Friday Fish Fry, Open For Lunch, Outdoor Dining, Reservations Taken,
The Swingin’ Door Exchange inhabits a red-awninged space under one of the city’s most majestic venues, the Grain Exchange Room. The dig’s first incarnation as a bar – called the Exchange Tavern – began in the 1930s. The owner of the neighboring barbershop took over the place in ’67, renaming it the Swingin’ Door. Nowadays, the Door still gets its patty melt and Friday fish fry on, but it’s rolling with the times – packing in a hodgepodge of the hungry, from bike couriers to number-crunchers. Read more…
Related Stories: Best Cheap Eats in Milwaukee Under $15, Best of Milwaukee 2016, Reader’s Choice: Dining Awards 2016
For a fun and casual night out for seafood, Barnacle Buds has everything to satisfy your taste buds. Try one of their legendary crab cakes, almost any kind of seafood and one of their scrumptious sandwiches or salads. While chowing down on their delicious options, try one of their summery cocktails or come on a weekend for build your own Bloody Mary Bar.
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Late Night Dining, Open For Lunch,
Belgian beers are No. 1-voted Café Hollander’s claim to fame, but the restaurant’s brew menu is 15 pages long, and is organized by beer style.
Other Locations: Café Hollander – Downer Ave
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It feels like a standard neighborhood watering hole, but the massive bank of 30 taps behind the bar sets it apart. The selection includes standards from New Glarus and Lakefront, as well as oddities like Old Heathen bourbon barrel aged stout.
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Thirty-foot ceilings and rustic red, blue and beige walls create a pretty amazing feel inside the bar, and the airy pub has room for plenty of beer drinkers. The beer list is solid. Pabst is on tap, of course, and is joined by 12 Wisconsin beers (New Glarus, Lakefront, etc.). The bottle list includes roughly 40 options, and if you feel like slumming it, you can order a can of Old Milwaukee.
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Belgian beers are No. 1-voted Café Hollander’s claim to fame, but the restaurant’s brew menu is 15 pages long, and is organized by beer style.
Other Locations: Café Hollander – Tosa Village
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Entertainment, Open For Lunch, Outdoor Dining, Reservations Taken,
Late Night Dining, Open For Lunch,
This far-more-fashionable sister of Kopp??s Custard also makes a darn good burger ?? the more dolled up, the better. In these crisp, coolly modern surroundings (the artwork changes often), a diverse audience attacks orders of wings, nachos, bacon grilled cheese sandwiches and (if feeling semi-healthy) the pork teriyaki salad. Elsa??s also has accomplished the rare feat of making broccoli taste good.
Late Night Dining, Outdoor Dining, Reservations Taken,
Open for Breakfast, Open For Lunch, Outdoor Dining, Reservations Taken, Sunday Brunch,
The best seat in the house is at the kitchen counter, where you can watch your crab cakes, chopped salad and NY strip with Delmonico potatoes being prepared. The leather booths offer a little more privacy, and the bar, live entertainment and a nifty bar menu. Other standouts: fried surf clams and herb crumb-crusted halibut.
The modern space with chocolate-brown walls on the corner of Mason and Milwaukee is devoted to classic, regional cuisine. Housemade four-cheese ravioli, ossobuco and rack of lamb with mint pesto are all specialties worth considering. Tiny and intimate.
Lively storefront space. Ease into it with a sandwich Cubano, ropa vieja (shredded flank steak), and tostones (fried plantains).
Related Stories: Best Ethnic Dining, Best of 2005, Readers’ Choice Dining Awards
What fits more aptly in a city working to rebrand itself as a center of aquaculture than a modern seafood house?
The owners of marbled and glossy Third Coast Provisions opened their Milwaukee Street space in hopes of filling our area’s dearth of seafood options. Although the restaurant’s name refers to our shoreline, the Great Lakes aren’t the main source of the menu’s fresh catches. In these modern times, it doesn’t matter where you are – fresh seafood flown in daily to the Midwest from the coasts is no sweat. Read more…