Open for: Lunch, dinner
Price range: $
Since 1950, Elsa Kopp’s frozen custard has been a local staple for creamy comfort. But it’s not simple sundaes that inspire treks to the three suburban locations. The jumbo burgers have the charry-edged, beefy, buttery finish that all nouveau diner flattops yearn for. They’re housed in starchy soft buns and draped in melty processed yellow cheese, but from there personalizations hold a mirror up to the eater. Do you like it simple with ketchup? Or do you need a thrill with hot sauce and jalapeños? Why not make it a double with bacon and bracingly stinky fried onions? However you order it, the go-to move is to eat it in the car with the radio turned to a Brewers game (RIP Bob Uecker). That is living your best Milwaukee life. 
Best for: Summer nights after a little league game.

Open for: Brunch, dinner
Price range: $$$$
Bartolotta Restaurants cover a lot of bases: contemporary new American (Bacchus), lunch with a view (Harbor House), supper clubbing (Joey Gerard’s), steak (Mr. B’s), rustic Italian (Ristorante Bartolotta). But for finely tuned French classicism overlooking Lake Michigan there is only Lake Park. New executive chef Amanda Langler moved over from Mr. B’s in late 2023, taking the helm of a menu that’s traditional but intoxicating: escargot, steak frites, foie gras, tartare, bone-in rib-eye with bacon-roasted fingerling potatoes.
Must-try dish: The French onion soup is a special occasion treat unto itself.

Open for: Lunch, dinner
Price range: $$
Family-owned since the ’50s, this East Side institution has remained painstakingly loyal to tradition. In the bustling, ever-changing lakefront neighborhood, it’s easy to take for granted the old school red-checkered tablecloths, blue-collar barstool classicism, and joys of sipping Blatz shoulder-to-shoulder with compatriots under the bar’s neon lights. But it’s worth remembering (and waiting for) Zaffiro’s Midwestern tavern-style pizza: a circle pie, square cut, and loaded up. The sharable, salty version here is a living ode to the style’s birth as beer-drinking food. Zaffiro’s leans extra hard into wafer-thin crust, which lets out a satisfying crackle and snap, while the fennel-inflected sausage is redolent of the time this was the Italian quarter of Milwaukee. 
Best for: A cozy and carby retreat from a cold winter night.

Open for: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Price range: $$
Glorioso’s is a microcosm of the evolution of Brady Street and the East Side Italian community. The grocery store, which opened in 1946, felt like a hangout in The Sopranos for much of its life, until it moved across the street in 2011 to a space as bright and sprawling as a Whole Foods. Despite the shift in scene, you’re still properly covered for Italian specialties — guanciale, pecorino, giardiniera, endless olives — and sandwiches for the ride home. Try the Italian beef, muffuletta, or the Human Torch, a ferocious battering ram of calabrese salami, capocollo, provolone, and hot pepper spread. 
Know before you go: A muffuletta is even better after spending a night in the fridge — allowing the bread to sponge up the olive salad.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$
Birch feels fine-tuned for restaurant lists like this one, but chef Kyle Knall, James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef Midwest, has come up with something singular and personal, building on his roots in Alabama, time spent cutting his teeth on the line at Gramercy Tavern in New York, and experience starting a spot in New Orleans. Since opening in 2021, Birch has felt rustic, focused, and honest, with a menu heavy on charring, smoking, and wood-firing. Charred beef tartare, chicken under a brick, and fish with smoked carrot salsa and house-made tortillas (inspired by Mexico City’s Contramar) are all apt showstoppers. But the restaurant really asserts its own story and soul through down-home items like garlic focaccia or a happy hour burger with smoked onion aioli. Knall’s forthcoming project, a French bistro slated for this fall, was recently named by Bon Appetit as one of the most anticipated restaurants of the year. 
Know before you go: The burger is available in the bar room only, and happy hour is Tuesday through Friday, 4 to 6 p.m.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$
The nation’s first fully hybrid cocktail lounge — everything is offered either spirited or spirit free — was recently named a James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar. The place feels like a plush living room inside the Dubbel Dutch Hotel, and the menu offers noshable bites such as stuffed mushrooms or apple ice cream. But the focus are big fancy ice cubes, smoked libations, and pithy drink names, all made more approachable than other high-brow cocktail lounges. It’s refreshing to enjoy a night of caviar and non-alcoholic cocktails with nary a headache the next day, but you can also go the opposite direction with a Ryan’s Dad’s Greatest Regret replete with dark rum and Sichuan peppercorns, and “garnished with disaster.” 
If you drive: For the full experience — whether you indulge in alcohol or not — leave your car where it is and get a room at the hotel.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$$
The happily disorganized menu of this long-running, family-run, neighborhood nook veers wildly between empanadas, steak tartare, lamb lollipops, house-made pastas like gricia and short rib white bolognese, a lamb shank with Yorkshire pudding, and a smash burger with hot honey dijon. The theme is kitchen sink in the best way. Whatever your order, don’t skip the fried artichokes, and don’t miss the attached cake shop on the way out.
Best for: Somehow both fancy and relaxed, Buckley’s is as good for a special occasion as a last-minute late-night meal. 

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$
Whether or not you place any stock in a VPN badge (Vera Pizza Napoletana, the official designation of “true Neapolitan pizza” by Naples-based Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana), San Giorgio produces objectively satisfying wood-fired pizza. With an airy, chewy crust, lightly charred undercarriage, proper leoparding around the edges, stretchy wet mozzarella, and bright San Marzano carnage for optimal pop on Instagram, any of the house pies might rank as the best in town. 
Know before you go: Wait for your pickup at the pizza bar, where you can fall in love at first sight as your pie emerges from the blaze of the 900-degree Stefano Ferrara oven.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$$
Before Milwaukee Street was a bastion of valet parking, special occasion dining, and well-heeled out-of-towners, there was Zarletti. With appetizers like rich veal meatballs in Nonna sauce, pastas (including a ravioli of the day or a slow-cooked ragu with house-made pappardelle), and entrees of osso buco and classic Bolognese, chef Brian Zarletti has turned family recipes into a restaurant that is classy and warm, fancy and comfortable. It’s a corner spot from a Billy Joel song, reminding everyone that top-shelf service doesn’t have to be stuffy, that a neighborhood vibe can still be found in trendy downtown, and that there is no better dish than a well-crafted carbonara with salty, crispy pancetta punch. 
Know before you go: Consider dining at the bar, graced by Bryan, possibly the best bartender in town.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$$$
All it took was dinner at Odd Duck. That’s the moment chef Gregory Leon credits as inspiration to leave his San Francisco kitchen post and make Milwaukee home. Since opening Amilinda, Leon has earned multiple James Beard nominations for Best Chef Midwest, and this year he can remove the geographic qualifier, ascending to a semifinalist for Outstanding Chef. In his buzzy downtown den, he offers deep Spanish and Portuguese flavors in a short, ever-changing menu that’s saucy and risky, but still homey. A pork belly salad comes with green radish and honey, braised beef tongue is topped with nora chiles and pepitas, and the spicy piri piri chicken gets ‘Sconnie-ified with “Wischego” cheese. Amilinda might be the only spot in town for salmorejo, an Andalusian puree of tomato and bread, and one of the few to take dessert as seriously as dinner (think chocolate and olive oil mousse).   
Best for: A big night out downtown, with a pre-dinner drink across the street at Blu, on the top floor of the Pfister Hotel.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$
Alem has been serving shareable Ethiopian entrees over spongy injera in the heart of downtown for over a decade. Vegetarian and carnivorous specialties include yemisir wot (slow-cooked lentils), doro wat with ayib (cottage cheese), and kitfo (steak tartare) rich with cardamom. Try some form of tibs and garlicky steamed collard greens, and give your nose over to the haze of red pepper sauce. African beers and wines, as well as ouzo-spiked tea, pair well with any convivial, family-style feast. 
Best for: Eating with your hands with close friends.

Open for: Brunch, lunch, dinner
Price range: $$
When the Black Shoe Hospitality team became semifinalists in 2023 for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur, it felt like an acknowledgment of lifetime achievement. The group has a steady history of thoughtful comfort fare, including upscale down-home Southern food at Maxie’s and inspired (and wildly popular) breakfast provisions at Blue’s Egg. Story Hill BKC (that’s Bottle, Kitchen, Cup) combines the best of their efforts. It’s your hip corner coffee shop and a friendly local neighborhood liquor store — that is, if your local liquor store also offered shakshuka with local eggs and sumac mayonnaise, tender Angus sirloin sandwiches with shallot butter and truffle peppercorn mayo, smoked Yukon potatoes au gratin, or cedar plank trout. Accented by warm wood and top-tier hospitality, the restaurant feels like a happy hidden gem within Milwaukee’s most hidden gem of a neighborhood. 
Know before you go: You’ll need a few visits to truly approach the offerings from every angle.

Open for: Lunch, dinner
Price range: $
2025 may be remembered as the year Milwaukee’s microbrew wave crested and rolled back (R.I.P. Enlightened, City Lights, MobCraft, Company). But Third Space proudly carries the torch for Beer City. Since opening in 2016, it has established itself as a forerunner of all things hoppy, hazy, and juicy. The brewery itself features a sprawling indoor/outdoor tap room and “beer garden,” which is actually an industrial maze of riverside and train track-adjacent Menomonee Valley charm (though the space is plenty welcoming when filled with live music and food trucks). You’ll find Space represented on a lot of taps around town, usually anchored by the aptly named Happy Place: a 5.3 percent sessionable but potent ale that pops with just the right bit of bitter, which has become one of Milwaukee’s best, ubiquitous brews. 
Know before you go: If you don’t eat here, head across the street for a burger at Sobelman’s, and then make your way to BBC Lighting, a family-friendly treasure trove of bric-a-brac and miscellanea.

Open for: Lunch, dinner
Price range: $$
Woody barroom coziness mixes with sizzling flattop smoke as soon as you enter this sliver of a Walker’s Point hangout. An elite beer list joins forces with lovingly gussied up ‘Sconnie pub grub: singed and indulgently oily Nashville chicken, wings with a multitude of sauces (it’s hard to go wrong with creamy Alabama or buttery Buffalo), rotating fried pierogies, and a mortadella that would make Bourdain proud. And of course, there’s that burger: a simple, undeniable, American cheese-blanketed and brioche-bedded 8-ounce punch of oniony, greasy, lizard brain satisfaction. 
Must-try dish: Camino’s crackily battered and gooified Clock Shadow cheese curds are the best in town.

Open for: Lunch, dinner
Price range: $$$
Before you could find a small plate on every corner of Walker’s Point, La Merenda was the quiet forerunner, slinging international tapas in a reservations-required dining room. Owner Peter Sandroni offered worldly brunch dishes at the Barack Obama-approved Engine Company No. 3 (now an event space), and briefly tried his hand at a retail storefront, but today the action centers strictly on his flagship, which serves Milwaukee’s quintessential shareable goods: Colombian empanadas with mushroom and quark can be ordered alongside house-made gnocchi. Butter chicken somehow copacetically rubs shoulders with rich lamb Bolognese. It’s almost like Calvin Trillin’s “Continental Cuisine” brought to life, and yet it works. Of course Clock Shadow Creamery goat cheese curds in chorizo cream sauce atop just-this-side-of-burnt crostini — spicy, lavishly comforting, and offering whiffs of cilantro — can go with just about anything.   
Know before you go: Grab a reservation if you want to secure a table, though you might have even more fun spending an entire night at the bar.

Open for: Breakfast, lunch
Price range: $$
Allie Boy’s is the New York-level bagel shop Milwaukee didn’t know it needed — and then some. Aside from breakfast sandwiches and schmears, the bright Walker’s Point corner storefront serves latkes and lox, pork rolls and parfaits, scones and fried spiced sugar bagels. If noontime noshing is more your speed, there’s matzo ball soup and house-made pickles, while the pastrami chop cheese bagel sandwich (with sport peppers, provolone, and a sultry special sauce) is shoulder-devil sinful. There may be no better — or more decadent — destination for a quick and casual first meal. Last year a second location opened on the East Side.  
Know before you go: The ketchup on the breakfast sandwich, somehow, just works.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$$
It isn’t often that one of the most beloved restaurants in town closes, reconceptualizes, and reopens under new leadership. That’s the story of Crazy Water, whose owner and chef Peggy Magister stepped back in 2020 to help her longtime chef Emanuel Corona take the reins, before she died in 2024. Corona draws on flavors and techniques from his youth and roots around Puebla, Mexico City, and Oaxaca for an ever-changing gauntlet of food that might start with tostadas, tlayudas, queso fundido, or chiles rellenos with duck carnitas. Plates come loaded with beef cheek barbacoa or lamb shank birria, while tacos arrive filled with guajillo glazed pork belly or sauteed shrimp in chipotle sauce. It all adds up to the thoughtfully singular Mexican fare that stands out from the competitors in town. 
Best for: Digging into the tequila and mezcal list.

Open for: Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Price range: $
Harkening back to the time when Walker’s Point was largely comprised of Latine families, this restaurant wears its years and peeling paint with pride. Expect homestyle friendliness, classic Mexican cooking, and a whole lot of spice when you dine in, including steaming bowls of menudo and pozole are hearty, fiery antidotes to your hangover or cold, respectively. The mole and birria simmer all day to produce vivid, earthy flavors. Of special note is the bistec en chile de arbol: tender, scraggly scraps of steak in a scorching silken mahogany sauce, which makes for a dangerous DIY taco mix. 
Know before you go: Arbol salsa is available upon request to pro-level spice seekers.

Open for: Lunch, dinner
Price range: $$
No Milwaukee food list is complete without at least one entry from the fertile stretch of National Avenue in Silver City that includes Thai, Mexican, and Puerto Rican cuisines in just a few blocks. Among the bunch, this beloved Laotian noodle house feels most distinctive. Turmeric-spiced crepes filled with pork, fried quail, Lao-style beef soup with tripe, a gamut of noodles, and spicy larb are some highlights that make for slurpable, sinus-clearing meals as comforting as they are exhilarating. Whichever route you take through the menu, make sure to ask for a side of the “steak sauce,” a funky, garlicky, cilantro-chocked, chile-flecked combo of umami and magic.
Must-try dish: Dip some tempura chicken wings in the steak sauce for absolute transcendence.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$$
Chef-owner Dave Swanson’s Braise has been at the forefront of all things hip and community conscious since opening in 2011. It offers cooking classes ranging from beginner to 10-week boot camps, private rooftop events, in-home dining, farm dinners, and a grocery program. It’s also “just” a restaurant, where an ever-changing menu might skip through humba (Filipino braised pork), lamb biryani, and smoked chicken pappardelle. There is such attention to detail that even a piece of sourdough focaccia with whipped garlic butter can feel a bit transcendent. Braise is Milwaukee’s pesky overachiever — which is what makes it so delicious. 
Must-try dish: If you can’t decide, go for the steamed pork buns.

Open for: Lunch, dinner
Price range: $$
Sichuan spice and soup dumplings. Nary a diner exiting Momo Mee won’t mention one or the other, many finding themselves transfixed, even changed by the experience. The former comes through with fierce, tongue-numbing thrills, not just tasted but felt, in dry-rubbed chicken wings or pork wontons in chile oil. The latter, xiao long bao, appear as unparalleled packages of savory comfort, handcrafted steamed dough pillows yielding slurpable porky broth. There’s also ramen and oodles of other noodles, but everything else seems benign next to the restaurant’s most spirited hits.
Know before you go: Soup dumplings are, appropriately, served for dine-in only.

Open for: Weekday nights until late, weekend afternoons until even later
Price range: $$
Bar owner John Dye has cornered the city’s market on cocktail lounge vibes: from the East Side’s jazzy Estate to Bay View’s At Random, you have multiple opportunities to be ensconced in dark hues, rich pours, and velvety-booth Rat Pack aesthetics. The only thing missing is cigarette smoke. But Bryant’s remains the flagship, a destination-worthy corner joint since 1938 that claims to be Milwaukee’s oldest cocktail lounge. The bustling menu-less spot was just named a James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Bar, but somehow, the place feels too cool to care. 
Know before you go: To walk in here is to enter a committed relationship with a bartender. Be open to the possibilities.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$$$
Once a weekend-only tasting menu restaurant within Dandan, Dan Jacobs and Dan Van Rite’s Third Ward Chinese food spot, Esterev has now found a voice and vibe all its own on the recently-burgeoning north end of Bay View. In the Kinnickinnic Ave bones that used to house C-Viche, diners find a seasonally changing four-course tasting menu, with built in options and side trips (enhancements might include a caviar tater tot), for $80. Liver mousse or shrimp toast could make way for truffles, which might lead to winter squash with red curry or sausage in boudin blanc. Whichever way one wanders, it’s easy to trust the Dans to bring it all home. Jacobs retains rockstar status after a strong showing in last season’s Top Chef, and along with Van Rite, the duo has been named James Beard semifinalists for Best Chef Midwest — though locals hardly needed another reason to buzz about the food.  
Best for: An intimate celebration.

Open for: Dinner
Price range: $$$
You’ll be hit by the homey mood at the door of this old Schlitz tavern, which smells like grandma’s house when she’s been cooking all day. Tucked away in a still-quiet nook of Bay View, the Serbian stalwart features cash-only dinners and worth-it 45-plus-minute waits for flaky böreks, both indicative of a night out in a different time. The flavors on the dinner menu run the gamut: Serbian salad, goulash, moussaka, chicken paprikash, roasted goose, chevapchichi (beef sausages). It’s meat-and-potato Eastern European fare for beating back winter. 
Must-try dish: Burek — which can be pre-ordered.

Open for: Lunch, dinner
Price range: $$
This rough-around-the-edges southside mainstay has all the trappings of the definitive corner bar: The game is always on, the regulars are getting soused, and the tiny behind-bar flattop turns out some great snacks. The chicken wings are the bar’s calling card, the paradigm of what can be called the Milwaukee method (fry, sauce, then grill) for their prevalence about town. The result is one of charry caramelization, with vinegar tang and grill scorch marrying for a sensory titillation best not described, but experienced — and then chased with another cold one. Club G’s remains the ideal spot to start or end a night out in Bay View.  
Best for: A game, complete with beers, wings, and buddies.

Open for: Lunch, dinner
Price range: $$
There’s Chinese food in Milwaukee and then there’s Sze Chuan. Word has spread quickly about the West Allis cult favorite, inspiring spice-seekers to make the trek away from the lake to enjoy cumin pork knuckles, dry pot intestine, sauteed spare ribs, pork kidney, or any of the many things from the massive menu doused in tongue-numbing, mind-altering Sichuan peppercorns. 
Know before you go: If the menu seems daunting, take cues from neighboring tables. The regulars know what’s good.

Open for: Breakfast, lunch
Price range: $$
When Polonez closed in 2022, Milwaukee, the city with the fourth largest Polish population in the country, seemed to lose its last true link to the old country. Enter Wioletta’s, a slick, sparkling, and decidedly nouveau grocer that has quietly grown and expanded options since opening that same year. Seemingly interminable coolers are choked with homemade pierogi, stuffed cabbage, borscht, and bigos, as well as fresh paczki and pillowy rolls. The deli counter splays multitudes of fresh sausages, hard salamis, and head cheeses, while the isles offer enough pickled fare for a fallout bunker. The breadth of the offerings recently became too wide for the shop’s Howell Avenue digs; the family-owned operation plans on opening a full-fledged Polish restaurant this year in South Milwaukee. 
Know before you go: Packzki is pronounced “puhnch-kee.”

Open for: Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Price range: $$
Inside a former fast-food joint across from Subaru City on the south side, this hideaway of Jordanian and Palestinian delights is surprisingly homey with its elaborate rugs and ornate lamps. A stone oven acts as the restaurant’s fiery beating heart, turning out enough taboon bread, thoughtful manakish (flatbreads), and spiced beef- or sumac-spinach-stuffed fatayer (pastries) to qualify Taqwa’s as a bakery. Comforting standbys like Turkish coffee, hummus, baba ghanoush, breakfasts of eggs or fried Mediterranean cheeses, and kebabs have made this an everyday go-to spot only a few years after opening.   
Vibe check: On a cold night, you can sit near the fiery oven and hold your manakish close.