Milwaukee's Low-Key Local-Favorite Restaurant Has Vintage Vibes And Unbeatable Homestyle Food

Milwaukee is full of under-the-radar gems, like Black Cat Alley, an outdoor art gallery in a walkable alley, and Lakeshore State Park, Wisconsin's only urban state park. Similarly, you'll find many low-key restaurants that seem unassuming on the outside but serve top-rated homestyle food inside. One local favorite is called Three Brothers Restaurant, which has earned praise from reviewers and Reddit users, and national publications like USA Today.

Three Brothers is a Serbian restaurant that's been a staple in the charming, walkable Bay View neighborhood since it opened in 1956. Three Brothers was founded by Milun Radicevic, who immigrated to Milwaukee in 1949; today, it's still run by the Radicevic family. The restaurant is located in a historic brick building with an old-fashioned striped awning and a neon sign in the window. Inside, the portraits on the walls and the lamps on each table give the restaurant vintage vibes that make it feel straight out of the 1950s. You'll see globes labeled "Schlitz" both inside and outside, the name of a historic Milwaukee brewery that closed in 1982.

The menu has hardly changed since Three Brothers opened. The signature dish is burek, a savory filo pastry filled with beef, cheese, or spinach. The rest of the menu is filled with homestyle Serbian dishes, including goulash and musaka. "The less we touch things the better off they are," owner Milunka Radicevic said on the restaurant's website. "Over the years dishes have been added, but the menu has mostly stayed the same."

Three Brothers has earned its reputation by consistently serving delicious food for decades. Over the years, the restaurant has earned several awards, including a James Beard America's Classics Award in 2002, and was included in the USA Today Restaurants of the Year 2025 list. In 2003, it was featured in an episode of the Rachael Ray-hosted "$40 a Day." (Today, you can still have a meal for under $40 at Three Brothers: the famous burek is $26.50, and most entrees are in the $20 to $40 range.)

If you're going to Three Brothers, prepare to stay a while; visitors note the burek takes 45 to 60 minutes to bake. Many local patrons have a strategy: Order the burek, then while you wait, snack on an appetizer (or another entree, if you're hungry) and have a drink. At the time of writing, Three Brothers has a 4.7 average Google rating with 640 reviews; a 4.4 average Yelp rating with 250 reviews; and a 4.6 average Tripadvisor rating with 176 reviews. 

It's also frequently recommended on Reddit's r/milwaukee, where multiple Redditors wrote that they'd order Three Brothers for their death row meal. Praise is just as effusive on review sites. "You can expect to be a bit packed into a quaint, homey, authentic atmosphere that has preserved both family and Schlitz history," writes one Google reviewer. "Then served on china you may recognize from your grandma's fancy set will come AMAZING food. The beef burek was absolutely fantastic (well worth the 45 minute wait)." They add, "This gem of a place is the antithesis to what 'fine dining' has become, and it's fantastic."