Several weeks ago, we got an email from Pittsburgh Magazine’s publisher that her managing editor, Sean Collier, had just visited Milwaukee (his first) and wrote a story about it. After his 48 hours here, the similarities he found between Milwaukee and Pittsburgh led him to believe they’re “pretty much the same place.”
I’m here to tell you I know exactly what he means. I had some of the same sense of kinship as a first-time visitor to Pittsburgh in fall of 2023. Collier’s MKE stay included some classic touristy things – the Domes, the Safe House, a Bucks game. He stayed at a hotel on the old Pabst Brewing grounds. He noticed cheese curds on a lot of restaurant menus and noted our affinity for the Friday fish fry – only I’m not sure about all the signs he says he saw advertising “giant fish sandwiches.” (No disrespect, but Wisconsinites know a sandwich is not typical fish fry fare.) I give him credit, though, for going all in while he was here.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
“I was also struck by how the city’s pride seemed to outstrip its size,” he wrote. “Both Pittsburgh and Milwaukee are relatively modest in terms of population; we sit in the heart of the nation’s 27th-largest metropolitan area, while Milwaukee ranks 40th. … But everyone seems to be eager to talk about Milwaukee and sing the city’s praises.”
I hear you, Sean. During my weekend in Pittsburgh, I had possibly the world’s friendliest, most helpful Airbnb host. He was a proud Pittsburgher (another name for such a person, I learned, is a Yinzer) who happily rattled off random bits of history and recommendations of things to do, places to eat, etc. He even gave me a short walking tour. My Airbnb was in a commercial/residential neighborhood called Lawrenceville, whose main drag felt like a funky mix of Brady Street and South Kinnickinnic Avenue in Bay View.
I did obligatory Pittsburgh things like explore the Andy Warhol Museum (so cool) and take the Duquesne Incline – the funicular that scales Mount Washington, right across the Monongahela from downtown. At the top is an observation deck where you’ll find some incredible views of the city, its rivers and well-known bridges. Like Milwaukee, Pittsburgh has a solid indie restaurant scene – I wish I’d stayed longer so that I could have experienced more of it, but what I had was really good: bright, fresh botanas (Mexican appetizers) at a dark, quirky cantina called Round Corner; Spanish tapas, house-made charcuterie and plenty of vermouth (!) at warm, understated Morcilla; and outstanding veganized Eastern European food at Apteka. Beans, cabbage, potatoes, celeriac, beets and other ingredients were so imaginatively and deliciously presented in the form of dumplings, soups, pancakes, fried patties and schnitzels. I would love to clone that place and bring it here. Everywhere I went, there was a realness and lack of pretension that smacked of home.
Going back to those giant fish sandwiches in Collier’s story, he praised them as something Milwaukee and Pittsburgh have in common. While everyone thinks the open-faced turkey Devonshire or thick Primanti Bros. sandwich is Pittsburgh’s signature, it’s really, he wrote, the fish sandwich. And that underscores my one regret about my time there: I didn’t prioritize eating one of their legendary sandwiches! But I’d go back in a blink for a stay in the very same quirky Airbnb – and maybe I’d get a fish sandwich. But more likely, I’d head right over to Primanti Bros. for their impossibly thick sandwich that counts french fries as one of its toppings. In sandwich prowess, Pittsburgh stands alone.
