A modern, plant-based take on bar food at the Shorewood’s former Village Pub. The seasonal menu is printed on the chalkboard and includes a Vietnamese po’boy, Thai grilled steak salad and grass-fed burger.
Shorewood bar Cloud Red (4488 N. Oakland Ave.) stops traffic with its chalkboard menu of casual, veggie-heavy plates. Some dishes are seasonally swapped out. But the Bhel Bowl has caught on so well that it’s never leaving the menu.
Serves a completely plant-based menu in eco-friendly surroundings (bamboo floors, walls painted with nontoxic paint). Wines come from organic, sustainable vineyards. Vegan, raw and gluten-free options available.
Mentioned in:
Sunny dining room/open kitchen where the bill of fare comes in a bowl. The menu features grain-, vegetable- and smoothie-based bowls. Highlights: chocolate peanut-butter smoothie and Green Goddess barley bowl.
Wondering how a vessel full of healthy foods came to be called a “Buddha bowl,” I do what comes naturally in our tech-dominated age: turn to Google. It turns out something so zen-sounding doesn’t just refer to plant-based meals-in-a-bowl but also to superfoods (acai fruit), nuts and grains all nestled in one dish.
cheel/चील/chĭl/
noun: Nepalese word for an eagle; a large bird of prey with a long broad wings, renowned for its keen sight and powerful soaring flight.
verb: taking your flavor experience to new and undiscovered altitudes through craft cocktails and creative cuisine.
Award winning restaurant, the cheel, packs that spice-infused wallop in the traditional Himalayan dishes. The menu that features “flavors from the Himalayas to the Rockies” and incorporates flavor-profiles from Nepalese, Burmese, Tibetan and American cultures alongside Himalayan herbs and techniques from their gastronomic history – is rich with flavor and culture.
You will also have the opportunity to pair these dishes with fantastic craft cocktails where we put as much effort and thought as we do in our dishes. When was the last time you had a cocktail with Fenugreek and Fennel in it? We promise you, we are worth the drive!
This business – which also has a food truck/catering arm in Chicago – takes a home cooking approach to meatless cooking. BBQ, mac and cheese, greens and pizza are among the options.
Lots of options for plant-based diners. Try the raw taco salad, creamy peanut stew and the UB poke bowl.
The Milwaukee choices for plant-based cuisine seem to be getting better and better. Consider Urban Beets (1401 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.), which opened in 2016 across the street from Manpower Group’s headquarters and near the new Bucks arena. Read more…
Mentioned in: 4 Places to Eat Vegan in Milwaukee
Open for Breakfast, Open For Lunch,
The eco-friendly dining room is often filled with city folk working on their laptops. The main food focus here: crepes, cromelettes (crepe-omelets) and panini. Great mushroom-barley burger.
Mentioned in: 4 Places to Eat Vegan In Milwaukee
The setting for this counter-service joint (an old 1971 VW bus) draws extra attention to the plant-based activity going on here. Besides making their own seitan for sandwiches, they craft vegan ice creams. Sandwiches range from Jamaican jerk seitan on ciabatta to grilled sun-dried tomato pesto. Try a date shake like the mango zinger or an almond cocoa bowl.
Owner Emily Ware – a partner in the market’s Green Kitchen salad, sandwich, juice bar – restored a 1971 Volkswagen Bus that forms the visual centerpiece of her business (located in the former FORM Fine Goods & Floral, next to Thief Wine Shop & Bar). Read more…
Windows frame two sides of this utilitarian dining room, allowing light to spill onto the red patterned booths. A solid choice for breakfast, the cafe is especially friendly to the veg-loving crowd.
Mentioned in:
Celesta is the restaurant that evolved out of the Beatrix Foods vegan pop-ups run by Melanie Manuel. Occupying the old Jownai Fouquet (or Abu’s Jerusalem of the Gold, if you have a good memory) at 1978 N. Farwell Ave., Celesta is part of our city’s growing plant-based dining movement. Read more…
Mentioned in:
The center of this open, modern space is a wood-burning hearth, used for everything from bread-baking to roasting meats and fish. High marks for shareable menu items like roasted parsnips, sunflower seed risotto and whole chicken with BBQ carrots. Open for Sat-Sun brunch as well.
When I talked with co-owner Miles Borghgraef by phone a few months before Birch + Butcher’s opening – in Barry Mandel’s North End development on Water Street – the carpentry was finished, light fixtures installed and Borghgraef and his crew were christening the wood- burning hearth at the center of his kitchen.
Friday Fish Fry, Outdoor Dining, Sunday Brunch,
Featuring chicken shawarma, kefta kabob (ground beef), falafel, Israeli salad and more. Lots of vegetarian choices.
Friday Fish Fry, Outdoor Dining, Reservations Taken
Related article: Fish Fries
The fish fry ($8.95) is fish fry in the traditional Wisconsin sense: all-you-can-eat fried cod with the classic accompaniments. The curtain opened with fresh mayo-based coleslaw and pasta salad with tuna, red onion and celery. Read more…
Think of this high-end restaurant and adjacent bar as restored old Cream City brick building meets Ernest Hemingway-esque hunting lodge. The service aims to match the expensive house dry-aged steaks. Steaks are a menu highlight.
“Fine dining” has more than once been pronounced close to death’s door. Despite those claims, there’s still life in the concept. But what constitutes fine dining has changed, in keeping with broader lifestyle trends of the last 15 years or so.
Swooshing water flows down a creek next to this charming 10-year-old “meat palace” in Hartland’s quaint downtown. Seasonal decorations routinely inhabit the bar and dining room, which also pays homage to our state’s NFL football team. Palmer’s is a supper club that adores steak. The prices are very appealing, and a la carte is rejected in favor of being inclusive.
Related Stories: Your Guide to the Best Steak Restaurants in Milwaukee
Friday Fish Fry, Open For Lunch, Reservations Taken,
This dive (meant in the kindest way) overlooking Pewaukee Lake offers almost no place to stand comfortably when it’s busy, but you stand, awkwardly, near the bar or the wood-accented, nautical-themed dining room, and just hope that someone gets up and leaves soon. It’s all worth this period of limbo. The crust is like a round, uniformly thin piece of lavosh lavished in toppings that improve when you add “super,” as in Super Special. That’s pepperoni and sausage, black olives and onions, green peppers and mushrooms.
Related Stories: 30 Best Pizza Places in Milwaukee, Best of the ‘Burbs 2017: Food and Drink
A Friday Fish Fry, a Monday and Tuesday custom Surf and Turf option and we’re there. Sip on a “tutti-frutti” in their screened-in patio during summer while listening to live music and sampling some delicious menu options including Louie’s five-star signature filet.
