Milwaukee's James Beard finalist and another "cheftestant"

For almost exactly one year, Discourse Coffee Workshop has been a roommate of sorts, serving out of the southwest corner of Radio Milwaukee HQ. It’s been a pleasure watching them get comfortable in the space and expanding their presence in the city through other ventures like Agency, the hybrid cocktail bar they operate inside the Dubbel Dutch Hotel.

Making it even more fun was the news that Discourse partners Ryan Castelaz and Sean Liu received earlier this week: that Agency is the lone Wisconsin finalist in this year’s James Beard Foundation Awards.

We start this episode talking about the honor, which keeps Agency in the running for Best New Bar along with Bar Colette (Dallas), Indentidad Cocktail Bar (San Juan, Puerto Rico), Merai (Brookline, Mass.) and ViceVersa (Miami). The category is making its debut this year, meaning the winner will be the first-ever recognized by the James Beard Foundation.

We’ll find out if the hometown boys take home one of those fancy medals June 16, when the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards are handed out at the Lyric Opera in Chicago. Fortunately, we have a few more items to tide us over as we wait for the ceremony:

• Ann delivered another batch of Dining Tidbits, including news of a combo farmer’s market and grocery store in Brookfield.
• Cactus Club keeps finding ways to bring innovative events to the venue, the latest being “Rivers Run Deep,” which will feature food from SapSap.
• In another piece for Milwaukee Magazine, Ann took a trip down memory lane to pour one out for two closed restaurants that left a mark on the city.
• Finally, the reality-TV folks have nabbed another local chef, Screaming Tuna’s Jason Morimoto to appear on season two of Morimoto’s Sushi Master (no relation).