Amilinda — Restaurant in Milwaukee

We were excited for our reservation to dine at Amalinda on our weekend trip from Minneapolis as the menu looked excellent and we had seen the recent accolades. We drove in to Milwaukee and were ready for a good dinner after 5+ hours on the road. Even being a few minutes late after our drive, we still waited 20 mins to be seated. Staff seemed short a person and very discombobulated. It took 30 minutes to receive our first drinks, 45 minutes until we were able to order. As we were ordering, now close to 8:45pm from what was supposed to be a 7:30 seating, we were told 4 of the 6 entrees were sold out, which seems like incredibly poor planning for a busy restaurant on a Friday night. We declined entrees as we don’t prefer the only two things that were left beef tongue or halibut. Hungry and not knowing what to do as we were surprised by the no entrees after waiting so long, we told them to bring the starters and tried figure out where else we could go to eat. After some scrambling the staff found a couple extra portions of short ribs, which was not what we had planned to order but we appreciated the effort and both ordered them.our starters arrived and the romaine and tuna salads were mediocre, particularly the romaine was extremely bitter without any balance and the tuna seemed out of a can. Our waitress was checked out and spent more time looking anxious and fiddling around behind the bar than checking in on guests. We both would have ordered a glass of wine with starters but she was nowhere to be found to put in the order. Once we did put in for a glass of red and a beer, it took an extraordinary amount of time to pour one glass of wine and b ring over a can of beer with a glass. The short ribs were extremely difficult to eat. They were an extremely large portion of bland meat and the sauce was too scarce to add flavor to this lacking dish. The small serving vessel made it difficult to navigate the bones to get to the grits underneath, which were the best part. Frankly, we were absolutely appalled by the staff’s lack of care for us as guests and won’t recommend this dining experience to anyone.

EDIT: I see the response to my review below. The restaurant hounded me by phone while I was trying to enjoy a weekend away. I do appreciate them reaching out but the level at which they did so was not appreciated. I was not seeking any resolution or compensation for my experience and I simply provided an accounting of...

As a response to the owner’s comments: We dined with friends on a Friday night, and the reservation was in their name. We sat at a four top in the corner, next to the bar. We were the last ones to leave your establishment. As I wrote, the owner is a charmer, and his restaurant is called great by every restaurant critic. However, I have traveled extensively and eaten at restaurants of all kinds. I spend my money wisely and know about dining out. Amilinda is not a great Portuguese restaurant, in my opinion. At 75, I have enough experience to discern the mediocre from the great. Alma was absent from Amilinda. Perhaps Milwaukee loves your restaurant. I do not. You shouldn't care. Amilibda has been around for years and might be there after I’m dead and gone. Enjoy your success, but please don't question my integrity. It's all I have left.

We returned to Amilinda, and this renowned restaurant let us down again. While the quaint space can be charming, the overworked staff and minuscule kitchen provided a frenetic atmosphere. No one seemed relaxed, and thus, there was a lack of warmth and graciousness. Our servers did their best, but their stress created a dark cloud that hung over our table. The small menu didn’t provide much choice, but that’s fine when the food tastes great. My appetizer, pickled shrimp, was the best taste of the night, but nothing memorable. I ordered the $40.00 meatball entree, which was not only expensive but tasted bland as well. My wife’s chicken thighs were smothered in a sautéed mushroom sauce that drowned every other flavor. It was ridiculously over-sauced. Desserts were okay but provided no culinary surprises.

Milwaukee restaurant critics love Amilinda. It’s on every “best restaurant in Milwaukee” list. The owner must be a charmer. The cuisine at Amilinda is called Portuguese, but our dinner didn't have any Portuguese flavors. I have spent time in Lisbon and eaten at Portuguese restaurants in NYC. The food was full of flavors, and every taste had soul, called alma in Portugal. Alma is an integral part of Portuguese culture. Sadly, Amilinda had no alma and was an empty representation of the great cuisine...

After seeing all of the positive reviews of this restaurant, we were really expecting a great dinner experience. We were incredibly let down by both the service and the food. To start, the server brought bread to the table, which is always a nice touch as most restaurants in America don't do this gesture anymore (I guess they assume that 100% of people are now gluten free). While simple, the bread is an opportunity to make a first impression for a good restaurant and immediately win patrons over. The bread here was old, uninteresting, and tasteless. It's pretty easy to make homemade bread (and serve it hot) and to impress restaurant patrons with the first bite, but this place didn't make any attempt. If you're lazy, you can even just buy fresh baguettes and cut them up like they do in Europe and impress people. Perhaps they should try that.

Next, we had the tuna empanadas as a starter. I love empanadas, but am not sure that they should be made with tuna inside, it's not really a great match. Chorizo and sauce? Yes. Tuna from a can? Probably not. Maybe tuna that was in an olive oil could work. But the tuna was dry, and the empanada was over fried, making for a lackluster combination that we didn't finish. Lastly we got the 4-ways pork platter. The sausage was decent, but the pork chop felt like a cheap piece of meat that had been overcooked and the dish overall was just not interesting.

We commented to the server here that we were unimpressed with the food and instead of discussing and trying to understand better why, she just seemed angry at us, which just further elevated an overall bad dining experience. I suppose if I was running a restaurant and clients were unhappy, I'd send over a chef or manager to better understand why, shower them with kindness and happy faces, give them a free dessert, and try my hardest to win their hearts back. Here, nothing. Bad service, bad management, extremely mediocre food. I won't be back. If you're really tempted to go in, stick with the liquids and get a glass of vinho verde. At least you won't be disappointed on...