Mother's — Restaurant in Milwaukee

The best restaurant in Milwaukee opened last month in Bay View, Mother’s. I first met Vanessa Rose when she was a sous chef at Ardent & we’ve been following her around like lost puppy dogs ever since. But we no longer have to coordinate our trips to Milwaukee (from Madison) around her pop-ups as she now has her very own space in the historic White House. I couldn’t be more excited for her to realize this dream…& honestly, for every single one of us that is fortunate enough to enjoy her food…& those who have yet to discover her. Chef Vanessa’s food is creative & unhinged in the most extraordinarily surprising & delightfully delicious ways.

My husband & I cleared our day & planned a visit to Milwaukee last week to eat at Mother’s for the first time. We wanted to try it all, & luckily for us, this is her best of…the biggest hits from all her pop-ups…so we had already tasted some of these dishes...also, fortunately, we have big appetites. If you can’t eat as much as us, I would recommend ordering the Liang Fen, Tikka Masala Gnocchi, & the Madiera Mushrooms. And leave room for dessert…pastry chef Nick’s quirky sensibility and phenomenal talent pairs perfectly with Chef Vanessa’s, & he puts together flavor combinations you can’t even begin to imagine how they would taste. Together they are magical…wonder twin powers, activate!

My reviews of restaurants are typically extremely long & full of my impressions of every plate…but this is food that transcends words…I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. Vanessa’s food is a feeling...like looking at the most beautiful work of art…& it brings you to tears for reasons you can’t explain. Put Mother’s on your list of places you...

Pretty disappointing. After reading all these glowing reviews, we were really looking forward to our (4) dinner here last night. I will say that the service was TOP NOTCH, 5 stars for that, for sure! However, we found the menu erratic and lacking any fish or chicken options. They had a poor wine selection, and NO beers whatsoever. (Hi, this is Wisconsin!??) While I did expect the prices would be a bit higher due to their "European" model of building in the gratuity/service, some items were just unreasonable -- i.e. $67 for hangar steak, which is literally the cheapest steak cut available. Yes, I'd pay that much for filet mignon or ribeye, but for hangar steak? No way. Also, and I think this was the real deal killer for all of us, was that, with the exception (thankfully) of the dessert, every single dish was WAY over salted. Like, I love me some salt, but we were all sucking down water like there was no tomorrow. Even the toasted bread had huge chunks of salt on it, it was just too too much. Like I said, disappointed because we were really excited to support a queer-friendly space, and I won't completely rule out going here again after they roll out their next menu, but this is absolutely not going to be a "go-to" or 3rd space for me without some serious fixes to...

First time here and based on the reviews and menu was hoping to love it. Didn’t happen. Service and vibe amazing. Our server George was well versed in the menu, friendly and attentive. The food though was less than inspired. We ordered everything on the menu except the 3 things they were out of. Preparation was ok on some things but a few things like the shishito peppers were not fully cooked, the hanger steak was ordered medium rare but came in rare, the cold noodles were undercooked and admittedly it was clear they were going to be cold however I feel they would be much better warm, the items on the cheese board had very little flavor. The biggest issue we had was almost everything was way over salted to the point of being inedible. The mushrooms, pork shoulder, gnocchi, Brussels sprouts all of it. We all took a bite or two and gave up. My mouth is seriously shriveled. Really unfortunate because like I said we went in wanting to love it and are not ones to complain or leave bad reviews knitpicking a local biz but the food here was either not tasted before seasoning or the cooks absolutely love salt. Probably won’t give it...