College Students Take Note: Affordable Fine-Dining During Restaurant Week

There is truth to the old saying “nothing is better than mom’s cooking,” but only to the extent that your father isn’t Gordon Ramsey, and by assumption, that your cooking is less than stellar, with the limit of your so-called “cooking prowess” extending to cup ramen and Orv’s microwavable pizzas.

You can argue the economics of college life may not translate to three course dinners at Fresco or The Cabana Room on any weekend, let alone a weekday, but Madison Magazine’s annual Restaurant Week offers just that, a next-best-thing-to-mom’s-cooking reason to include affordable fine dining into your life. You’ll need a justified nudge to commit to one meal during Restaurant Week in lieu of nine pizzas.

You have one mere week from Jan. 24 until Jan. 29 to pursue one or all of Madison’s fine culinary offerings among 33 participating restaurants.

In its fourth year, the biannual Madison Restaurant Week is a baby among the adults of Restaurant Weeks of most major cities in the United States.

From the East Coast in New York and Baltimore, to the West Coast in Los Angeles and Seattle, to the more homey locale of the Midwest’s Chicago and Milwaukee, Restaurant Week is hosted during a week of that city’s Restaurant Week creators’ choosing, be it Jan. 25 until Feb. 7 in New York City, or Feb. 19 until Feb. 28 in Chicago. In theory a foodie could tour state to state, city to city, basking in the $25 or $30 three course meals until arteries clog and the euphoric fulfillment of a first-class, “I’ve-dined-with-Dionysus” meal will be proceeded by the inescapable lull of a food coma.

What’s the difference between Madison Restaurant Weeks and its predecessors? Truthfully, not much.

“They’re all based off the same model where you highlight local restaurants for a prefixed menu,” said Madison Magazine’s Marketing Coordinator, Nazia Husain.

But the food week’s birth originates from the quintessential torrential Midwest weather with a large serving of well-below freezing temperatures and a side of unforgiving blizzards. In 2007, Madison Magazine looked to provide a service to Madisonians and their city’s cuisine.

“In the middle of winter no one wants to get out so generally business is a little slower,” Husain said. “So we want to bring business to the local business and community.”

Madison is undeniably a “college town,” a mosaic of caffeine-fueled, malnourished students no more eager to consume prepared meals or Chinese take-out in the little time they have in their day juggling part-time jobs, boyfriends, girlfriends and 15 credits as they are to pop B-12 and calcium supplements and call it breakfast.

If Madison Magazine can concoct an incentive to drive out the study-battered hermits, foodies and fine diners alike, one should wonder what this incentive does for our Sconnie verses Coastie world that Madison thrives on. Dare it be said that affordable high brow meals in Madison are akin to marking the elusive $5,000 Hermes Birkin bag down to $800 � still on the pricey side, but too opportunistic to pass up?

Above all that has been said, the question that ultimately lingers in the back of your mind is probably this: How much of a discount does Restaurant Week offer?

An entr�e at Harvest under unremarkable circumstances will sell for $30 or $40. During Madison Restaurant Week, expect a $25 bill including a complimentary appetizer and dessert to round up the three course meal (drinks not included).

If that is (understandably) not in your budget, restaurants like the Ocean Grill and the newly opened Inka Heritage, serving palates desiring an ethnic flair, will offer $15 three course lunches for those who are privy to spend a well-deserved afternoon after classes.

Be sure to make reservations in advance — Husain highly recommends it.