Harbor House - Milwaukee

To celebrate a friend's birthday, this restaurant was suggested for dinner. A mutual friend of the birthday girl and mine is a chef who recommended Harbor House.

Walking into the restaurant was mandatory valet with very convenient high-powered warmers under the awning while we waited for our vehicles after the meal. We were escorted to our table a few minutes after checking in. We sat right next to the window overlooking the gorgeous lake, viewing the Milwaukee Art Museum.

A sparkling Brut Rose was ordered for the birthday celebration. A Brut Rose by Gran Moraine. Wonderful citrus notes and that bite of tartness that a brut wine offers were a refreshing kick-off to our evening.

To start off our meal we had fresh oysters that took us on a journey from the east coast to the west coast! My favorites were the Kusshi, from Deep Bay, Vancouver Island, BC which had such a summery hint of a cucumber aftertaste. The Beau Soleil also had the cucumber aftertaste but also a hint of a melon accent to give that ultimate right-out-of-the-ocean, sunny day taste! The combination of cucumber and melon by itself is an infamous combo we've seen since the old Bath and Body Works days, and it doesn't sound like it belongs with oysters, but believe me when I tell you the flavor in this oyster definitely took me to a sunny warm ocean boat flashback! This delicious little oyster is from Neguac, NB. I highly recommend their mignonette as an inclusion with the oyster tasting!

Next up was my crisp and flavorful burrata salad. It was so appetizing I completely forgot to take a picture of it! I just dug right in! The appearance was fresh arugula with crispy prosciutto, roasted beets, pistachios, and a sweet but tangy sherry balsamic vinaigrette. I don't even like beets but the freshness from the burrata and black truffle flavors makes this salad on my list of Salads I Must Eat Again. The crispy prosciutto was the perfect amount of salty crunch for this flavor profile. Side note: burrata is also my favorite cheese and very hard to access where I am at in Wisconsin (a cheese hard to find in Wisconsin?! Crazy right?) which had the effect of me savoring every bite a little more.

My husband and I ordered a crabcake as well as an appetizer since my husband doesn't like oysters. The reason we ordered the crabcake is that we are huge Gordon Ramsey fans. We noticed that he always orders the crabcake when he stakes out restaurants in his show, Kitchen Nightmares. In all the episodes I've seen from that show, I don't think there was one crabcake Gordon had a good thing to say about. This crabcake, however, was not bad, but as someone who is not an executive chef at a fancy restaurant, I feel like I could've made a better crabcake. There was no 'wow' factor when taking the first or even second bite. It was served with a remoulade, which is what brought the crabcake's flavor up. Without the sauce, the crabcake was somewhat bland. I would not order this again.

My husband had the roasted chicken that was served with fingerling potatoes and garlicky broccolini. According to him, the chicken was very juicy, but the skin was too flaky, stating, "almost as if the skin of a fish fry." The chicken had good flavor when taken with a bite of potato or broccolini, but he wouldn't want to eat it by itself.

For my main course, I ordered the Hudson Canyon Sea Scallops. These scallops were the epitome of sea scallops. The first bite of scallops had that amazing, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth factor. The brown butter balsamic was the ideal pairing with these magnificent scallops. It was sweet, tangy, buttery, and creamy as I smothered my bites of the scallop that did not take away from the original flavors.

The side was a roasted winter squash and cauliflower risotto-like dish. The sweetness from the squash was an odd pairing with the scallops and was almost too sweet that overpowered the scallops. The winter squash could have been butternut, acorn, or any of those sweeter squash. I am a bigger fan of summer squash which includes zucchini or yellow squash, which has more of that savory flavor.

As the meal came to an end, the staff brought out a celebratory dessert that was decorated with "Happy Birthday!" It was a lava cake with a scoop of ice cream on top.

I ended my night with a cappuccino that had a pillowy, cloudy, perfectly foamed milk on top. I also had a scoop of the orange and fig ice cream that was a vanilla cream base that had less orange/fig flavoring than I'd hoped for.

Overall, Harbor House had a welcoming and open atmosphere, inviting staff, and most importantly delicious, wholesome food. This fancy place is on the expensive side, as assumed. Someone who admires fine dining as much as I do will always savor the night when I get the chance to dine somewhere as wonderful as this place!

Thank you, Harbor House for the happy and memorable evening!