The Bread and Cup

I really love living in Lincoln.  I catch a lot of guff for it from my friends in bigger cities.  Sure I miss cities like Chicago with an endless arena of food choices; new chefs and new concepts at every corner.  But there is a huge downside to that. In an over saturated market it can take weeks to find a good (and affordable) spot to eat.  And once you find it you have to keep your fingers crossed that it will still be there the next time you have a craving.  Lincoln, however, is small enough that it isn't hard to find a great spot to eat and if it truly is a great spot its going to stick around.  The Bread and Cup was established in 2007 and is still going strong.  Located in the historic Haymarket district the scene is perfect for the concept of this restaurant.  Located in an old warehouse the entire restaurant is a open concept loft.  As you walk in you see strait into the kitchen, the bread ovens and work spaces are all visible to the dinners.  The dinning room is also very open and inviting.  Off white walls free of clutter, small simple centerpieces and a flickering candle on each table top leave you with nothing to focus on outside of your company and the food. My company was my great friend Amanda and our choice of food was simple.  We started with the house charcuterie plate and we both ordered the fall vegetable risotto.  This was a big step for me because The Bread and Cup is most famous for its soup, and everyone knows how much I love soup.  But the meats for our charcuterie platter were all cured in house which sparked my interested and risotto is a dish that I just don't have the strength to turn down.  The charcuterie plate gets a 4 out of 5 stars.  We got a three meat selection and the house made sausage was a little on the waxy side however the prosciutto was divine.  It was silky smooth and melted in my mouth.  The sampler also came with a wonderfully chewy loaf of bread and a honey mustard sauce that Amanda loves so much she would probably eat it with a spoon.  In other reviews I've read for the restaurant I've seen a fair amount of complaints about the small sizing of food portions.  This was not our experience at all.  We ended up needing a to-go box for our appetizer, not pint sized at all.  The risotto was platted beautifully.  Not in a bowl like most places but on  a plate, a sure sign of a good risotto.  Thick enough to hold its form but still 'giggly' when the plate is shaken. I'm very well aware of the fact that when menu's have non-descript items such as 'fall vegetables' it is the chefs way of using up whatever he or she has excess of in the kitchen.  Kevin Shinn is not most chefs.  He believes in sustainable cooking.  That is, using local ingredients, fresh produce, no freeze dried, preservative filled ready made stuff.  It's a way of live and a style of cooking he really believes in.  To find out more about him, check out his blog, http://breadandcup.blogspot.com/ Keeping this concept in mind, I knew that our 'fall vegetables' would not be just the bottom of the barrel left overs.  What we got was onions and brussel sprouts.  I tend to fall in line with the majority of the population when it comes to brussel sprouts, no thank you.  I've had several chefs try and change my mind.  A former restaurant I worked for swore that their horseradish and cheese sauce would convert the pickiest of eaters but I was not swayed.  I even tried Julia Childs recipe and got the same resulting taste; dirt.  I always taste dirt.  The risotto, however, tasted earthy.  No dirty after taste, I ate every brussel sprout in my dish.  But the true star was the onions, gently sweated and translucent, I found myself digging through the dish looking for them.  It took awhile and I left feeling more full than I was comfortable with but I couldn't leave any of it behind.  The rice was cooked perfectly, the bechamel was to die for and the raspberry drizzle and Parmesan sprinkle was the perfect way to top it off.  I was very pleased with my trip to The Bread and Cup.  It defiantly ranks in my top five places to eat in Lincoln.  Give it a try, or better yet, give me a call and I will go with you.


The Bread and Cup
440 N. 8th street suite 150
Lincoln, Ne
402 438 2255