Milwaukee's Most Soulful Salsas

The most important decisions are made over salsa. Mostly, what to order to follow said salsa. But if you eat at enough Mexican restaurants, it also becomes indicative, Pavlov-style, of possibility—of that part of going out to eat, when you walk in, meet your party, get your jacket off, see what futbol is on the corner TV, and just for presenting yourself upright, are offered a bowl, maybe some squirt bottles for variance, of spices and tomatoes, a synthetic marital collision of chilies, onion, garlic and slow-cooked kitchen love whose combinations and intricacies and nuance can go in one million directions.

At this point you can too. You can decide if you want a bubbly Jarritos to chase the salt. Or maybe you deserve a beer, a Bloody Maria. Maybe you're going to order an app, some queso fundido and go all in, risk a GI overtime infraction, the need for a nap, a sick day tomorrow. Or maybe it's time to scarf some mid-workday tacos and get back behind the mule. It's probably what ancestral bonfires were like, the center of making friends, where the most important can’t wait-stories are told, alliances arrived upon, when peace is made, with plans for the future—and the future meal—laid out, changed, made new again. Either way, it's a time of the communal, collective crackle of salty fried corn, bonding with the waitress, the ultimate arbiter of happiness, while hands are too busy, greasy to check phones, where compulsive shoveling of shards into mouths is accepted, expected.

But how can something so comforting, so central and everyday, also be so thrilling? So endless? A rollercoaster with infinite possibilities, unheard of chilies, a taste glimpse of sunny southern nether regions, distant agrarian lands never to be seen, open enough to be an avenue for innovation, awash with a pique of capsaicin-induced adrenaline, a thrill, a whiff of danger, the need for more water and/or another bite.

Salsa is a Mexican restaurant's soul in microcosm, an instant indicator of quality and potential, the synopsis and the trailer, the opening band you remember better than the headliner the next day, the first impression that keeps popping up again and again. And if you eat at enough Mexican restaurants, you start to go to other types of restaurants, and wonder if they even care that you came: there you are staring at your compatriots dumbly, over a glass of water, maybe a bowl of bread if you're lucky, unsure of what to do with your hands.

A restaurant welcome mat can and should hold so much more. Here are Milwaukee’s warmest and best.