Restaurants in South Milwaukee

As a marble-top creamery and classic diner, Ferch’s Malt Shoppe & Grille satisfies hunger pains, ice-cream desires, and nostalgic longings with traditional American fare and fresh frozen custard within a throwback soda-shop setting. With 48 custard flavors and 40 toppings to choose from, Ferch’s treat specialists can create more than 1 million varieties of customized creamy concoctions. The malt shop’s black-and-white checkerboard floors, vinyl booths, and soda-fountain counters hark back to a simpler time when men wore hats and robot servants hadn’t yet begun their grisly uprising.

Casa Di Giorgio's elegant dining halls have more than enough space to accommodate the abundance of diners seeking the kitchen's renowned gnocchi and pasta dishes. Glimmering chandeliers shower visitors in soft light, and vibrant Italian oil paintings hang on walls that are red and ornate, like the Arizona Cardinals' antique-furniture room. In the kitchen, chefs labor over veal, steak, and seafood, whipping up authentic northern and southern Italian dishes that have been lauded by reporters from Express Milwaukee. Servers deliver plates to the dining room along with bottles of fine wines, which they expertly coax open by whistling a few bars of Italian opera.

Since 1981, the ovens of Michaelangelo's Pizza have produced piping-hot pizzas piled with a variety of toppings. Sausage, pepperoni, olives, and pineapple arrive on delectable thin crusts. Meanwhile, pasta sauces coat lasagna, spaghetti, and ravioli. Steak sandwiches, hamburgers, and meatball sandwiches pair well with beers such as Peroni, Heineken, and Miller.

Originally branded as the Top Hat Drive-In, Sonic didn’t acquire its nationally recognized name until 1959—six years after its inception in 1953. Today, the franchise operates out of 3,500 locations across the country, making it the nation’s largest chain of drive-in restaurants. Sonic specializes in made-to-order American classics—including burgers, hot dogs, milk shakes, and Ford Thunderbolts—which customers order and receive without ever having to leave their cars. Unique menu items include toaster sandwiches stacked on thick slices of texas toast as well as the brand’s signature tots and fresh limeades.

Sonic’s numerous awards include a 2011 Zagat survey ranking it among the top five fast-food restaurants in three categories: best value menu, best milk shake, and best drive-thru. The benevolent eatery has also donated more than $2 million to public schools throughout the country through Limeades for Learning, which helps to fund educational projects and retirement plans for classroom guinea pigs.

Chefs draw upon South Indian, North Indian, and Indo-Chinese influences as they concoct spicy curries and creamy gravies to drape over tandoor-roasted lamb and seafood, halal goat, and vegetarian-friendly paneer. Beyond the dining room's tables cloaked in blue linens and vibrant Indian artwork, bartenders pour beer, wine, and cocktails from a fully stocked bar nestled near a flat-screen television.

You can write on nearly every surface at The Loaded Slate. A slate strip runs down the bar for tabulating tips, wooden tables have hunks of slate where you can copy the chalk drawings by local student artists decorating the walls, and even the glasses have surfaces you can chalk your name onto in case you forget every word except "slate." The bar delivers on the promise of its name in other respects, too, with a menu loaded with filling pub sandwiches and nights packed with games, sporting events, and DJ sets. According to OnMilwaukee.com's 2011 profile, co-owner Joe Kuntz built drop-leaf tables that can be folded flat against the wall after the kitchen closes to flood the space with revelers. "We're family friendly till 10," explains co-owner Shawn Mellon. "Then we become strictly a bar."

During dinnertime, half-pound Angus burgers and the chef's panini of the month arrive with a pile of pub fries, waffle fries, homemade chips, rosemary red potatoes, or coleslaw. Poultry sandwiches also abound, with baked chicken piled with pineapple and pepper jack or assembled day-after-Thanksgiving style with provolone, spinach, and cranberry mustard. Throughout the night, five taps may pump out Strongbow cider, frothy Guinness, and New Glarus Spotted Cow Ale, which refreshes between bites of nachos made on a base of seasoned waffle fries, or reuben sticks, a fried wonton containing the sandwich's famous fillings and last words. Visitors spill out onto the patio on balmy nights, or pile into the back room—dubbed The Tailgate Zone because of the Ford and Chevy pickup beds jutting from the wall—to watch sports on a laptop-compatible projection TV, a 46-inch TV, and two 26-inch TVs.