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…
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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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Late Night Dining, Open For Lunch,
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, Outdoor Dining,
The Bay View bar-restaurant greeted 2019 by renovating its interior and expanding the drink menu, including more than 70 bevs on tap. “Global cafe fare” is still the menu focus, but they’re also introducing a snacks menu and large-format platters Examples are various loaded frites with curry ketchup, mayo and diced raw onions; or levantine meat, melted Gouda cheese, dressed greens, sambal and garlic sauce). Read more…
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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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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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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Entertainment, Friday Fish Fry, Late Night Dining, Outdoor Dining, Reservations Taken,
A casual dress, urban wine room with over 300 wines that can be paired with cheeses, chocolate and charcuterie, located in downtown Milwaukee.
Entertainment, Friday Fish Fry, Open For Lunch, Outdoor Dining, Reservations Taken, Sunday Brunch,
You can see a lot from a second-story roof in the Third Ward, it turns out. Café Benelux’s rooftop space is open for lunch and dinner—as well as weekend brunch—on warm-weather days. Umbrellas over each table shield you from the sun. With a menu modeled after Belgium’s cafes, signature dishes include cheese-stuffed bitterballen, mussels with frites or gulden draak pecan pie, plus a hearty roster of sandwiches, salads and burgers.
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Group Parties, Open For Lunch, Outdoor Dining, Reservations Taken,
The SURG-owned, high-tier steakhouse is a splurge experience. The menu offers decadences such as the Mangalitsa ravioli, lobster mac and cheese, and if you’re really feeling spendy, the “reserve cuts.”
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Pre-Prohibition America was a time of vast expanse in liquor artistry, and yet today much of that artistry is long forgotten. Prohibition came, and most people, for fear of being discovered and prosecuted, burned or destroyed much of the information on liquor, thus creating the gap in knowledge that we have on the subject today. Distil (722 N. Milwaukee St.) is poised to bring it back. Read more…
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…
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
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.
Entertainment, Open For Lunch, Reservations Taken, Sunday Brunch,
