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. Their jumbo burgers have the charry-edged, beefy, buttery finish that all nouveau diner flattops yearn for. They are housed in a starchy soft bun, 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 your 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 been host to a presidential campaign rally and nominated for a State Farm Building Blocks Award. On a quotidian level, it soothes with balms like gourmet popcorn, spring rolls, barbecue, chicken wings from Brooklyn-based Buffalo Boss, and a smattering of culture, wellness, and fashion tenants whose offerings range from art therapy to airbrushed sneakers.

After the big boys that made Milwaukee famous, and before the boom of third-wave craft brewers sprouting up in the past decade, Lakefront was the most ubiquitous local beer of area bars and liquor stores. Nowadays you’re not really a Milwaukeean until you’ve taken one of their famous tours or tried their live polka-fueled Friday fish fry. They keep things fresh with stunts like a rotating weekly “curd of the day” and romantic private chalet dinners overlooking the fermentation cellar.

Since 1975, this nondescript, low-slung, windowless Walnut Street spot has blown plumes of porky smoke over the near North Side, eliciting a Pavlovian response from anyone within nose-shot. The kitchen utilizes the recipes of Betty Gillespie, the originator of the restaurant’s name and meat matriarch who first started serving food at an old hay market in the mid-’50s. Today her son, Giovanni, oversees the sprawling open fire charcoal pit. The style is a marriage between Kansas City and Memphis, and acolytes prize pieces of pork shoulder and, if available, outside shoulder. The restaurant finishes every styrofoam-boxed bounty with a liberal pour of delightfully goopy, nearly fluorescent sauce that assures the meat will stick to your ribs. Speed Queen is ideal for game time, sobering up, family feasts, or any time you need to pig out. If you can’t make it to Bronzeville, the restaurant’s sauces are available in bottled form throughout much of Wisconsin.

Chef-owner Dane Baldwin was named this year’s James Beard Award winner for best chef in the Midwest, a loud recognition of this quietly elegant East Side nook. True to its name, the restaurant strikes a diplomatic balance between classy and comfortable. The dining room welcomes couples on date nights with Negronis, chicken leg confit, and octopus with olive romesco, while also catering to simpler, lizard brain appetites with the infamous Diplomac, a pristinely chef-ified recreation of a Big Mac. Baldwin’s prestige has helped restore some of the luster to Brady Street, making it once again a beacon for grown-up dining.

Back when you had to have an actual book to know a restaurant’s Zagat score and a landline to make a dinner reservation, San-ford were the two syllables that spelled special occasion fine dining in Milwaukee. Along with his wife, Angie, CIA-trained Sandy D’Amato opened the restaurant tucked away in the Lower East Side in 1989, cornering the local market on white tablecloths, big city service, and finely tuned new American fare: seared foie gras, molasses-glazed quail, peperonata fennel-dusted duck breast, and ultra-rare $200 bottles of Goose Island. Since 2012, it’s been run by D’Amato’s longtime chef de cuisine, Justin Aprahamian, with his wife, Sarah. The couple continues the tradition of excellence, and they keep the city’s foremost fine dining destination cool and quiet.

You can pick a Bartolotta Restaurant Group spot for any upscale craving: contemporary new American (Bacchus), high-end French (Lake Park Bistro), dinner with a view (Harbor House), supper clubbing (Joey Gerard’s), steak (Mr. B’s), a rumpus (Rumpus Room). But for white tablecloth classicism and rustic Italian soul — hand-rolled pasta with almond pesto, bucatini, house-made ravioli, seafood stew, braised rabbit leg, tiramisu — the family’s Wauwatosa Village flagship has remained an inviting favorite for nearly 30 years.

As one-handable, self-contained protein pockets with endless variations, empanadas may be the perfect drinking snack. Triciclo banked on this theory, setting up shop for a residency at the Humboldt Park Beer Garden before launching a Washington Park-adjacent brick-and-mortar in late 2019. Now they can also be found at Zocalo Food Truck Park and the Crossroads Collective, and their menu has expanded to include pisco cocktails, ceviche, and Peruvian entrees like arroz con mariscos. Snag supplies for your next few meals from the welcoming bar on Vliet Street: take-and-bake packs of frozen empanadas in inspired flavors, from classic (shredded chicken, olive, raisin, boiled egg), to new age (soy chorizo), back to hometown (breakfast sausage, egg, Wisconsin cheddar). Don’t forget the cilantro sauce.

Before Milwaukee Street was a bastion of valet parking, special occasion dining, and well-heeled out-of-towners, there was Zarletti. From appetizers like crostini misti and housemade burrata, to the ravioli and ragu of the day, to the osso buco and classic Bolognese, chef Brian Zarletti has turned family recipes into a restaurant that is both classy and warm, refined and comfortable. It’s a corner spot from a Billy Joel song, reminding everyone that top shelf service doesn’t have to be stuffy, that a neighborhood vibe can still be found in trendy, striving downtown, and that there is no better dish than a well-made carbonara.

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. A James Beard nomination for best chef Midwest and this buzzy downtown nook of a restaurant is the result, with warm vibes, deep Spanish and Portuguese flavors, and a short, ever-changing menu that’s saucy and risky but still homey. A bistro filet comes with piquillo pepper steak sauce, a halibut with saffron tomato sauce, it’s maybe 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 slinging 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 wot 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.

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 onion, and diced jalapenos, the eponymous house burger is a consistent ideal. The Marquette campus-area 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.

Mornings at this unassuming cafeteria counter kiosk, in the lobby of the Third Ward’s Landmark Building, bring a rotating lineup of decadent pillowy doughnut pockets: luxuriant buttercream bombs, the trademark PB&J, buttermilk rings topped with sprinkles. In the evenings, the sweets give way to charry and chewy artisanal pizza. Sourdough crusts are teamed with San Marzano tomatoes and local cheeses, then finished in an 850-degree oven. Pies might feature Ezzo pepperoni, fennel sausage, or house mozz.

While it’s near impossible to have bad cheese curds in Milwaukee — fried at a gastropub, on a Bloody Mary skewer from the nearest dive, out of a bag at any local gas station cooler — the boldest in town are made at this Walker’s Point urban cheese factory. Try the quark, the chevre, or a next level grilled cheese. Curds are served fresh Tuesday through Thursday, when they come out extra creamy and audibly squeaky between your teeth — the way God, and Wisconsin farmers, intended.

Options in this Walker’s Point food truck park run from tacos to arepas, pizza to bagels, burgers to sushi. Pop-ups have also featured Flour Girl & Flame wood-fired pizza and holiday libations from Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge in mini, heated greenhouses. No matter the season or your appetite though, Zocalo offers harmonious, communal, laid back revelry. It’s an inspiring glimpse of restaurants working together and vivaciously co-existing.

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. Now owner Peter Sandroni offers worldly brunch dishes at the Barack Obama-approved Engine Company No. 3, but his flagship will always serve Milwaukee’s quintessential shareable goods: pork and shrimp tostadas, seared trout, empanadas, duck confit poutine. Chinese pork loin rubs shoulders copacetically with lamb bolognese, and goat cheese curds in chorizo cream sauce go with just about anything.

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 deep, earthy flavors. Of special note is the bistec en chile de arbol, tender, scraggly scraps of steak in a scorching red 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 fire.

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, chili 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.

Chef-owner Dave Swanson’s Braise has been at the forefront of all things hip since opening in 2011. It offers cooking classes ranging from beginner to 10-week bootcamp, private rooftop greenhouse dining, farm dinners, and locally and house-sourced groceries. It’s also just a restaurant where an ever-changing menu skips through pork buns, grilled asparagus arepas, and chicken coconut curry. There is such attention to detail that even the house-made ciabatta and whipped butter can feel transcendent. Braise is clearly Milwaukee’s infuriatingly talented overachiever.

What began as a feel good story — a restaurant opened and operated by refugees of the Syrian civil war — has quickly morphed into the South Side’s go-to spot for Middle Eastern basics like hummus and kababs, everyday comforts like cheese pies and Turkish coffee, and signature Syrian dishes featuring chickpeas, bulgur, and the better part of a spice rack. Mujaddara and kibbeh are must-order highlights year round, while Ramadan usually brings orders of whole lambs, stuffed with rice or freekeh, enough to feed 40 lucky friends.

Flour might come first in the name, but the wood flame is the real star of this semi-mobile pizza operation; the fire is housed in a 900-degree oven, a hellraiser from central Maine that imbues a smoky singe to everything it touches. From standard pepperoni pies, to over easy-topped breakfast numbers, to Wednesday-night-only Detroit-style specials with racing stripes of tomato sauce and scorched crust, every heavily blistered beauty feels readymade for the ‘gram. They recently opened a takeaway outpost in West Allis, where they grow their own herbs and make hot honey sourced from bees on the building’s roof.

While pastor can be found on most any Mexican menu in town, it’s rare to find a proper spinning trompo of marinated, pineapple-hatted pork, roasting and ready to be hand-carved for a ride in a warm corn tortilla. Seek out one of three Taqueria La Guelaguetza trucks, which billow fragrant smoke and inspire lines even in cold weather. The salty, crispy pig meat is ideal, especially draped with optional pickled onion and habanero, and coated with smoky red or creamy green salsa. Triple down on your enjoyment with an alambre: a mountainous combo plate that bonds pastor, asada, and bacon with peppers and stretchy, melting queso.

A large proportion of Milwaukee’s Mexican community trace their roots to Michoacan, including Jose Luis Mejia, owner of Carnitas Don Lucho. The restaurant, open only on weekends, rewards diners with its eponymous lard-fried pork dish, which regulars take away by the pound. But don’t mistake this as simply a carry-out spot. Perfectly spiced chorizo, barbacoa, haggis-like montalayo, house-made tortillas, and too many salsas to count make this a comfortable spot to sit and savor the delicious lull between Friday and Sunday.

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 knowledgeable waitstaff and craft (but unfussy) cocktails are the same in the new digs, powering dinners that might include lamb quesabirria, wood-fired octopus, or Szechuan egg noodles. Start with raw oysters or charcuterie, and then trust your server’s advice from there.

You’ll be hit by the homey mood at the door of this old Schlitz tavern,which smells like grandma’s house when she’s been cooking all day. Tucked away in a still-quiet nook of Bay View, the Serbian stalwart features cash-only dinners and 45-plus-minute waits for flaky bourek, both indicative of a night out in a different time. The flavors on the dinner menu run the gamut: Serbian salad, goulash, moussaka, chicken paprikash, roasted goose, chevapchichi (beef sausages). It’s meat-and-potato Eastern European fare for fighting off winter.

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: duck and bacon sausage with hollandaise aioli, Nashville hot chicken sausage, pork belly and pimento sandwiches, outrageously lavish burgers made with sausage patties 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 laidback spirit.

While Colectivo boldy spreads its coffee-cupping tentacles toward Madison and Chicago, Anodyne continues to quiety fine-tune small batch single-source roasts in the quest to become the ideal neighborhood cafe with the perfect pour. Stockpile beans and homebrew accoutrement, sip a nitro-line cold-brew (arguably the best non-alcoholic beverage in town), or grab a wood fire-kissed Neapolitan pie out of the Stefano oven at the bustling Bay View outpost.

“Plant-based” takes on a new, fun meaning at this weed-themed vegan burger joint that sprouted in a quiet corner of Cudahy and recently opened a second location amidst the bustle of Brady Street. You don’t have to smoke anything to feel lifted by the Superbad (onions, jalapenos, chipotle ranch), Pineapple Express (chipotle mayo, grilled pineapple), or the Up in Smoke (plant-based bacon and smokehouse sauce). The restaurant treats vegetarians (and pleasantly surprised carnivores) to soft pretzel buns, careful topping ratios, waffle fries, and skillful imposter burger patties, along with salads, cauliflower bites, and shakes.