Budget
Apollo Cafe
Serves authentic Greek food the whole family can enjoy. A variety of healthy yet tasty food, it'll make you wonder why these sorts of food aren't more popular.
Conejito's Place
The best place to eat Mexican food on a budget in Milwaukee is here. Food and drinks are cheap and the atmosphere is one of the best in the city as far as Mexican restaurants go.
Zaffiro's
Great old-fashioned pizza place that hasn't been changed in decades. Has a bar, too.
George Webb's
A scuzzy, cheap local diner chain, known for the two clocks next to each other in each restaurant usually unsynchronized. The food isn't great, but its unbelieveably cheap and the mix of people is usually an experience in itself. The greenish chicken-flavored soup is strangely popular.
Midrange
Comet Cafe
Try the Cheesy Tomato Sandwich.
The Safe House
An elaborate spy themed restaurant that is infamous for requiring a password to enter. You enter through an alley, and can gain access even without the password, but you will be required to act silly to convince them to allow entrance. Once inside you will find a great spy museum including numerous gadgets and displays. As you eat you will be able to watch video monitors of other patrons acting silly to gain entrance, just as you did.
The majority of mid-range, non-chain places within Downtown are located on Milwaukee Street or near Cathedral Square east of the river.
On the East Side, you can head over to the intersection of North and Farwell Avenues, where you'll find local favorites like Beans & Barley healthy/organic, Pizza Man burned to the ground in early 2010, Von Trier's German, the BBC bar & grill, and the Twisted Fork pasta. Louisa's is also a great Italian restaurant.
A bit farther up Oakland Ave near Locust Street near the UW-Milwaukee Campus, you'll find an exciting variety of restaurants including the Oakland Trattoria Mediterranean, Sharazad Middle Eastern, Lula's Cafe East African, Thai Kitchen, and Oakland Gyros Greek.
The Third Ward has a number of different places, some with river-side seating in the summer such as the Milwaukee Ale House on Water Street. Coquette Cafe on Milwaukee Street is the owned by the same chef as the critically acclaimed Sanford.
Kinnickinnic Avenue in Bay View is also lined with different places, including local favorite Lulu at Howell, and Honeypie Midwestern comfort food with locally sourced ingredients.
National Avenue around 6th Street has a number of different Mexican restaurants, although they can also be found throughout the entire south side.
Top end
Mader's Restaurant
Provides traditional German cuisine in a fancy, historic atmosphere.
Mimma's Cafe
Serves a sometimes Americanized version of Italian cuisine alongside authentic recipes. The atmosphere is lovely - a bit formal, yet warm. In addition to every pasta you can imagine it comes with an excellent array of wines, albeit expensive.
Mo's A Place for Steaks
One of three national locations, the others being in Houston and Indianapolis.
Sanford
Zagat-rated in the top 11 restaurants in the U.S. with a near perfect score of 29. It is the only restaurant in the state to achieve that honor and is widely considered to be the top restaurant in Milwaukee.
The Capital Grille Milwaukee
Bakeries
Peter Sciortino's Bakery
A Milwaukee classic for Italian bread and macaroons. Also check out the Italian grocery Glorioso’s, kitty-corner.
Canfora
A relic of one of Milwaukee’s original Italian neighborhoods. This was the sort of place the Italian communists and anarchists probably fought over, back in the day.
Part of Milwaukee’s food culture is high expectations and hard-set habits when it comes to bread and sweets. Eat your way through Milwaukee immigrant history, without even having a meal.
Bella Bakery
The best Polish place, seems closed for now. There are a couple Polish delis in the neighborhood with stuff from Chicago, though.
Lopez
There are three South Side locations of this popular local Mexican chain. Good stuff.
Mekato’s
Columbian Bakery? Of course, this is Milwaukee. It’s also a café-restaurant.
Custard
Northpoint
Right at Bradford Beach. It’s a relative newcomer, but has made a name for itself.
Gilles
Milwaukee's oldest custard stand.
Of course the largest city in America’s Dairyland has perfected its own style of turning milk into frozen enjoyment. Custard is not-your-daddy’s soft-serve. Its thick- made fresh with egg yolks and lots of cream so there are only a few flavor choices: vanilla, flavor of the day, and maybe chocolate. Oh, and don’t call it ice cream.
Leon’s
A great neon-covered drive-up. Its not chain, they keep things focused on the custard, shakes and malts. A cone is only $1.25!
Kitt’s
A nice retro drive-in on the Westside.
There are a handful of other places to get custard in and around the city. Most people have a favorite but will settle for anything, its hard to go wrong.
With its immigrant heritage, Milwaukee is a major restaurant city. Good local restaurants serve almost every kind of food imaginable, usually quite cheaply. Different neighborhoods have different specialities when it comes to food. List of locations that Milwaukeans selected as their favorites viewed here (http://www.milwaukeesbest.org).
Old World Third St along and just west of the Milwaukee River provides a richer variety of restaurants and also many of the more upscale restaurants and clubs in town. Traditional Germanic and Mediterranean foods are the highlights.
Milwaukee St, between Wisconsin and Wells Sts., offers many trendy and top rated restaurants in the city as well as an upscale nightlife for the after dinner drink.
The east side also has many nice restaurants, bakeries, and cafes. Most places are clustered on Farwell, North, or Brady Streets.
The Fifth Ward and South Side contain many different authentic and cheap Mexican and Latin American restaurants.
Bay View has a variety of different kinds of places, especially with regards to "hip" comfort food.