The best Fried Cheese by whillsjournal on Eaten
Fried Cheese
30 reviews
AMAZING
1st CHEESE CURDS
Eagle Park Brewing Company, Milwaukee
This is the absolute MASTERY of cheese curd! Perfectly gooey insides with a golden, peppery, and flavorful crisp on the outside! Served with a variety of sauce options! Absolutely the best cheese curds in MKE!!!
2nd CHEESE CURDS
Camino, Milwaukee
Incredible curds with a parmesan garlic seasoning! Really great cheese flavor and juicy, salty, oily flavor bursts inside! The stringy texture of the cheese however makes them ~slightly~ bothersome to eat, but oh so worth it!
3rd PANCAKE BATTERED CHEESE CURDS
Black Sheep MKE, Milwaukee
So unique and so incredibly good. The pancake batter is magically thin (not dense a la corn dog/pancake on a stick) and provides the iconic crisp to the cheese curd. The cheese is DELIGHTFUL, and the maple syrup really makes this curd sing beautifully. A special venue with a special cheese curd.
REALLY GOOD
4th CHEESE CURDS
AJ Bombers, Milwaukee
These flavor bombs are absolutely incredible. The breading is seasoned expertly with a savory and herby flavor. The cheese is really flavorful, but the cheese is just a touch too rubbery in texture missing that touch of melty/creamy. The chipotle ranch is INCREDIBLE and worth dipping EVERYTHING into and adds so much great flavor here!
5th CHEESE CURDS
The Brick Pub and Grill, Glendale
These curds were super simple and well executed. A nice crispy, salty breading with a greasy salty cheesy squeak iconic of a good Wisconsin cheese curd!
6th CHEESE CURDS
The Explorium Brewpub Third Ward, Milwaukee
These are lovely globs of fried cheese! A perfect blend of gooey versus rubbery, though the breading was missing a little something. Flavorful despite that shortcoming though!
7th CHEESE CURDS
Milwaukee Ale House Grafton, Grafton
Very flavorful and gooey cheese with a signature squeak to them. My biggest complaint is that an order is really half an order due to the fries in the basket. Wish they were stand-alone to have more of them. The dipping sauce is very good!
8th CHEESE CURDS
Foxtown Brewing, Mequon
These are REALLY good cheese curds!!! They have a golden crunch with a lovely flavored breading, and the cheese finds the perfect blend between gooey and squeaky!!!
9th CHEESE CURDS
5-8 Club, Minneapolis
Juicy with a perfect amount of crunch, the salty squeak really captures the Wisconsin fair vibe of a cheese curd very well!
10th CHEESE CURDS
Culver’s, Mequon
The most accessible fried curd in the Midwest (and the US), Culver's is remarkably consistent and flavorful regardless of location. Some cheddar and some white cheddar in every batch, and a well-seasoned, peppery breading. Always worth it!
11th CHEESE CURDS
Café Hollander Mequon, Mequon
An atypical curd for being muenster instead of cheddar, but these are a pleasant and refreshing delight in curdfare. A nice crisp and thin seasoned breading with a gooey and salty cheese inside! (Notes: these were served on a skewer alongside a burger ordered, but are representative of the full cheese curd order available at the venue. Additionally, past experience at the venue has shown the kitchen staff on weekends tend to overfry the curds, and are definitely better on weekdays! This review assumes the properly cooked version!)
12th CHEESE CURDS
Inventors Brewpub, Port Washington
Nice and thin, crispy breading with a salty inside! Very solid squeaky cheese curd with a great flavor!
PRETTY GOOD
13th CHEESE CURDS
Paulie's Pub & Eatery, West Allis
A bit atypical with a mozzarella-esque flavor for a white cheddar curd, but these have a tasty seasoning in the breading and the salt of the gooey yet rubbery cheese really adds to the juicy pop these have. An oddity in curdfare, but one that definitely works, but not with the marinara.
14th CHEESE CURDS
The Stillery - Grafton, Grafton
These curds are very creamy and melty, but lacked a needed amount of salt and flavor elsewhere. Worth the nom because they’re good though!
15th CHEESE CURDS
Lakefront Brewery, Milwaukee
Nice light and crispy breading (that could have a little extra seasoning in it), good cheese body, but are prone to being over cooked sometimes by the kitchen staff, which can make them hit or miss. Forget the ranch.
16th CHEESE CURDS
Oak Barrel Public House, Milwaukee
Really solid cheese curds, a nice choice of white cheddar that starts gooey and gets perfectly squeaky as they cool a bit. Batter is rather bland however, so a very good but average curd overall.
17th CHEESE CURDS
Good City Mequon Public Market, Mequon
A very nice salty white cheddar curd that is perfectly balanced by its squeakier texture. The breading is however rather bland, and holds this back from being a better package.
18th CHEESE CURDS
Juice's Ghost Town, Grafton
These are very solid, but not special, cheese curds. Breading seemed a bit thicker than an average cheese curd, which isn’t necessarily a problem, but the breading was missing some form of seasoning. Cheese was good though :)
19th CHEESE CURDS
Stack'd Burger Bar, Milwaukee
These were pretty good, but a bit underwhelming relative to other options in MKE. Really good texture on breading and cheese, good saltiness levels, but the marquee cheese flavor seemed missing here.
JUST OK
20th CHEESE CURDS
Spanky's Hideaway, Mequon
Nice salty bite, but very average overall. Fine, but certainly not worth seeking out.
21st CHEESE CURDS
Boulder Tap House - Mankato, Mankato
Great cheddar and white cheddar, but the cube shape was too large to easily bite into. Curds tended to have voids inside where a bite was just breading. Dipping sauce was good!!
22nd CHEESE CURDS
MJ's Bar and Grill, Saukville
Different but good. Little poppable cubes with an incredibly melty and gooey mozzarella, but definitely a far cry from a traditional cheese curd.
23rd CHEESE CURDS
Growlers East Tosa, Wauwatosa
These were very average cheese curds, meaning they tasted good. The problem is the bacon jam concoction they are served with plopped on top of them really ruins the curd.
24th CHEESE CURDS
Wally's Wisconsin Tavern, Denver
I really wanted to like these. The cheese is really good and perfectly salted, but they were vastly dominated by the taste of grease: these were sopping in excess oil. Also were overcooked, some curds were just a hard breading shell with no cheese inside. Fairly disappointing :(
NOT FOR ME
25th CHEESE CURDS
Backlot Pizza + Kitchen, Glendale
These cheese curds were disappointing. Many were shells of breading with not much cheese inside. The cheese tasted good, but a low volume of cheese and a rather bland breading leaves these being a mostly miss save for the few curds that were filled with cheese.
26th CHEESE CURDS
Milwaukee Brat House, Milwaukee
Sadly... These were not good. A very thick and bland breading coated in a smelly and not tasty parmesan. The cheese inside even just seemed like it wasn't meant for a fried curd. A sad venture.
27th CHEESE CURDS
The Pasta Shoppe, Port Washington
Very thick breading... Unseasoned at that. A dense bite and a very gross oily taste in the breading far overpowers the cheese here.
28th MOZZARELLA STICKS
The Pasta Shoppe, Port Washington
Mozzarella sticks with more breading than cheese. Just a very okay mozzarella stick that makes you want something else instead.
29th CHEESE CURDS
Water Street Brewery, Grafton
Yikes... Had multiple "curds" that were all breading and no cheese. Cheese itself was somewhat mediocre, probably because I could only taste all the oil these were sopping in. A rare "wouldn't recommend" on the cheese curd front.
30th CHEESE CURDS
Skippy's Burger Bar, Thiensville
Needed ketchup to get through these… Tasted like old grease on the INSIDE of the curd, the outside was fine. The white cheddar was just way overpowered by whatever nasty taste these had alongside them. Worst I’ve had by far, absolutely not it