Six months after a water disaster shut it down, EsterEv is quietly back in business in Milwaukee's Bay View, and the reboot comes with a more relaxed way to dine. The restaurant has reopened with a choose-your-own-adventure setup, letting guests order from a full à la carte menu, settle in for the chef's counter tasting experience, or simply grab a seat at the bar for a shorter visit. For Bay View regulars who watched the place get torn up and rebuilt, it feels a bit like getting one of the neighborhood's most inventive kitchens back on the block.
Flood forced an extended closure
The whole saga started May 3, when a faulty valve sent an estimated 200 gallons of water through the ceiling. The deluge wrecked maple floorboards, damaged sections of wall, and soaked the basement prep area, which meant an immediate shutdown. Co-owners Daniel Jacobs and Dan Van Rite described the dining room as “gutted” and shifted staff to pop-ups and to their sister restaurant while they figured out next steps. Cleanup, insurance, and restoration stretched into months as the team rebuilt the historic space and tinkered with new service models, according to Urban Milwaukee.
New format: à la carte or the chef's counter
Now that the doors are open again, EsterEv is leaning into flexibility. Diners can order a full meal from the à la carte menu in the dining room or book the chef's counter for a more curated, multi-course experience. Dinner service runs Wednesday through Saturday, with reservations recommended for dining room seating, while bar spots are held for walk-ins on a first-come, first-served basis. The restaurant handles reservations and chef's counter bookings through OpenTable, according to EsterEv's website.
Menu highlights for spring
The spring lineup keeps things seasonal and a little playful, backed by serious technique. Dishes on recent menus include Misty Point oysters, morel and marrow butter toast, asparagus with onion soubise and salsa macha verde, housemade pastas like ravioli with nettles and orecchiette with Italian sausage and green garlic pesto, and a steak au poivre with ramps. For guests who want the full show, the tasting counter remains an option, with the chef's counter priced at $100 per person in a recent feature. Those details and example dishes were outlined in a week-23 profile of the restaurant by OnMilwaukee.
Why it matters for Bay View
A big part of the buzz around EsterEv's comeback is tied to who is in charge of the kitchen. Chefs Dan Jacobs and Dan Van Rite are already fixtures in Milwaukee's dining scene, with a track record of praise and national attention. EsterEv itself started as a tasting-menu concept tucked inside their restaurant DanDan before graduating to a standalone Bay View space in 2024. Their backgrounds, along with the restaurant's focus on seasonal, locally inspired plates, are laid out on the restaurant's site, as noted on EsterEv's site.
The relaunch also lands as the restaurant's week-23 entry in OnMilwaukee's 52-Restaurants series, which gives the return a bit of a spotlight moment. EsterEv's reopening ends up reading as both a reset for the team and a reminder that Milwaukee's dining scene is still very much on the move. For a quick checklist of what to order and a look at some of the plates, check out the profile from OnMilwaukee.
