Harbor House — Restaurant in Milwaukee

We were excited to visit Harbor House, which I had been hearing and reading about for years, and my youngster's graduation was just the excuse we had been waiting for to gather the fambly, including his elderly grandpeople. But we won't be going back.

I can start with the good: The view is obviously one of the main attractions and didn't disappoint. It is a comfortable room and the design takes full advantage of the location, as nearly every table has a sweeping vista of Milwaukee Bay. Seating is generous and comfortable (which will become increasingly important as our tale unfolds).

My food was good. Tuna tartare was fresh and on point, resting atop a bed of cool seaweed salad and some sort of magical wasabi caviar like foam that provided a lovely counterpoint. I shared the NEw England clambake for two--130 bucks, but pretty generous and well composed. My companions, however, told me their food was cold.

What pretty much ruined the evening, was the criminally negligent service.

It started when we (half our party of three) arrived 10' ahead of reservation and also ahead of the other half of our party. We were directed to have a seat at a high top near the bar and order a cocktail--groovy (and boy was I ready for one after all the pomp & circumstance). Sat down, nobody comes to take our order. We wait, looking earnestly at the interesting cocktail choices on the menu like some desert oasis illusion that keeps moving further away as the camel plods along. Then, alas, the others roll in and--after they/we stood awkwardly in front of the front desk for another 5 minutes with no clear direction on what to do--we were finally ushered to our table.

Waitperson introduces herself pleasantly enough and tells us she will have two others helping her take care of us, a colleague and a trainee. This is nearly the last we will see of her. We get a bottle of wine (very nice and interesting) that the sommelier helps us pick out, but tell him to pour out only one glass, because most of us still want one of those cocktails that we, by now, had read so much about. We should have just told the wine steward our drink order (or maybe he could have, you know, offered to take it, since we did mention that was why we only wanted one glass for now) because it took at least 15 minutes longer before we finally flagged down a staffer and said we would like a drink (so now we are waaaay over 30 minutes into our visit with nothing but water to show for it (except for the lucky guy who wanted to start with wine!).

The rest of the night went similarly. I usually find the servers at posh restaurants to be overly solicitous/obsequious/obtrusive, but on this night, that certainly was not a problem at Harbor House! Things took forever to come out--by now the olds are up way past their bedtime and getting very cross--and there was nary a check in during the looong interim periods. We were flagging strange staff down for things like more wineglasses when we finished our cocktails (grumpily delivered, no offer to fill them, btw), desert menus etc.

The staff was either overwhelmed--inexcusable at the price point--or the place is simply coasting on its stellar reputation & location and doesn't care about taking care of its customers.

There are so many better choices in MKE for fine dining--set sail for any other harbor,...

TL;DR Don’t come here if you’re expecting great food.

I went with my partner for dinner on Friday night and unfortunately had an underwhelming experience. The view and setting of the restaurant are both great and that in and of itself was a high point. The servers were attentive, but the place seemed understaffed. The real let down was the food. We’d been wanting to come here for a long time as we’d heard the food was exceptional. We started with the Oaxacan cocktail, which came in an old tumbler glass and tasted like a bad margarita with mezcal. Overly sweet and visually unappealing. We then got the chef’s reserve oysters, which were okay. Next was tuna tartar, which was tasteless but not in the way of good raw fish, albeit it came in a decent portion. It was perhaps the most elevated presentation coming in a nice stack on top of some finely julienned greens, but the taste didn’t live up to the presentation. We then had our mains (would have liked to get another round of drinks, but our servers didn’t check in until halfway through), which were two orders of their surf and turf: filet with lobster and filet with crab leg. These were very sad plates! The steaks were over cooked (ordered medium-rare and came out medium-well), the crab and lobster both very small (maybe two three bites) and accompanied by diner style dishes of butter and béarnaise and a pile of overcooked, mushy green beans and a side of potatoes. The food wasn’t bad, but I can’t say much more than that. It felt like we were eating at a restaurant whose pallet hasn’t evolved since the 80’s. Nothing about this visit met our expectations of an elevated dining experience, which is really too bad since the location can’t be beat. I will say that the atmosphere in the restaurant was good and people seemed to be enjoying themselves. This seems like a good place to come and celebrate if the food isn’t the most important thing and someone else is picking up the check (total was a little over...

Yesterday my colleague took me to this place. Raved about it! Let me be clear I’ve been to classy places with great service great food superb ambience. But not this place! Let me set this up… we walk in we get looks like we had 3 eyes on our faces. They sat us in the “corner” smh Then the waiter Billy came to our table twice on his own, we were an afterthought to him… but this man is a waiter so come on work for your tip Billy. He paid more attention to a family of 3 who all were adults and would split/share a plate of food then take the time to make his rounds to everyone’s table. I ordered the South African Lobster $75 with green beans and small red potatoes. It’s not a “cold plate” you know like shrimp cocktail. My food was unseasoned and cold!!! I had to have them warm it up again, that took 15-20 minutes. It makes me think they have different rules for serving people who don’t look like them. They didn’t even care to properly prepare it! My colleague ordered a tower of seafood, which was about $125 probably more who knows because at this point I don’t care anymore. The place is by the water, it’s cold inside, why not balance the warmth. That’s me being polite. I was freezing. He gives me the check as a test to see if I “ had enough money for our meal and said “here you go” wow! Of course we paid our bill even though the service was let’s say trash! Yes trash! Then the valet asked for a tip, like literally asked for a tip. I will not EVER patronage this “restaurant” again especially if Billy is working there! Before you let your mind wander we gave him a nice tip but he didn’t deserve it to say the least. Maybe he could take some diversity and etiquette lessons because he definitely needs it!!! My colleague was embarrassed, and so was I this place will forever remain a 1...