The Best Places in Juneau Town & Downtown

A short, ever-changing menu of Spanish and Portuguese cooking in a cozy downtown dining room, where piri piri chicken gets finished with Wisconsin cheese without anyone apologizing for it. The chef is a James Beard Outstanding Chef semifinalist, and the kitchen takes dessert as seriously as the savory courses, which not every serious restaurant bothers to do. The kind of place where you eat things you won't find anywhere else in the city.

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Best Chef: Midwest · Gregory León
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Best Chef: Midwest · Gregory León
3. James Beard Awards 2025 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Chef · Gregory León

The wood-fired octopus and French-Italian Riviera menu signal the ambitions clearly: this is fine dining, downtown Milwaukee, with tablecloths to match. Adam Siegel, who holds a James Beard Best Chef Midwest award for earlier work, shapes a kitchen that leans toward the sun-drenched coast without ever feeling like a theme. A James Beard nominee for Best New Restaurant, it draws the kind of crowd that books ahead and doesn't check the prices twice.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Nominee · Best New Restaurant
3. Milwaukee Magazine The Best Restaurants in Milwaukee

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
2. OnMilwaukee Top picks in Metro Milwaukee

Every cocktail on the menu comes in a spirited or spirit-free version, which sounds like a gimmick until you're sipping something smoky and elaborate at midnight with nothing to dread by morning. This plush cocktail lounge inside the Dubbel Dutch Hotel leans into big ice, smoked drinks, and deadpan drink names, "garnished with disaster" being an actual garnish note. A James Beard nominee for Best New Bar in 2025.

1. James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Best New Bar
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Zarletti was here before Milwaukee Street figured out it was fancy, and it's been quietly setting the standard ever since. This is a proper Italian restaurant, the kind where the pasta is house-made and the osso buco arrives without apology. The room runs warm and the service is polished without being precious, which is harder to pull off than it sounds in a neighborhood that now has valet parking.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

1. Midwest Living 2024 · Best of the Midwest

1. Milwaukee Magazine The Best Restaurants in Milwaukee

1. OnMilwaukee Top picks in Metro Milwaukee

1. OnMilwaukee Top picks in Metro Milwaukee

1. OnMilwaukee Top picks in Metro Milwaukee

1. OnMilwaukee Top picks in Metro Milwaukee