harbor house

food with a view! scenic lake michigan background made brunch even more wonderful in addition to the endless, scrumptious food! a good amount if variety for seafood lovers/non seafood lovers alike, harborhousewas a powerhouse of classy fare, excellent and efficient service, and a very full (and filling!) buffet. @

slow service; bad food.. for a high end restaurant one would expect service and food to match the views.

harborhousemisses on two of the three.

two visits with one month with executive level colleagues for celebrations.

service was brutal from the start to the point of bring almost surreal.

side dishes and other platrs camr out cold or unseasoned. i will say truthfully the cut of beef was amazingly tender and flavorful again.

complaints of both fell on deaf ears.

... at least we had tome to enjoy the view of downtown and the lake.

been two times. same result.

none of us will be back.

first off, the harborhousemight have the best view in milwaukee. located just north of discovery world, the restaurant sits on a piece of land that stretches into lake michigan. the views of the art museum and skyline are unmatched. i am sure that during the summer, the scenery is even more dramatic.

great for a special occasion. i went there with my family for my birthday, and everyone loved their food. the crustacean bisque was a great starter and the lobster was amazing. the service was great, and they brought out two desserts on thehousefor my bday :)

the milwaukee foodies horde desceneded upon bartolotta's harborhousetuesday, 1/10/12, in order to finally, conclusively decide that oysters are indeed both frighteningly ugly and frighteningly delicious all at once.

great food and service!. i dined at the harborhousetoday for lunch, and i had a lovely experience! i enjoyed a simple mesclun greens salad with red wine vinaigrette, followed by the steamed salmon, and finally their chocolate cake. each course was the perfect serving size, the presentation was beautiful, and each course was delicious.

the service was also great; garrett served us today and could not have been more accommodating and attentive.

mediocre all around. we went to harborhousefor my birthday. it is a beautiful place with an amazing view. however, the food and service were mediocre. my husband's steak, ordered medium, and came out raw in the middle. my shrimp and lobster were good, not exceptional. service was slow for drinks, finally got a water refill after my meal was finished, and just not very friendly. just not up to the same level of detail as mr. b's or other baralotta restaurants. i would possibly return for an appetizer and drinks on the patio.

disappointing lunch. my in-laws were in town and wanted to go out to a nice lunch near lake michigan. i naturally thought that the harborhousewould be perfect. i had never been to the harborhouseprior to today's lunch and will unfortunately probably never return. we were all disappointed in our meals and i would call the food mediocre at best.--we had a penne pasta dish, two sandwiches (one swordfish and one turkey sandwich) and a salad for entrees along with some soup (clam chowder) and haystack onion rings as appetizers. the soup and onion rings were a hit at the table, but the entrees left much to be desired. with overcooked pasta, greasy/oily sandwiches and the strangest chopped salad i had ever seen, many of us left totally unsatisfied. perhaps other menu items would have been more options.
on a positive note, my out-of-town guest greatly enjoyed the views from the restaurant. and, the free valet parking was a nice surprise for a downtown restaurant.

resting on laurels. bartolatta and cudahay, could not care less about you as a patron or even a person .
in fact it's obvious all they are seeing when you walk through the door at harborhouserestaurant are dollar signs.
i know now in my heart that the days of loving your customers and really being truly glad they came to your establishment are gone.
i gave this restaurant two chances to make me love it and they blew it both times.
the first time i actually told bartollata about my dreadful experience and he basically had the attitude that "we opened it here and they will come"
so with that kind of turd at the top , well gravity can only send it in one direction.
he sadly is correct , they come in busloads .
it is the place to be seen. if you have a problem with your service or your meal , please keep it to yourself because "we don't care what you think.. just look at the mobs of folks who line up and keep on lining up..
we can afford one or two or three fowl ups..
oh and i was also told that perhaps i should have gone some place " not so busy" for my birthday .
really great business ethics there you two pillars if the milwaukee business community.
when push comes to shove all we americans have left us our choice of where we want to spend our cash...
oh and word of mouth advertisement ...
that's something that always works in our favor.
definitely will not go back to harbor house.

great food, slow service. we made an unexpected trip to harborhousethis weekend after the nearby wine festival was rained out. as you can imagine, it was packed--both a normal crowd of diners and others who, like us, came to escape the rain. we were told it was an hour and a half for a table, to to their credit they seated after only half an hour.

luckily, we already had wine from the bar. we waited half an hour for a server to stop by and another 15 minutes for bread, at which time they took our appetizer order. (the bread basket offered a nice variety.)
our appetizers took another half an hour to arrive. we had the crab cakes and the scallops. both were fantastic--fresh, perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked. when our appetizers arrived we ordered soup as our main course, since we'd already been sitting there for over an hour and had gone through two bread baskets. fifteen minutes after our appetizers were cleared we were brought spoons, and then about 45 minutes after that our soup finally arrived. we both had the bisque. it was great, very rich and tasted shellfish sweet, which was just what the waitress described. very good, but not really an entree soup. i'd highly recommend it before a main course. it took us about another 45 minutes to eat and receive our check. we noticed that others seemed to be receiving a similar level of service.

i have absolutely no criticism of the food. it was very good and well worth the money. the atmosphere is great, and we were there under what was probably unusually crowded circumstances.

that said, i expect better service from a restaurant associated with the bartolotta name. i always appreciate that they don't rush you at their restaurants and you can linger and chat, but an hour for soup? really? and our wine glasses and water glasses were both dry for quite while before they were refreshed.

i definitely recommend people try this restaurant if they like fresh seafood, but i would recommend that you are prepared for a slow, relaxed dinner. perhaps several hours.