Published: Oct. 27, 2017
Bibinger's: An authentic hidden gem
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
ndettmann@conleynet.com 262-306-5043
CEDAR CREEK — As a high school student, Kady Gibowski worked
at No-No’s Restaurant in Newburg. She did everything — washed dishes, cooked,
served and hosted.
“I knew I always wanted to be a chef,” Gibowski said.
One night at No-No’s, when she was 16, she assembled a dish
she called Chicken Lombari.
“It was like a real simple Italian dish,” Gibowski said.
It was a featured special one night and sold out.
This was about nine years after writing her first recipe — a
dip made out of butter, lettuce and salsa — on a piece of paper with a crayon.
“It was completely disgusting,” Gibowski said. “My aunt was
so sweet. She was like, ‘Oh. It’s delicious. I need the recipe.’ So I wrote it
down for her.”
Today, Gibowski’s mom still has that keepsake. And since
then, Gibowski has figured out the whole cooking thing.
Open for only 13 months, Bibinger’s, 3747 Cedar Creek Road,
has quickly grown a following with the help of Gibowski as executive chef. It
was one of the 10 recommended restaurants in Washington County as voted by
Daily News readers in an informal poll.
Part of that growth was courtesy of the building’s history,
housing popular establishments, including Schwai’s Country Store Tavern &
Hall and Emily’s Restaurant.
“It’s kind of like a hidden gem,” said Travis Dowden,
co-owner of Bibinger’s.
Another factor was the authenticity of the food.
For example, the beef is from a farm a mile down the road —
Pleasant Valley Meats — on Lily Road.
Because the restaurant wasn’t completed when Dowden and
co-owner Ben Anderson interviewed her, hiring her was a risk. They couldn’t
test her skill set. Still, they knew her by reputation, having seen features in
magazines or online.
The first dish they tried made by Gibowski was meatballs.
And they were good. Very good.
“She’s just blown our minds since,” Dowden said.
And they’re not alone.
“A professionally run operation with a family feel,” said
Cody Lettau of Waukesha County. “Elegant, wellprepared entrees and amazing
handcrafted drinks.”
West Bend’s Jessica Swenson added, “I love the historic
significance of the building and the menu is simple, delicious and the specials
are always spot on.”
Dowden and Anderson, who met through mutual friends while at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had an itch for several years to one day
own a restaurant. They didn’t actively pursue it until about two years ago.
“When Ben and I looked at this place, nothing was finished,
all the way down to the studs at that point with the remodel,” Dowden said. “My
wife works in Hartford and she’s a dentist and we asked her, ‘Your patients. I
want you to ask them if they had heard of Schwai’s or Emily’s. Do you know that
building?’ Pretty much everyone said, ‘Yeah. I drive by there all the time.
What’s going on with that?’” Having heard that, they pursued the idea more.
It appears to be in the middle of nowhere with no high-traffic
road going by the restaurant, but Dowden and Anderson thought they had the
perfect spot.
“A rural location can be tough, but it can also have its
benefits,” Dowden said.
When Dowden and Anderson found the perfect person to run the
kitchen with Gibowski — a West Bend native and East High School graduate — the,
as Anderson put it, stars were aligned.
“Kady is extremely talented, very creative,” Dowden said.
“She has a really big focus on the quality of ingredients that go into our
foods.”
Gibowski has been dabbling with cooking since she was about
7 years old.
“I love food; I love to eat food,” she said. “I like making
people happy, feeding them. Nothing makes me more excited than giving somebody
something I made, that I created and put passion into and see their expression
when they eat it.”
After high school, she went to culinary school in
Minneapolis — Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts.
Her internship was at the American Club in Kohler. She also
worked at Ozaukee Country Club for six years where she was the first chef below
the executive chef.
Her first executive chef position was at Cafe at the Plaza,
1007 N. Cass St., Milwaukee, 2013-16.
“It was pretty exciting,” Gibowski said. “I felt pretty
proud to make that jump. It was a challenge for sure, with so many great
restaurants in the area.
“To stand out and we did, we had a great following for
brunch. It was pretty awesome.”
That momentum carried her to Washington County, her home,
which was one reason why she left a vibrant big-city restaurant scene.
“I love the fact that we’re so close to all these local
farms,” Gibowski said. “Dairy and vegetables, it’s a great area for a restaurant
to be because there is so much potential to utilize local ingredients.”
Among the go-to menu items is the pork schnitzel and the
cheese curds.
“I don’t like really overcomplicated things,” Gibowski said.
“I like things done the right way.”
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