Service was outstanding! I think her name was Danielle. She was fantastic! Jason was great with helping my family pick out some great wine. The atmosphere is very nice. We had the fois gras/pork belly, bruschetta and crab cakes as an appetizer. All were awesome although the crab cakes could use a little extra sauce as they were a little dry. We had the at the table Caesar salad which I thought was great but others thought the dressing was a little too over powering. For dinner I had a filet and lobster tail. Both were phenomenal! The downfall were the sides. We had the Brussel sprouts and mushrooms. The Brussel sprouts had too much of a vinegar taste and the mushrooms had a little too much rosemary (I think). The baked potato was very good! Everyone's filet were awesome except my dads porterhouse was too charred on the outside so it had a burnt taste throughout. It's a newer place so I'm sure they're still working out their kinks. Definitely will be back!! Great happy hour too! The bar is awesome with a piano player. The service at the bar is just as good! :) read more

My now Husband and I got married and had our reception at Rare, and IT WAS AMAZING. Krisstina and the entire staff were incredible. Our wedding was small, about 22 people, but we got the royal treatment! It felt like an extravagant ball or a grand event. The service was the best I have ever witnessed and it was only their first wedding. We reserved the back room with the floor to ceiling bookcases (covered in candles), elegant chandeliers hanging, beautiful curtains, executive chairs, and a personal audio hook-up sound system (for your IPHONE if you want). The room could comfortably seat many more than we had, we even had area for a small dance floor. When walked in the venue, 4-5 waiters were waiting to put drinks in our hands, and my husband and I had our own special drinks ready for us too. The wait staff was dressed to the nines and the only concern of theirs was making it the best nights of our lives and it was. Our glasses were never empty and food was never delayed. When they served each course it was a true air of showmanship. THE CHEF DID AN AMAZING JOB! Everyone can't stop talking about how amazing the seafood and steak was. The entire meal (Apps, salad, main course, bread!, and desert) was perfection. Everyone was so full and satisfied. Back to Kristina (event planner) she knows what she is doing! She is very responsive, helpful, knowledgable, experience, and trust time you want to work with her! She's not just good at her job, she was excited to make our night awesome no matter what! It was exactly that! I can go on and on about this place. Kristina meet us outside and escorted us in from the party bus. She welcomed everyone and took control of the entire operation with ease. She made sure that my husband and I were satisfied the entire time, she kept checking in and was very attentive to our needs. They are amazing at what they do and they want to make your night the best night ever! It was simply perfect. read more

See all

Had heard some great things about this place so I was excited to take my girlfriend because we still haven't found a great steakhouse in Milwaukee that is consistently good. Great steakhouse atmosphere and wait staff. We started out with drinks and oysters Rockefeller. We were pleased with both. We both ordered filets, her's was medium rare plus with brandy cream sauce added and mine medium rare. For sides we ordered asparagus, truffle fries and lobster mac and cheese. The asparagus was the highlight of the meal, and as you'll find out, that's maybe not a good thing. We both agreed it was the best asparagus we had ever had. It was grilled, so had some smokey flavor and was done to perfection. The next best thing was the truffle fries. Most places add way too much truffle oil, but these were also done really well. The lobster mac was about as bland as could be and hardly had any cheese sauce. Would never order that again. And now for the filets. Both were over cooked. I'd say well past medium for both. Mine was even more overdone than my girlfriend's, even though mine was ordered medium rare. Neither of us are the type to complain, so we just ate both steaks. But wait for it.........on my third bite of my filet, I realized I had a hair in my mouth. At first I thought it was just a small one because that's all I could feel when I tried to pull it out. Nope, as I kept pulling, I realized a longer hair was wrapped around the filet. How long? Well, it ended up being well over a foot long. I was really grossed out because at a high end restaurant, this should never happen. At Golden Corral, ok, that might happen. But when you are paying over $200 for a meal, it would be nice if it was hair free! So I did complain and tried to be as nice as possible about it because I know it wasn't the manager or wait staff's fault. They offered to bring me a new one, but I declined because I was just kind of grossed out at that point and didn't want any more steak. They also took my filet off the bill and brought my girlfriend a piece of chocolate cake for free. They did all they could to make the situation better and I give them full credit for that. That being said, I'm not sure we'd want to go back. Even if the steaks had been cooked perfectly, they were pretty bland. The chefs NEED to introduce the cooks to these exotic spices called SALT AND PEPPER!!!! None of the food had any on it. Even the asparagus, which was cooked perfectly, had to have salt and pepper added. I understand many people are salt adverse for health reasons, but the food tasted like it didn't have any salt at all. And when you are paying $20+ for lobster mac and cheese, actually make it with cheese!!!! I consider myself to be a pretty good home cook and can make a great mac and cheese. It's not that hard to make a simple bechamel cheese sauce and actually add cheese to it so it's cheesy and creamy. If the head chef at Rare would like me to come in and show them what salt and pepper are and provide them with a mac and cheese recipe that is actually really tasty, I'm more than willing to do that. Maybe business would actually pick up and Milwaukee could finally have a steakhouse that could compete with the ones in Chicago!!! read more

We dined there last night and must say the food and service was first class, this is a welcome addition to fine dining in Milwaukee. Rare could be at home in New York or other culinary cities, it was a wonderful experience. read more

Atmosphere was great and the customer service was phenomenal. Ask for Taylor! Food was delicious....especially the pop-overs!

We recently went to NY to a steakhouse and Rare put our meal in NY to shame. The food was excellent. Service was great as well. Hands down one of the best meals & experiences my husband and I have ever had! read more

Arrogance within the bar staff. We were not served what we were ordered, questioned the bill and they actually belittled us when brought to there attention. To top it off, the valet had mixed up the keys and after waiting awhile, the valet came to ask what car we had. It will be a long time before returning. read more

I hate to be the one who leaves a bad review; however, when you are spending between $100-$150 a person (we were a table of 4 and spent $650) the service should be through the roof, the food should be phenomenal and unfortunately, it just wasn't. It started at the host stand where the hostess was blatantly rude. I knew she was busy, but a "hi" would have been nice. After weaving in and out of the dining room with our guests to find our booth, my date and I ordered the Bone-In Ribeye medium and the wagyu filet with loaded hash browns and asparagus to share. It took over 20 minutes for the caesar salad to arrive and no exaggeration, over 40 minutes for our entrees. The worst part, a manager didn't stop by to apologize or see if anything could be fixed... This restaurant isn't new anymore. We hoped for something spectacular on NYE. I hate to see what Valentine's Day is going to look like. Hopefully they will be better prepared. read more

I almost don't even want to give this establishment the time of day to rate it. However, I will in hopes to prevent the same type of dining experience we had last night. First, with plenty of tables available in the dining room, they seat us at the front booth which isn't really even in the dining room, and is directly next to the host stand near the door. Apparently this is the employees hang out area, so while our drinks were completely forgotten about by our server, at least we got to hear all the gossip about the goings on of the employees of the establishment. Several appetizers came, but no appetizer plates. Had to flag down someone after 3 minutes to get plates. Our entrees came, and meh. Then, I wanted wine with my steak. That wasn't happening because our server's back was to us as she gossiped at the host stand. Finally, someone came and cleared our plates. Then we sat... and sat...and sat. Finally my girlfriend flagged someone down to get the check. For the choices you have in Milwaukee for a dinner for two that cost $260, this is NOT the place. There are so many better options. This establishment ruined our special night. And I'm pretty sure that they couldn't care less. read more

My fiance and I went there to celebrate our recent engagement and from start to finish our experience at Rare was not even worth the $15 dollar Manhattan let alone the $62 rib-eye. First of all they took 45 minutes to even ask for our appetizer and then bring us the bread. After we ordered and we finally got our steaks after a long wait, they came back and were cooked completely wrong. My fiance ordered the rib-eye MEDIUM and it came to the table completely cooked... there was no pink in the entire rib-eye! When we mentioned something about it to the waitress she said it could be the lighting?? Uh-no... so the manager came and said the exact same thing and when it was brought into the sun light they could tell they messed up. So they took it back and re cooked it to a rare not medium well and then said we would get a dessert comp'd for the trouble. When we were asked what dessert we wanted we chose. Finally the bill arrives.... the dessert was indeed NOT comp'd. All in all this place has AWFUL service and the food quality was sub-par .. besides their bread (that was the only good thing we ate all night). Carnevor is still the top place in mine and my fiances opinion. Rare is NOT worth the money or your time. We also felt that since we were younger we were not taken as seriously and we were there to celebrate something so special and this just completely ruined the celebration. read more

We had a VERY disappointing experience. It was our 2nd time here and it was such a great experience our 1st visit we chose to go back. It's an expensive restaurant so we expected the same great food and service, it was the exact opposite. After 3 visits to the table our server finally took our drink order. After our appetizers were served we had to remind our waiter to put in our salad order. After asking twice for the popovers he said they would come out with the salad, they didn't, so we had to ask again a 3rd time. Then our main course was set down as I was taking my first bite of the popover, we should have been served at least 30min prior. But THE WORST part was one of our steaks was ordered "medium" but it was served Rare to Raw! She asked for it to be cooked more and they brought it back the same temp but just charred on the outside. For a steak house they destroyed her steak! At this point the rest of the table was almost finished eating so she chose to just finish the sides and forgo her steak. The manager did come speak to us and comped a bottle of wine and the bad steak. But at this point the experience was totally ruined for us and the couple we were with. We will not be returning or recommending this restaurant again. read more

We were at Rare MKE last evening. I can't say it was a great venue considering the final tab. We were approximately 15 minutes early for a 7:30 reservation, so we could understand some of the wait time. There were a number of empty tables: I am not sure of the sufficiency of the wait staff, but we were happy at this point. We had a cocktail and they served fresh popovers, very delicious. We ordered our entrees and the waiter came back to see if we wanted an additional cocktail. Of course we did. All of a sudden, our steaks were in front of us before the second cocktail arrived. The steaks were huge, Jack's special at $58, but they were just a huge steak sitting in a pool of juice on a plate, nothing like the photos on their website. We also ordered sides, but we had no plates for the sides, the only option was to place the veggies in the pool of steak juice on the plate. When your night out exceeds $100 per person, you expect a memorable meal. Something wasn't right with our meal; I am not afraid to spend $100 per person, but it best be better than just okay. read more

Went to Rare Steakhouse on a Tuesday night. Had been forewarned that it was expensive. Since we are familiar with the building we parked in the building garage. We had two appetizers, steaks, two side dishes and wine. Food was good, but had short pours on the wine. Bill with tip was $300 for two. Then the fun began. Asked the host to validate parking and was told they don't own the parking structure so they don't pay for parking. I said I just spent $300 and your not going to pay for my $6 parking and the answer was no because they don't own the parking structure. What a BS answer. Our law firm G&K is in the building, and whenever we visit the first question they ask is to validate parking. I guess Rare doesn't know you can buy parking stickers for your guests. Or they are too cheap, or they have zero customer experience. My first job in a customer business was to understand there are two rules: Rule 1: The customer is always right; Rule 2: Read Rule 1. I guess since they are from Madison they don't understand. I can afford $6, but if you are holding yourself out as a top of the line restaurant then you need to ensure the entire customer experience is positive....here they badly missed. As we the left restaurant the security guard at the front desk, knew right away what happened. He said, parking right? We said yes, and he said happens all time. I don't think they get it. Bottom line: First and last time we will ever visit Rare, have already shared my story with co-workers, and golfing buddies. Interesting was one our friends shared a similar experience. While the food was fine, you get as good or better at Mason Street Grill or Carnevor for 2/3's the price, and they take of your parking. read more