Spend a weekend exploring Brew Metropolis! This information contains every thing from Milwaukee vegan eating places and breweries to upscale eating.
Plus, enjoyable issues to do to fill your time between meals. (The Bronze Fonz provides it two thumbs up!)
If the identify Milwaukee makes you consider Blissful Days, Laverne & Shirley, double brat hats, and cheese curds, you might be in for a scrumptious shock.
There’s far more than meets the attention to Wisconsin’s most populous metropolis.
With a downtown RiverWalk that’s harking back to the one in Chicago, Milwaukee has an analogous outward look to the Windy Metropolis. However the normal vibe in Milwaukee is extra relaxed.
It appears like a smaller metropolis however with massive metropolis facilities – together with a thriving vegan meals scene. It’s flush with plant-based choices like vegan quick meals, handmade seitan bratwurst, and even a Gardein-based Friday barbeque.
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Twisted Vegetation
If vegan consolation meals/quick meals is what you crave, get to one of many places of Twisted Vegetation.
You’ll discover one on Brady Road in Milwaukee, and one other in Cudahy, Wisconsin. (Additionally they had the primary vegan meals stand on the Wisconsin State Honest in 2023!)
They’ve indulgent appetizers, burgers and sandwiches (they use Past patties for the burgers), ice cream, and shakes at this informal eatery.
I’m at all times so tempted by vegan mozzarella sticks each time they’re an possibility!
The mozz sticks are crispy on the skin and gooey on the within. They arrive with marinara for dipping. So good! My solely quibble is that it could be good if the marinara was served heat.
Dazed and Confused (4-piece vegan drummies) comes with ranch dressing for dipping.
They’ll toss them in sauce, or you’ll be able to have the sauces on the aspect to dip your self. (I acquired each barbecue and buffalo sauces to differ my bites.)
Soul Airplane (crispy breaded vegan rooster sandwich) is topped with pickles, lettuce, and tomato. It’s completed with chipotle ranch, and served with waffle fries.
Useless Chicken Brewing
Useless Chicken Brewing is a vegan restaurant and brewery with arcade video games aplenty, and an out of doors patio.
Along with beer, they provide non-alcoholic drinks & engaging cocktails.
To go together with your drink of selection, they provide a wealth of snacking choices – together with warmed olives, tender pretzels, and pizza.
On The Bus
Milwaukee Public Market is a big meals corridor with retailers in stalls promoting spices, sauces, mustards, wine, and native specialties. There are eating places and bakeries.
You’ll know you’ve reached the fitting place on this indoor market whenever you see a small VW bus, dwelling to On The Bus, an all-vegan eatery.
They’ve sandwiches & burgers aplenty, smoothies, shakes, and home made oat milk ice cream.
Should you love vegan reubens, you’ll need to strive theirs.
This corned beef-style seitan sandwich is stacked with sauerkraut, aged vegan cheddar, and Russian dressing on toasted rye bread. It’s nice with bus fries and ranch dressing for dipping.
For one thing on the lighter aspect, seize a blueberry smoothie.
This refreshing drink is flecked with berries and crammed with bananas, almond butter, dates, and oat milk.
I’ve additionally heard good issues concerning the Cuban sandwich, in addition to the basil pesto sandwich.
For dessert, deal with your self to a strawberry shake or scoop of oat milk ice cream. (This pistachio taste was a seasonal particular.)
On The Bus additionally sells some grocery-type objects like cookies, bars, and snacks.
Be warned that On The Bus particularly & the Public Market generally will get busy on the weekends. Be ready to attend in your order.
There are picnic tables for eating outdoors. Or if you happen to’d desire to dine indoors, seize a glass of Rioja at Thief Wine when you wait in your On the Bus order. Then eat your sandwich there when it’s prepared. Additionally they have extra normal seating upstairs.
Beerline Café
One restaurant I by no means miss after I go to Milwaukee is Beerline Cafe. It’s a quick informal vegetarian restaurant with indoor & outside seating.
Just about every thing on the menu might be made vegan with some substitutions. They’re open for breakfast and lunch. On Saturdays, they’re open for dinner.
The spartichoke crepes are crammed with sautéed spinach, artichokes, and vegan smoked gouda. The crepes are topped with a smattering of walnuts.
Who wants English muffins when you would have hashbrowns for the bottom of a Benedict?
This hashbrown Benny is a vegan eggs Benedict with baked tofu ham and tofu scramble on hash browns. The tofu ham is splendidly toothsome & smoky. It’s drenched with vegan hollandaise sauce.
It’s served alongside roasted asparagus.
The Ethiopian lentil & candy potato wrap is made with berbere seasoned lentils, candy potatoes, lettuce, and tomato with garlic cucumber tzatziki in a grilled flour tortilla.
The breakfast wrap is loaded with rosemary potatoes and seasoned tofu, and a drizzling of vegan nacho cheese in a grilled tortilla. It’s served with chipotle-jalapeño salsa.
Flavorful chickpea chorizo tacos are topped with jalapeño cheese, cashew lime crema, and sliced avocado.
The loaded nachos are prime notch.
They’re piled excessive with queso, black beans, chickpea chorizo, avocado, and pico de gallo. They’re completed with a zigzag of cashew lime crema.
(See the nachos in motion on this Instagram reel.)
I’ve additionally heard raves concerning the cinnamon roll pancakes.
The Lafayette Place
Each inch of The Lafayette Place is Instagrammable. (It’s within the former location of vegan restaurant, Celesta.)
They’ve really made probably the most of their small area, which is heat, inviting, and superbly adorned.
This vegan restaurant is open for brunch and lunch.
It will even be a pleasant place to order a espresso, and work remotely. There are plug-ins extensively accessible by the bar and sure tables.
The traditional is a sampler-style platter with tofu scramble, two Not possible sausages, crispy potatoes, sliced tomatoes, avocado, and toasted sourdough.
The seasonings on the scramble are on the gentle aspect. The flavour could possibly be bumped up for my tastes. And the sausages can be higher browned.
However it’s nonetheless a filling and engaging begin to the day.
Don’t go away with out getting one thing from the pastry case.
The oatmeal cream pie took me again to consuming Little Debbie’s in highschool for breakfast.
And the zebra cake is phenomenal.
One other Little Debbie’s-inspired dessert, it’s tremendous moist and layered with a cream filling.
Odd Duck
For a elaborate evening out, Odd Duck is certainly one of my favorites. It’s a high-end, vegan-friendly foodie place that focuses on small plates.
Whereas they’ve loads of non-vegan choices, scroll proper throughout them to the “vegetable” part of the menu, the place veganizable choices are marked with a V.
(Take into account, their menu modifications with the season. So what you see on the menu will differ from what’s proven right here. Sadly, they don’t submit their present menu anyplace on-line.)
The fennel & citrus roasted olives are served chilly. I like savoring the buttery bites of fennel.
Crispy tempura oyster mushrooms are topped with cucumber.
They’re positioned on a cooked daikon radish. The flavour is a cross between a potato and an artichoke.
The garlic cauliflower is superbly toasty. True to its identify, it pops with the spherical flavors of garlic.
It’s served on farro with dilly beans for distinction, inexperienced goddess dressing, and breadcrumbs.
The South Indian sambar has layered & intoxicating flavors. There’s scrumptious crunch, together with spicy lentils.
It’s served with idli rice truffles. Then it’s completed with inexperienced chili chutney and cilantro.
After I visited for my birthday as soon as, they topped my vegan cheesecake with a candle, and included glasses of complimentary champagne. Such a considerate contact!
Should you yearn for a vegan effective eating expertise, positively discover your solution to Odd Duck. They area out the dishes completely, main from lighter dishes throughout an indulgent dessert.
Vanguard
Vanguard is a non-vegan restaurant that makes a speciality of sausages.
They’ve a number of handmade seitan sausage choices. They make all of them in-house, which is at all times a lot cooler than pre-packaged.
Along with their indoor eating area, they’ve a pleasant little patio out again.
The vegan sausages might be topped in a wide range of methods with issues like onions, chilly or sizzling sauerkraut, sizzling giardinera, relish, and sport peppers.
The vegan brat is seasoned with nutmeg, ginger, garlic, and mustard seed. It’s scrumptious topped with chilly sauerkraut and a squeeze of mustard.
The skin is delightfully crusty across the edges, and the flavors are on level.
Different scrumptious dishes embrace:
- Vegan Italian with relish & onions
- Vegan schnitzelwurst
- Vegan chorizo sausage served Tijuana-style
- Vegan chili cheese fries with pickled jalapeños
Undoubtedly make room for the chili cheese fries!
It has a mouthwatering spicy-but-not-hot taste combined with swirls of non-dairy cheddar.
I’ve additionally heard good issues concerning the burnt ginger tofu.
Alem Ethiopian Village
If consolation meals to you is vegetable and lentil-packed stews on prime of spongy injera bread, you’ve acquired to go to Alem Ethiopian Village.
Situated in downtown Milwaukee, this informal restaurant is each inexpensive and scrumptious. Once you’re craving easy, healthful meals in a quiet environment, that is the place you could go.
Though it’s a non-vegan restaurant, there’s a full vegan part on the menu.
Sadly, the lentil sambusas, my ordinary Ethiopian appetizer choose, aren’t vegan right here.
However you’ll be able to select lentil soup as an alternative. It’s made with purple lentils in a tomato broth.
For the principle course, I like to recommend the veggie combo.
You get to pattern many of the vegan choices on the menu with a spicy lentil stew, gentle yellow cut up peas, garlicky collard greens, and steamed cabbage with potatoes & carrots.
My husband and I shared the combo, and it was simply the fitting measurement for 2. If you need leftovers or have a giant urge for food, you would possibly need to double up.
City Beets
Simply outdoors of Milwaukee, you could find City Beets, a vegan cafe and juicery with places in Brown Deer and Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
The Brown Deer location is lovely and ethereal. It’s in a renovated location of a former automotive wash.
They’ve a wide range of breakfast choices like French toast casserole and carrot lox, burgers, sandwiches, and bowls.
I can’t resist a breakfast sandwich, particularly when home made biscuits are concerned. It comes with a tender chickpea egg and provolone (though mine seemed to be cheddar). I additionally added certainly one of their housemade sausage patties, which is bean-based.
As a result of the biscuit, chickpea egg, and sausage are all fairly tender, the sandwich acquired fairly gluey after I was consuming it. I’d order one thing totally different subsequent time.
The barbacoa jackfruit nachos are topped with a corn cheese sauce that’s harking back to creamed corn. The nachos are sprinkled with black beans, tomatoes, and a bitter cream drizzle.
They’re very tasty, and a beneficiant portion that’s good for sharing. (The nachos are supposed to return with avocado, however ours was MIA.)
Babe’s Ice Cream
Babe’s Ice Cream is a non-vegan scoop store with a variety of vegan choices. All of their non-dairy ice lotions are oat-based. (Previously, they’ve had ice lotions with different bases, as proven in these footage.)
Along with commonplace scoops, vegans can order shakes, ice cream sandwiches, ice cream cake slices, brownies, and cookies.
Vegan ice cream sundaes might be made with one topping, whipped cream, and a cherry. Or you’ll be able to take pleasure in a brownie sundae or a banana cut up.
After I tried a pattern of the Door County cherry crisp, it was fairly icy, prefer it had been within the freezer too lengthy. (Possibly the turnover isn’t nice?)
However then I ordered it in a shake with soy milk, and that made it creamy once more. It was completed with a beneficiant swirl of whipped cream.
Scrumptious! Particularly the bites that included each mild & fluffy whipped cream and shake.
(After you’ve completed your ice cream, wander down the road to Voyageur E book Store to fulfill the polydactyl cat, Bustopher Jones!)
Ian’s Pizza
Ian’s Pizza is an informal order-at-the-counter type pizzeria. This chain has three places in Milwaukee, along with eating places in Denver, Madison, and Seattle.
At their downtown Milwaukee location, they’ve old style video video games upstairs, in addition to tables & paper plates for eating in.
Their focus is on pizza by the slice. However it’s also possible to order entire pizzas.
They’ve a lot of fascinating vegan specialty pizzas like mac & cheese, gyro, Philly cheese steak, taco, macho nacho, and roasted cauliflower pesto.
They make their very own seitan pepperoni and walnut sausage in home (proven above on a pizza with mushrooms and Good Planet mozzarella).
With a light, straightforward taste & foldable crust, it’s what you’d count on from a New York-style by-the-slice pizza joint.
Café Corazon
When a restaurant has vegan chilaquiles on the menu, it’s principally as in the event that they despatched me a handwritten invitation. I’m RSVP-ing with a vehement sure.
There are two places of Café Corazon. They each serve breakfast 7 days per week till 3 pm. Loads of time to sleep in and nonetheless get your brunch on.
The restaurant has an uber informal vibe with plastic tablecloths and a menu taped to the desk. Additionally they have outside patio seating.
The vegan chilaquiles (above) are generously portioned.
They’re made with fried corn tortilla chips, tofu scramble, and black beans smothered in purple & inexperienced enchilada sauce. (The inexperienced sauce is definitely the most effective!)
The chilaquiles come together with your selection of vegan protein.
I went with the soy chorizo, which tastes precisely just like the one which’s a staple on my Dealer Joe’s grocery listing. I’d say it was the dominant taste of the chilaquiles.
The vegan tofu scrambler is made with herbed tofu and soy chorizo with rice, black beans, and tortillas.
Add extra decadence to the plate & add an order of fried plantains.
At all times so good! Crisp on the skin & candy on the within.
The vegan finest burrito is crammed with an assortment of sautéed greens together with broccoli, black beans, soy chorizo, rice, and avocado in a flour tortilla.
It’s topped with each purple and inexperienced enchilada sauce.
The vegan taco plate comes together with your selection of vegan protein (mushrooms right here!), black beans, cilantro, radishes, onions, and tomatoes.
You additionally get your leafy greens in with a salad on the aspect, which is a pleasant complement to the heavier consolation fare.
Should you’re feeling like a margarita to go together with your meal, I hear theirs are wonderful.
Unusual City
Unusual City is a vegan small plates tapas-style restaurant. Though the costs are on the excessive aspect, the vibe within the restaurant is ethereal and casual.
Don’t really feel like it’s important to put on an uncomfortable costume or tight-fitting sneakers, because the employees is all dressed very casually.
The slim menu contains about 10 objects + desserts. They suggest ordering about 4 plates for a full dinner.
Take into account that their eclectic menu modifications usually. So what you see right here will likely be totally different from what’s accessible whenever you go.
The air fried egg rolls are crammed with lion’s mane mushrooms, kelp noodles, cabbage, and a ton of ginger, which is the dominant taste.
It’s served with a black vinegar & apricot sauce.
We acquired two egg rolls that had been slightly burnt, and had been minimize in half.
The patatas bravas had been made with boiled cubed potatoes on romesco sauce. They had been completed with a drizzle of cashew cream and a smattering of flower petals.
The flavour was okay. However it could have been good if the potatoes had been browned and crispy.
Sadly, the standard of the dishes didn’t line up with the price. Particularly for a small plates restaurant, the place you’re paying for the expertise as a lot as something.
Possibly I used to be simply there on an off evening or didn’t order the fitting issues, however I wouldn’t hurry again.
Kegel’s Inn
Friday barbeque is a well-liked custom within the Higher Midwest. Vegans can participate with a plant-based providing at Kegel’s Inn.
Kegel’s is a German restaurant that has been open because the 1920’s. They’ve an out of doors beer backyard with a festive vibe.
Kegel’s vegan barbeque basket contains three Gardein fishless filets, french fries, and tartar sauce.
Gardein fishless filets are a staple in my freezer. (Good for vegan fish tacos!) Kegel’s Inn did an particularly good job of frying them. They had been piping sizzling & scrumptious, and completed with a squeeze of lemon. The purple coleslaw on the aspect had a tangy candy & bitter taste that wasn’t my favourite.
On their weekday menu, they’ve two extra vegan choices – a Past burger with slaw and a Past brat with slaw. (The brat is served with slaw, as a result of sadly, Kegel’s sauerkraut isn’t vegan.)
It’s good that they’ve just a few choices for vegans. And the outside beer backyard feels historic & enjoyable.
Milwaukee tourism concepts
Want one thing to do between eating at the most effective vegan eating places in Milwaukee?
Lakeshore State Park
At any time when I’m going to Milwaukee, I’ve to go to Lakeshore State Park, a 22-acre park adjoining to the Milwaukee Artwork Museum.
With paths for strolling and biking, it’s so picturesque with views of Lake Michigan and town skyline.
There’s a pleasant vibe with a lot of households and pals out having fun with the surroundings. Through the summer season, you’ll usually hear stay music close by.
It’s normally not exhausting to search out free road parking. And if all else fails, there are a number of paid heaps.
Turn out to be an artwork aficionado
Talking of the Milwaukee Artwork Museum, that’s an excellent place to go in its personal proper! Search for work by Georgia O’Keeffe and Andy Warhol, amongst others.
This eye-catching constructing is a spectacle to behold – each in and out. It has wings that transfer up and/or down when the museum opens, closes, and at midday.
Professional tip: On Thursday nights throughout the summer season, the museum is pay-what-you-wish. There’s additionally cocktails and leisure. It’s a extremely enjoyable & festive vibe!
Convey your Aaaaaaaay sport
Should you’re a fan of traditional tv, make your means up the Milwaukee RiverWalk to see the Bronze Fonz. (I wish to park by the Milwaukee Public Market and stroll up from there.)
The Bronze Fonz is open day-after-day of the week – Sunday, Monday, Blissful Days…
It’s a pleasant stroll in its personal proper. And you then get to seize a pic with the best bike using, diner-loving man of the 1950’s from the 1970’s.
Get away from all of it
Don’t go away the Milwaukee space with out visiting certainly one of their stunning seashores. I like to recommend going to Docs Park in close by Fox Level, Wisconsin.
Search for the signal that claims, “Service Highway to Seashore.” Then comply with it right down to Lake Michigan and stroll alongside the stone-lined seashore.
The water is countless & blue. It feels extra like an ocean than a lake.
(Should you’re hungry afterwards, vegan restaurant City Beets is about ten minutes away in Brown Deer, Wisconsin.)
Extra seashore choices: Atwater Seashore comes extremely really helpful. Bradford Seashore is a favourite however can get crowded.
Sightseeing cruises
Need to get on the water as an alternative?
There are a number of sightseeing cruises that go down the river and into Lake Michigan.
The sundown cruises are particularly beautiful for watching the lights come up all around the metropolis.
Mitchell Park Domes
Should you’re a plant lover, head to Mitchell Park Domes. This indoor botanical backyard options vegetation from the desert and tropics, in addition to a dome centered on flowers.
Botanical gardens are so beautiful within the winter months when the outside are lined in snow and ice. Plus, throughout the holidays, they’ve a lightweight present that sounds enjoyable.
Remember that in the summertime, it may well get fairly sizzling & muggy inside.
When studying different opinions on-line, most individuals stated to permit for an hour or two to go to all three domes. We had been comfortably achieved in 20 minutes. So your consideration could differ.
Content material up to date July 29, 2024. Initially posted October 16, 2021.