About us.
Rick Frazer
Meet the Team
Chef Rick Frazer hails from just across the river in Oakdale, MN. A graduate of Le Cordon Bleu you will see his French roots as the basis for his cooking technique. He has many years of industry experience, most recently as the executive chef of The Saint Paul Grill.
Nichole is a graduate of Hudson High School. She started in the industry back when Milwaukee Burger was a Country Kitchen. She spent the last four years prior to opening Black Rooster Bistro at Brick & Bourbon in Stillwater leading the bar program there.
Rick and Nichole met over ten years ago while working together at Cravings Wine Bar in Woodbury. They built a house together here in Hudson, WI and are excited to be business owners in this community.
Nichole Frazer
our Philosophy.
It doesn’t matter if the fork you’re using is a $2 fork or a $20 fork. It’s a fork. It puts food in your mouth. It doesn’t change the way your food tastes and that is what’s important to us. Good food. Good food and great people. We love being a part of the community and strive to support other small businesses like ourselves so expect wine made here in Hudson, local spirits and local beer, custom cuts and grind from the local butchery RJ’s Meats and delicious seasonal fare utilizing produce grown close to home.
our staff.
We strive to be a premier employer in the industry. Just because we are on the Wisconsin side of the river doesn’t make our hourly employees less valuable. We want to provide our staff with a wage that allows them to grow, thrive, and save. Does that make our profit margin even smaller than a typical restaurant? Yes. We are doing this because we love it. It will probably mean that our hours will vary on holidays and that we might be closed to allow our staff time off. Please check our Facebook page for updates on holiday hours and other things like daily specials and upcoming events and sign up for our email list (on our homepage). Emails go out about twice a month.
our name.
A brainstorming session led us to research Chianti’s black rooster symbol. We found its tale to be quite fitting:
The story goes that in the Middle Ages, after years of a bloody war between the Republic of Florence and Siena over the control of the Chianti area, the two Republics decided to put an end to the war and to settle the borders between them by means of an unusual competition. On a specified day, awakened by the crow of a rooster, two knights would each ride off from their own hometowns, and the border would be drawn at the point where they met.
The Sienese people chose a white rooster to wake the knight up at dawn, and during the days before the event, they treated the bird to all possible comforts and fed him well. The Florentines instead chose a black rooster that they put in an uncomfortable cage and starved for several days.
On the day of the race, the hungry black rooster of the Florentines started crowing before dawn. The Florentine knight thus got a head start with respect to the knight from Siena, whose rooster was well-fed, relaxed, and happy, woke up crowing long after dawn.
Just seems like how we’ll be, up before dawn, hungry to serve, working hard to prepare great food and give great service each and every meal.
The Honey Rose cocktail pictured here is a creation that took the whole family. Our folks have a yellow lab named Honey Rose (she had a pink spot on her nose when she was a puppy) and our youngest daughter looked at us at Thanksgiving and said, “You should make a cocktail and call it Honey Rose.” So we did. The garnish is a petal from a rose we purchase at the Hudson Flower Shop around the corner every week. This has been one of our most popular drinks. You should try it!
More
stories.
The Ricotta Dumplings have been running as a special at the restaurant with great success. They began as part of a chicken and dumpling dish Chef Rick had on his opening menu as an ode to his late grandmother (the reason he became a chef). The dumplings did not hold up the way he wanted and we quickly scratched the dish. His fry cook, Croix, however looked at them and said, “what happens if you throw ‘em in the fryer?” and popped them into the deep. They came out like a giant cheese curd with a golden brown crust that couldn’t NOT go on a plate