Amilinda: an Iberian Experience in Milwaukee [REVIEW]

There’s something really present on the soul of every foreigner, which is a certain sentiment of nostalgia. It is built on very small portions of things you miss from your home country or town that create a big void. It works like a brick wall.

However, foreigners also learn that complaints won’t solve anything. You must find out solutions. Find friends from your country, throw some parties, write about it. All of this will help.

Restaurants also help. One of the best ways to cure a homesick crisis is to find a good place that serves the food from your country.

In my case, as a Brazilian, there aren’t a lot of legitimate options. There are some steakhouses in town. They serve legit South American barbecue, indeed. But this was never my type, especially considering pricing.

There weren’t many other options until I met Gregory Leon, a cuisine chef who was participating in one of my cultural classes. He was presenting about his restaurant, Amilinda, that specializes in Iberian food.

Maybe some cultural background is important here. The Iberian Peninsula, in Europe, is constituted by two countries: Portugal and Spain. Both of them are the major colonizadores of South America. Therefore, there are huge similarities between our cuisines.  

Getting back to the story. After I saw Gregory’s talk, I felt I needed to check that place. He convinced me when mentioned that their goal was to be influenced by Iberian food, and not to mimic it.

Whenever someone is trying to copy a style, disregarding how good they can copy, it will never be the same as the original. And there’s nothing bad about it. The beauty is also what is novel.

On the following weekend, I went there. Since then, which is for two years by now, I became an enthusiastic fan of that place.  

Amilinda is a small but very welcoming restaurant in downtown Milwaukee. The few tables and a bar set a very simple environment. For those who avoid unnecessary fancy places, that’s a potential choice for dinner. Pricing will be on a range of 20 to $30 per person, in most cases.

As mentioned, their objective is to have Iberian cuisine as a major influence on every dish served. This constitutes a huge challenge, since a good amount of the ingredients aren’t available, whether because they are regional or seasonal. That explains why the menu is changed daily.

Last week, I came back there with the excuse I needed to write this review. The house was full, as imagined. On small places, it’s always important to reserve a table. I ordered a Pork Alentejana, a traditional Portuguese dish that is made of pork cooked with seafood and vegetables.

I remember my grandmother cooking this dish. It used to take the whole Sunday morning to actually be prepared. Her grandparents were Portuguese, and the culture has passed to her. The Alentejano was always present on birthdays, anniversaries and remarkable dates. It is just incredible how they always tasted great, in a very good manner.

I didn’t expect Amilinda’s version to win this battle. There’s a layer of good feelings from childhood that are unbeatable. However, the Amilinda version didn’t lose to the traditional. It has its own aura, adapted to a different reality. It’s understandable that the seafood won’t be as fresh as the ones prepared in Portugal, a country placed on the shore. However, the quality of the pork, together with the broth, made the difference. As usual, the service was very efficient and polite.

The experience at Amilinda involves several feelings from a South American immigrant. As well as most parts of life, it guards a resemblance from home, but it’s not actually it. It happens in sports, when I’m meeting my Brazilian friends on weekends, or when I’m writing a story about my life.  

There’s something in me that is also not Brazilian anymore, but, rather, I am now the mix of everything I lived throughout these years.  It’s the feeling, the memory. Maybe more a feeling than actually a memory.

Overall, I give four out five golden forks to Amilinda. They do a very good job of representing a different culture in the middle of the American Midwest.