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, even in a storm.