inn, and there will be catering events and weddings on the grounds under that LLC.”

This means, though Gross also co-owns Osteria Tre Tassi, Brown said, the restaurant is “just a tenant inside the property.”

“We’re set to eventually buy out Jack’s (part of the restaurant) as we go,” he said. 

With the restaurant residing in the Badger State, having three co-owners and Brown’s Italian heritage, he said it made sense to name the restaurant Osteria Tre Tassi.

“The three badgers – tre tassi,” Brown said.  

An old history, a new chapter

The foundation Osteria Tre Tassi sits on, Brown said, dates to 1872 when it was once a farmhouse.

“If you look around the building, it looks more modern than 1872, but if you go down in the root cellar, the original foundation of the building is clearly 19th-century,” Ouimet said. 

Around 1910, Ouimet said the previous owners started to build the property out as a boarding house and started the Ellison Bay Lodge in the early 1920s.

In the 1970s, he said the Ellison Bay Lodge transitioned into a bed and breakfast known as The Griffin Inn, which ran until the mid-1990s.

By the late 1990s, Ouimet said the building had transitioned out of the lodging industry and into the restaurant industry with the opening of T Ashwells, a fine-dining establishment.

Fast forward to 2012 when Mike Holmes and Joe Fahrenkrug took over ownership and opened the Wickman House, which Ouimet said was another fine-dining restaurant – and was named after the original owner of the property, Andrew Wickman. 

“At the end of the day, this property – for at least the last 115 years, the majority of its life – has been dedicated toward hospitality and being around the community,” he said.   

When the three current owners learned more about the real estate’s history, Ouimet said they knew it was “something we wanted to be a part of.”

“We want our chapter in this book, so to speak, since it has had many long lives,” he said. “Door County is a place where people come on vacation… We only have so much time in this world, so we need to enjoy what we can. This property has been a part of many people’s lives and cherished memories for decades – we’re happy to be a part of it for our turn behind the wheel.”

Continuing to honor the history of the property – for Brown, Ouimet and Gross – meant changing as little as possible about the building.

“I never wanted to change one thing on the inside…,” Brown said. “I love Door County for what Door County is, especially in my mind, which is an old America, old United States. I want to keep the feeling inside the house.”

This means outside of a fresh coat of paint, not much else has changed.

“We’re not changing the floors or the walls,” Brown said. 

The three badgers said they even decided to leave the original 100-year-old glass windows, despite a suggestion from an engineer to replace them. 

“He said, ‘take a look at the window here, take a look at the building – you’re getting a lot of heat loss through the windows,’” Ouimet said. “And the first thing out of Jack’s mouth – that we all said at the same time – was ‘(heck) no.’ We’ll lose the money on the heating bill – don’t mess with the windows.”

Farm-to-table ethos

Though Osteria Tre Tassi creates fresh, homemade pasta each day it’s open, Brown said it’s important to note the menu leans more Mediterranean-centric than Italian.

“It is true – Italian is my wheelhouse – I (was) born and bred 30 years in Italy…,” he said. “(But Osteria Tre Tassi) did not need to be an authentic Italian restaurant. It’s more of a Mediterranean-inspired menu, just for the sake of us being in Door County and not having access to imported products all the time.”

Brown said whatever the chefs at the restaurant can funnel from the 1.5-acre garden out back, “that’s what we’re going to (work with).” 

“The property tells us what she wants,” he said. “We were grandfathered into this beautiful garden in the back, and a gracious man by the name of Tom Horsley is taking care of the farm for us.”

The entirety of Osteria Tre Tassi’s menu, Brown said, is “all from scratch.”

“I’ve got my signature bolognese sauce – a three-meat ragù, which is more inspired from the Tuscan way of making that kind of meat sauce,” he said. “We choose our meat and grind (it) in-house.”

Brown said his signature sauce can be found in a popular dish at Osteria Tre Tassi – the pappardelle alla tasso.

“(It’s) an egg pasta smothered in the three-meat sauce – which (includes) veal, pork and beef,” he said. 

Outside of the three meats, Brown said, “we pretty much source everything locally.”

Take the restaurant’s whitefish piccata, for example, he said.

“Instead of doing the same old veal piccata or chicken piccata, we have our beautiful whitefish piccata, which is a killer (of a) seller at the restaurant,” he said. 

The dish, Ouimet said, wouldn’t be possible without the help of Charlie Henriksen at Henriksen Fisheries in Ellison Bay.

“He’s here every day dropping off fish,” Ouimet said. “Going back to the farm-to-table (practice)… all that whitefish is pulled out of the (water) the same day. Go to a place like Milwaukee – you can’t find a commercial fisherman who will do that for you (there).”

Brown said he has continued to have a “phenomenal response” from customers in regard to the menu items.

“I tell everyone this – the food is the easy part,” he said. “It’s maintaining this experience in general that’s the toughest part. I think we’re on the right track.”

Osteria Tre Tassi is open from 5-9 p.m. Thursday through Monday.

To learn more about the restaurant, visit tretassi.com.