Four years ago, we spent a weekend in Milwaukee, and discovered the city had a lot more to offer than beer and brats.
One of our favorite activities that weekend was a food walking tour through the Historic Third Ward, led by Theresa Nemetz, the founder of Milwaukee Food and City Tours.
We loved the idea of tasting our through a neighborhood with a knowledgeable guide, gaining insights on a destination’s history and culture through its food and beverages.
We liked our first Milwaukee Food Tour so much, in fact, that we started seeking out similar food walking tours in other cities we visited around the globe.
We’ve tasted our way through Budapest with Gabor, feasted our way through Singapore’s Chinatown with Leo and Mindy, and gained access to the mostly-locals-only foodie hot spots in San Juan, Puerto Rico with Paulina.
We’ve eaten our way through Chicago’s Near North neighborhoods and both the San Telmo and Palermo neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
When we visit Milwaukee, we try to take another food tour. The Brady Street tour, for example, is terrific.
During our most recent visit we tried the Milwaukee’s Pizza Bus Tour, riding on a bus rather than walking.
The bus allows the tour cover a much larger area of the city. We visited four pizza places in four parts of Milwaukee, each offering a different style of pizza.
At the first stop, we learned about the birth of pizza in Milwaukee when John CARAvella and Joe ToDARO combined parts of their names and opened the Caradaro Club in 1945 as World War II was ending and pizza was making its way to the U.S.
Caradaro Club pizza is still going strong. The Classic (pictured above) is a combination of sausage, mushrooms, onions and cheese with a light saucing of tomato on top of a crispy, cracker-style crust.
It’s simply divine.
Our group quickly devoured a number of these pizzas as we learned the history of the Caradaro Club, including how a giant coffee cup landed on the rooftop of the pizzeria’s current location.
Next, we headed to the Milwaukee Public Market to a food stall known for gourmet meats, produce and specialty foods, but not a place you’d expect to find gourmet pizza.
Nehring’s Family Market serves up wood-fired pizza at its Cutting Room Bar off to the side of the meat and produce counters.
Our slices of Va Bene pizza — made with San marzano sauces, gourmet Italian sausage, sautéed mushrooms, fresh mozzarella and basil — disappeared before we captured a photo.
Back on the Pizza bus, we headed to Milwaukee’s south side while learning about the various highways and bridges to nowhere. (And we thought that was only in Alaska.)
At the Classic Slice on Kinnickinnic Avenue (try saying that three times), we were served fold-and-eat slices from two gigantic pies.
These huge pizzas –way too big for any pan — were created especially for our Milwaukee Pizza Bus Tour. It’s New York style pizza at its finest.
While most of the participants were really full as this point, we got back on the bus and headed west; to Wauwatosa, Wisconsin (you know you are there when the street signs have a blue, rather than a green background.
Pizzeria Piccola features thin-crust Neapolitan pizzas baked in a brick wood-burning oven.
Everyone tried the sausage.
As well as the Pizza Margherita. Do you know the history of this pizza?
There was one more stop, for dessert.
This of course, had to be hand-crafted gelato.
Most folks on our tour group agreed on our favorite Milwaukee pizza, but we aren’t telling.
You will have to take the Milwaukee Pizza Bus Tour yourself, and make up your own mind.
Have you taken a food walking tour in Milwaukee or somewhere else? What did you enjoy most about the experience?
Check out these other food posts you might enjoy”;”;
- Fabulous Thin Crust Pizza in Chicago
- A Romantic Dinner on Honolulu’s Waikiki Beach at Azure
- Learning to Cook Cajun and Creole at The New Orleans School of Cooking
- Anthony Bourdain Knows What He’s Talking About: Unbelievably Good Food at the Singapore Grand Hyatt
- Enjoying Modern German Food at Affäre in Kansas City’s Crossroads
- Delicious Dumplings at Din Tai Fung in Singapore