Cafe Montmartre - Wed, March 15, 2006

Address: 127 E Mifflin St
Phone: (608) 255-5900
Webpage: www.themomo.com

Café Montmarte, or Café More Money as it is fondly known to many, is a mellow wine and jazz bar located on the corner of Mifflin and Webster. The very dark interior is straight out of a Joni Mitchell song with its dark maroon walls, exposed brick, votive candles flickering on the wood tables and windowsills and an eclectic mix of professionals, artists and punk hipsters sipping red wine. A small stage in front of the street level picture window accommodates a variety of local acts including the wildly popular, but reclusive Fancy Lads during whose performances the normally quiet bar is filled with Blatz swilling groupies screaming for the Lads hit single “Take Down Your Pants.” The adjoining Sidecar room is open during shows although its sight lines to the stage are poor.

Café Momo offers an extensive list of wines by both the bottle and glass with the average glass running $6 or $7. They also have Capital Amber, Spotted Cow Sierra Pale and Guinness on tap with a pint of Capital running $4.25 or $3.50 during happy hour. Café Momo has my favorite non-brown food menu in the city with relatively reasonable prices. The $10 antipasto platter features fresh tomatoes, goat cheese, olives, marinated artichoke hearts, olive tapenade and fresh bread –every bit as good as the antipasto platter at The Greenbush (see Oct 10 review). The individual pizzas and turkey club and portabella mushroom sandwich are all good and cost $8.

While it wasn’t an issue during this visit, one of the consistent raps on Café Montmarte is not having enough bartenders to handle the crowd. It’s almost impossible getting served if you aren’t sitting at a table or right at the bar. Rachel and several others also felt it was too dark. Most of the Bar Tour drinkers gave Café Montmarte a B or B- due to consistently slow bar service but this reviewer gives it an A- for its great menu, lively music scene and bottled Blatz.

-Bar(b)

ALSO SEE: What our friends at "Eating in Madiosn A to Z" had to say.