1st Place: Dooley’s Pub
2nd Place: Stones Throw
3rd Place: Northern Wisconsin State Fair

All cheese curds are not created equal. To be clear, this category is speaking of the deep-fried variety, not those cold squeaky ones. And while plenty of local restaurants can cut open the standard old bag of frozen cheese chunks, dump them in the fryer, and pretend like one local curd is as good as the next, most fall considerably short of doing Wisconsin proud. This year saw readers decide Dooley’s (442 Water St.) cheese curd offering earned the top spot, and for good reason. These massive cubes of gooey goodness clearly float to the top of the local curd scene (except a few show up totally empty from time to time). Rounding out the curd category is the hand-rolled selection of custom flavors that spice up The Stones Throw’s (304 Eau Claire St.) worthy curds, and of course your annual dose of cholesterol from the Northern Wisconsin State Fair (Chippewa Falls). Hot tip: There’s already rumor that the brand new Milwaukee Burger Co. in the former Grizzly’s space makes a mighty good pile of curds – so we’ll see how that shapes up in 2009. – Nick Meyer