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 are 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 jalapenos? Why not make it a double with bacon and bracingly stinky fried onions? However you order yours, eat it in the car with the radio turned to Bob Uecker covering a Brewers game. That is living your best Milwaukee life.

Part social movement, part cultural hub, the Phoenix remains the beating heart of the Sherman Park neighborhood. After the civil unrest following a fatal police shooting in 2016, community leaders transformed a damaged BMO Harris Bank building into this sprawling collective of small businesses, most of them owned by people of color. Since then, it’s hosted a presidential campaign rally and been nominated for a State Farm Building Blocks Award. On a quotidian level, it soothes with balms like barbecue, chicken wings from Brooklyn-based Buffalo Boss, a bar that doubles as a bartending school, and a smattering of culture, wellness, and fashion tenants whose offerings range from massage therapy to lash extensions.

You can pick a Bartolotta Restaurant Group spot for any upscale craving: 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 exciting: coq au vin, steak frites, foie gras, tweezered tartare, bone-in rib-eye with bacon-roasted fingerling potatoes. Treat yourself; sometimes the special occasion is just when you get a hankering for French onion soup.

From James Beard to Food & Wine, recognition for the East Side’s premiere fine dining establishment continues to validate Milwaukee as a serious gastronomic destination. Chef Justin Carlisle curates a seasonal, ever-changing menu of high-minded new American fare with manicured tasting menus that might include caviar, tartare, pheasant, and some type of sorbet. The lounge, which doesn’t require reservations, is more accessible to Joe Six-Packs, who can enjoy thoughtful small plates, spreads (smoked trout, chicken liver mousse), boursin cheese-topped smash burgers, and roasted chicken. The hot dog comes with Nueske’s bacon and shaved foie gras, making it both ‘Sconnie proud and high brow.

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 crackle and snap, and fennel-inflected sausage, redolent of this old Italian quarter of Milwaukee.

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 spot 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: Italian beef, muffuletta, and something called the Human Torch, a ferocious battering ram of calabrese salami, capocollo, provolone, and hot pepper spread.

Birch feels fine-tuned for restaurant lists like this one, but chef Kyle Knall 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 tight, with a menu heavy on charring, smoking, and wood-firing. Charred beef tartare, chicken under a brick, and Contramar-inspired fish with smoked carrot salsa and house-made tortillas are all apt showstoppers. But the restaurant really asserts its own story and soul through down-home items like garlic focaccia or scorched flatbread with bacon and buttermilk dressing.

Along with Bartolotta across the street, this charming and bustling bistro forms the beating heart of Wauwatosa. Across two stories, Le Rêve offers all-day, old-school class and sophistication. Crepes, escargot, French onion soup, a duck confit BLT, pate, frites, foie gras, and fondue make for a menu that’s as lusty and languid as the eponymous Picasso painting.

Somehow both polished and relaxed, this long-running, classy, corner neighborhood nook is as good for brunch as a late-night meal. Along with a lengthy wine and whiskey list, there’s serious eating: house-made orecchiette with lamb sausage, a Gruyere-topped burger, a bone-in pork chop with blistered peppers, and spicy chicken thighs with Muenster and fried capers. There’s little more a sophisticated empty stomach could ask for, except maybe truffle fries with house-made cheese whiz — wait, Buckley’s has that too.

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. If possible, wait for your pickup at the pizza bar, where you can fall in love at first sight as your pizza emerges from the blaze of the 900-degree Stefano Ferrara oven.

Fifteen years after claiming James Beard’s Best Chef in the Midwest award for his work at Lake Park Bistro, Adam Siegel, along with co-owner Michael DeMichele, earned a James Beard nomination for Best New Restaurant in 2023 with Lupi & Iris. But the duo don’t rest on their laurels at their high-style downtown digs. The restaurant plays host to an ever-expanding roster of special events — mocktail nights, casual Sunday suppers, a black truffle dinner — but French and Italian Riviera dinners remain the kitchen’s focus. The goat cheese tart with smoked trout, chargrilled octopus with Romesco, wood oven-roasted duck breast with duck fat potatoes, and olive oil cake are some players that might give Lupi & Iris a run as the new leader of Milwaukee fine dining.

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, Leon has earned multiple James Beard nominations for Best Chef Midwest, and this buzzy downtown den continues to provide warm vibes, deep Spanish and Portuguese flavors, and a short, ever-changing menu that’s saucy and risky but still homey. Duck rice comes with refogado, braised pork shoulder is served in piquillo and tomato sauce, roasted eggplant is sided by raw honey and Aleppo peppers. 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).

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 in red pepper sauce), steamed gomen, spicy doro wat with ayib (cottage cheese), and kitfo (steak tartare). African beers and wines, as well as ouzo-spiked tea, pair well with any convivial, family-style feast.

When the Black Shoe Hospitality team became semifinalists in 2023 for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur it felt like a lifetime achievement sort of acknowledgment. The group has a steady history of thoughtful comfort fare, including upscale down-home Southern food at Maxie’s, inspired breakfast provisions at Blue’s Egg, and supper-clubby fine dining at Buttermint. Story Hill BKC — that’s bottle, kitchen, cup — combines the best of their efforts. It’s your friendly local neighborhood liquor store, if your local liquor store also offered crepes, shakshuka, sirloin sandwiches with 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 friendly hidden gem within Milwaukee’s most hidden gem of a neighborhood.

Before you could get a solid burger everywhere, Sobelman’s set the town standard. With a buttery, glossy griddled bun, juicy patties, a blanket of three-cheese melt, fried onions, and diced jalapenos, the house burger is a consistent ideal. The Marquette campus-adjacent bar is also a fine old-school option for curds and for sampling Wisconsin’s most underrated cultural delicacy: a bombastic bloody mary, so chock-full of garnishes it drinks like a meal, complete with a beer chaser.

When it opened in 2013, Bavette seemed unique, European, and pricey — the kind of place you’d find in Chicago, not Milwaukee. Now, on the heels of owner Karen Bell’s fifth James Beard nomination, this whole-hog butcher shop and subtly sophisticated restaurant has come to feel more like an old friend. The lunch and dinner destination is fit for all levels of craving, with crudos and carpaccios, the city’s best muffuletta, chicken liver mousse, a corned beef tongue Reuben, and enough cheese and charcuterie to make a meal. In a fresh and expanded Third Ward home, Bavette’s growth feels indicative of the maturation of the city itself.

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, and briefly tried his hand at a retail storefront, but now the action centers on his flagship, which serves Milwaukee’s quintessential shareable goods: pork and shrimp tostadas, seared trout, empanadas, and house-made gnocchi. Butter chicken somehow copacetically rubs shoulders with lamb Bolognese, and goat cheese curds in chorizo cream sauce can go with just about anything.

Allie Boy’s is the New York-level bagel shop Milwaukee didn’t know it needed — and then some. The bright Walker’s Point corner storefront slings sophisticated comforts, including schmears and lox, house-made pickles and whitefish salad, cappuccinos, and wine spritzes. If noontime noshing is more your speed, the delightfully over-topped pizza bagel is as comfortable as grandma’s house, while the pastrami chop cheese bagel sandwich is shoulder-devil sinful. There may be no better, or more decadent, destination for a quick and casual first meal.

Milwaukee’s unquestioned king of al pastor is spreading into a mini taco empire throughout town. Adding to a roving fleet of trompo-equipped trucks on the south side, the brand now has a takeout-only spot in Bay View and this first sit-down location. The sprawling corner spot on National Avenue has a voluminous menu of Oaxacan specialties: tlayudas, aguas frescas, birria de chivo, and tortilla-meat combinations that are less seen in Milwaukee like volcánes and mulitas. Just be sure to get something with the al pastor pork, which is fatty, crispy, perfect under a bath of red sauce, and $1 per taco every Thursday.

Harkening back to the time when Walker’s Point was largely comprised of Latino families, this restaurant wears its years and peeling paint with pride, an excellent canvas for homestyle friendliness, classic Mexican cooking, and a whole lot of spice. 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. An arbol salsa is also available upon request to pro-level spice seekers, pleasing anyone with a penchant for mouth burn.

This sliver of Silver City is rife with far-reaching international soul. Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Laotian food, along with this Thai standout, populate a single intersection of National Avenue. The menu here is similarly expansive. You can bounce from fried quail or crispy chicken skewers to hot pots, larb, curries, or bowls of pho. The Thai barbecue pork noodle soup — served with jalapenos, chile garlic paste, and crushed dried peppers — is the all-star dish of any chilly Milwaukee night, its velvety, rich broth teeming with sunken treasures of pork. It’s hard to imagine a more sinus-singeing bowl of comfort.

When it opened on Kinnickinnic Avenue in 2010, Odd Duck instantly became the beating heart and culinary conscience at the center of the coolest neighborhood in town. Now owners Ross Bachhuber and Melissa Buchholz have their own building in Walker’s Point and a new neighborhood to conquer with their perfectly married small-plate ingenuity, rough-hewn DIY aesthetics, and buzzy vibe. The new digs come with the same expertise from the waitstaff and same craft (but unfussy) cocktails, powering dinners that might include duck cassoulet, lamb and potato pierogi, or huitlacoche and goat cheese pupusas. Start with some charcuterie, raw oysters with crying tiger sauce, and a Without Borders: a gin, vermouth, and molasses concoction whose proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders. Trust your server’s advice from there.

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 pockets yielding slurpable porky broth. There’s also ramen and oodles of noodles, but anything else might seem benign next to the restaurant’s most spirited hits.

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Behold Milwaukee’s true renaissance restaurant, a proudly woman- and LGBTQ-owned shapeshifting business. During warm-ish weather, you might catch this mobile wood-burning pizza operation at a farm night out in Oconomowoc, catering a wedding, popping up at a local beer garden or brewery, or just slinging slices out of next-door sister location, Everyone’s Ice Cream. The team also grows herbs and tends bees for hot honey at the cozy West Allis takeaway outpost, which truly hums during the cold months. The eponymous flame is housed in a 900-degree oven, a hell-raiser from central Maine that imbues a smoky singe to everything it touches: cup and char pepperoni pies, garlic-pickle-bacon pizzas, and Detroit-style specials with racing stripes of tomato sauce and delightfully scorched crust.

Fatty old-world comfort meets modern technique and creativity at this sausage emporium that doubles as a laid-back watering hole. Eat like a glutton with style: jalapeno cheddar brats, Nashville hot chicken sausages, Ukrainian pork sausage with carrot kraut, an outrageously lavish burger made with a sausage patty and Velveeta, multiple poutines, and fried curds with bacon aioli. To wash it down there are plenty of Midwestern brews and a bevy of signature house cocktails; the latter even come on draft, the embodiment of the Vanguard’s semi-serious spirit.

There is Chinese food and then there is Sze Chuan. Word has spread quickly about the West Allis cult favorite, inspiring spice-seekers to make the trek away from the lake, toward 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.

Anodyne continues to quietly fine-tune small batch single-source roasts in the quest to become the ideal neighborhood cafe with the perfect pour. Stockpile beans and homebrew accouterments, catch a show at the Bruce Street roastery, sip a nitro-line cold brew (arguably the most potent and heat-beating non-alcoholic beverage in town), or grab a wood fire-kissed Neapolitan pie out of the Stefano oven at the bustling Bay View outpost.

Across three locations, El Tsunami distinguishes itself with little touches: The frosty micheladas are served in copiously salted mugs, camarones come by the bounteous chalice, tacos al carbon give off the essence of backyard barbecue, the garlicky house-made chorizo are appropriately smoky, and the verde salsa is a frisky emulsification that goes with absolutely anything. The chicken taco is the floor for a perfect meal, but the ceiling might be the bistec en chile de arbol, which brings hallucinatory heat.