Downtown Dining Week is back, starting today. The week-long event runs through June 10 and offers an unbeatable opportunity to sample 38 city center eateries via fixed-price lunch and dinner menus.
And this year, there's a third tier.
Joining the $10 lunch and the $20 dinner is the more luxurious $30 prix fixe menus, which has brought a few upper crust places into the mix.
This year's participating restaurants include: Benihana, Bistro 333, Buca di Beppo, Butch's Old Casino Steakhouse, Café Calatrava, Café at The Pfister, The Capital Grille, Charro, Club Charlies, Coquette Café, Eagan's on Water, Indulge, Joey Buona's Restaurant, Karl Ratzsch's, Kil@wat, The Knick, Libiamo, Louise's, Mader's, Mason Street Grill, Mi•keys, Milwaukee ChopHouse, Molly Cool's Seafood Tavern, Osteria del Mondo, Palms Bistro & Bar, The Red Accordion, RipTide Seafood Bar & Grill, Riverfront Pizzeria Bar & Grill, Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery, Sabor, Sake Tumi, Swig, Third Ward Caffè, Tulip Restaurant, Umami Moto, Ward's House of Prime, Water Buffalo and Zarletti.
Downtown Dining Week was born in 2006 and since then more than 150,000 diners have taken advantage and many were visiting the restaurants for the first time. In 2009, 63 percent of the 50,000 diners said it was their first time visiting the restaurant at which they were dining.
I have used Downtown Dining Week as a way to check out some places I'd been meaning to visit and expect to do it again this year. It's really one of the best dining deals in Milwaukee and, really, it's arguably 38 or 76 deals (if you count lunch and dinner!).
Menus are available at MilwaukeeDowntown.com, and remember, reservations are highly recommended during this ever-more-popular event.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
