How Supper Clubs Offer a Link to the Past and a Glimpse of the Future

Supper clubs hit their stride in the 1950s and ’60s. Many were family-owned establishments located in the woods and off the beaten path, which added to their allure. Bob Prosser, owner of Ishnala Supper Club in Lake Delton, Wisconsin, says a supper club “only serves supper. A cheese spread and crackers are on the table when guests are seated, and brandy old-fashioneds are pretty much a requirement.”

Ishnala is a prime example of a classic mid-century supper club. The restaurant, which was built in 1953, is perched on the edge of Mirror Lake, offering views of the water from every seat in the house. Prosser says the club was laid over 76 tons of flagstone and constructed to incorporate 13 of the surrounding pine trees, some of which jut through the floor and out the roof. One of their bars actually hovers above the lake. They routinely serve more than 500 guests on weeknights, well over a thousand on weekends.

Guests typically start the evening with a brandy old-fashioned at the bar, ordered “sweet,” “sour,” or “press”—somewhere in between sweet and sour. Prosser tells me they sold 108,504 brandy old-fashioneds at Ishnala in 2023; when I visited in spring 2024, the current year’s count was more than 35,000. Wisconsin consumes more brandy than any other state.

After a cocktail or two, guests move to a table where they may be greeted with a cheese spread or relish tray—an assortment of pickles, olives, crudités, and deviled eggs. And then they might enjoy a simple preparation of local lake fish, a “turf” option of prime rib or steaks, and throwback favorites like shrimp cocktail and French onion soup.

Since he took ownership in 1973, Prosser has personally welcomed hundreds of thousands of guests to Ishnala. “When we open the door, I get to greet all the customers that are standing in line. I just love that. I get to say hi to everybody, I get to shake everybody’s hand, and I get to thank them,” Prosser says. “One of our sayings is, ‘It’s not the number of people we serve, it’s the number of people we please.’ And to this day, we carry that through.”

If Ishnala represents the classic supper club model, the Harvey House in Madison pushes the concept deep into the 21st century. There, husband-and-wife owners Joe and Shaina Papach honor their Midwestern roots through a wholly contemporary lens, honed through years of experience in high-end restaurants on the coasts.

“When we moved back to Madison, we both really wanted to start a restaurant that felt authentic to us but also had a Midwestern sense of place. We really fell in love with a few different aspects of supper clubs: the sense of generosity, the sense of hospitality, and the aesthetic feel,” says Shaina, who is also the restaurant’s creative director.

The Harvey House reflects these ideals. Located in a rehabbed train station, the dining room was originally the baggage handler’s building. Shaina points out that you can still see marks where bags were thrown against the exterior walls.

The kitchen, which Joe helms as chef, is open, polished, and tidy. The kitchen staff follows a traditional French brigade system, and each cook adheres to their specific role, a structure Joe absorbed during his tenure at the French Laundry in California. 

“It’s like a dance,” he says. “We’re all working together in a way you don’t get to see very often in other restaurants.”

The menu pays homage to traditional supper clubs, but with the Papach’s signature flair. “The direction of the menu really started out with pure continental cuisine,” Joe says. “All those great American dishes like sizzling shrimp de Jonghe, chicken cordon bleu, Caesar salad. Classic combinations. But at the same time we elevate it a little. We make everything from scratch in the restaurant [and] build multiple layers of flavors, but we don’t take it too far beyond that. We create a really well-composed dish that’s real food, a good portion, and recognizable.”

Joe’s interpretation of chicken cordon bleu speaks to his knack for allowing the simplicity of a dish to speak for itself, even when the preparation is more involved. He begins by removing the thigh bone from a chicken leg quarter while leaving the leg bone intact. A fat baton of Gruyère cheese is wrapped with both prosciutto and locally smoked Wisconsin ham and encased in the thigh. The leg is cooked sous vide at 155 degrees for an hour and then refrigerated overnight. 

Next, it’s dunked in a mixture of cornstarch and beaten egg whites that resembles white glue in consistency and is then tossed in panko bread crumbs. Finally, the leg is deep-fried to golden brown, finished in the oven, and served with an onion-and-butter soubise sauce.

Although the Harvey House is a new addition to Wisconsin’s supper club roster, the Papachs are fully aligned with the tradition of warm welcomes.

“In the Midwest, the hospitality comes with a kindness and a generosity that I think is a little bit different than in larger markets,” Shaina says. “And the guest experience is really about letting go, having an extra drink, ordering an extra appetizer, and really enjoying the people you’re with.”