Amilinda is an upscale-yet-approachable restaurant featuring Spanish and Portuguese-inspired cuisine in an eclectic mix of warm, Mediterranean tilework and quirky, inviting décor—a feel that was unexpected behind the stony visages of Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward neighborhood. The Milwaukee hotspot is owned by Chef Gregory León who just received his fourth nomination for a prestigious James Beard Award.

From the moment I walked in, it was clear that the open space was meant to feel like the kitchen of a close friend. The room was filled with calm chatter beneath the soundtrack of Spanish guitar, and the vibes were unmistakably “chill.” The staff were welcoming and interacted freely with the guests, and the workflow seemed devoid of the stressful rush that’s stereotypical in restaurant kitchens—a dynamic that was intentionally cultivated by Chef León.

Creating Comfort for Diners & Employees Alike 

“When people come into the restaurant, we don’t want them to feel intimidated or uncomfortable,” León said. Even the way they list items on the menu is meant to be accessible. As he noted, “We list the cut of meat we’re using, and then name the ingredients in the dish rather than giving a very long explanation. We just want to make it approachable to everyone, because I’ve seen fellow diners feel uncomfortable if they don’t know what they’re ordering. We want people to come in, relax, and enjoy sitting at Amilinda. There’s enough stress and weirdness in the world, and we don’t want to add to it.”

That philosophy extends to Chef León’s leadership and entrepreneurial style as well. He said, “I want our employees to feel like they have some sort of ownership in the restaurant. It’s a serious business, but we don’t want them to come in and say, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to be stressed if I don’t do the right thing. I’m going to get yelled at or get in trouble today.’ I want people to wake up in the morning and think, ‘Oh, cool. I get to go to work today.’ Everybody here has a say. I expect my Chef de Cuisine and Sous Chef to give me lots of input, and we collaborate on dishes. I want them to have a sense of pride and ownership. It has taken about 10 years to build a team this good. We only have eight people including myself, so we all wear lots of different hats.”

Chef León grew up in Venezuela where Caribbean food was the norm, but he spoke about the fond memories he has of growing up around family friends from Spain. As he tells it, “I was a 10-year-old eating Spanish tortillas with potatoes and onions for dinner. I remember eating Cabrales cheese, which is a very pungent blue cheese, for the first time with them. Then, when I was 27, I got invited to go to Spain. That’s when I realized that was the kind of food I wanted to cook.”

A Sense of Community Among Restaurant Owners 

After spending nearly two decades in San Francisco’s competitive food scene as a line cook, Chef León found himself on a visit to Milwaukee. That was 13 years ago, and he decided to stay and open Amilinda. “The people here are super-nice, and they have been very, very supportive. It’s a great city,” León said. “One of the things that really struck me when I came here was a sense of community amongst many restaurant owners and chefs. It was something I had never experienced before. I tell my friends who work in the restaurant business in other cities, and they don’t believe me or they think I’m exaggerating, but it’s awesome. I think that’s part of why Milwaukee didn’t have so many closures during the pandemic. We were all looking out for each other and trying to help each other.”

The restaurant, whose name is a combination of León’s parents’ names, Amilcar and Linda, doubles as the name of his family house in Venezuela. At Amilinda, Chef León serves dishes inspired by the Iberian Peninsula, which is then infused with his unique vision and style. “We take flavors and techniques that we enjoy and apply it to the ingredients we can get here in Wisconsin,” noted León. “We’re always mindful to make it approachable because we know that not a lot of people have had a chance to travel to Spain or Portugal.”

A Rotating Menu 

In order to simplify the workflow without limiting the team’s creative expression, many of the menu items at Amilinda change weekly. On my visit in late March, I was excited to order the Takoguiça appetizer, a takokyaki-style dough ball filled with a spicy Portuguese linguiça sauce, Manchego cheese and topped with hot honey. I also tried the Carcamusa, the most tender pork shoulder braised with warming spices and a hint of juniper, and served with Spanish chorizo and fried onions over a potato purée, and a Hen of the Woods mushroom dish served with eggplant purée and a garlic toum sauce. The food was bursting with flavor, filling, homey, and beautiful. And to my particular delight, I enjoyed the meal with a lovely cocktail called the Citizen Cosmo, an orange-lover’s take on a classic Cosmopolitan. I finished the meal with a decadent chocolate bundt cake served with dark chocolate sauce and an espresso whipped cream and left feeling both full and relaxed, exactly as I had hoped to.

Community Work & Fundraising 

“At first, all I really wanted to do was open a little restaurant where I could cook, feed a couple of people, make some money, and do some traveling,” noted León as he spoke about the early days as a restaurateur. While Amilinda has become a notable name with a formidable following both locally and nationwide, over the last 10 years, the restaurant has morphed into much more than that. “I’m always quite surprised at how much this place means to so many people,” he said. “It just kind of happened naturally. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and decided to change what we were doing and make the restaurant a place to help refugees and raise money for organizations. It was just a safe space on its own and the community work came because of that. There are also a lot of standup human beings in this city who will donate their time and their restaurants to raise money for a cause, which was something I hadn’t really experienced anywhere else.”

Today, a big part of Amilinda’s work is wrapped up in frequently donating their space and resources to raise money for various charities and organizations. “We have done dinners for Hanan Refugees Relief Group, Vivent Health, the ASPCA, and many others,” said León. “For me, it boils down to the fact that I have a space, so why not use it to make change in the community around me a little bit? People always ask me why I do this, but my answer is always, ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ I just don’t understand why I wouldn’t.”

I asked him where he thought his desire to help people came from, and he told me, “My parents were very community-minded. They weren’t hosting fundraisers, but they were the kind of people who would help others when they could. They were very good about instilling in my brothers and me that nobody is better than anybody else. We’re all the same no matter how much money you make, what you do for a living, or where you live.”

Visibility Matters 

From there, our conversation turned to the topic of activism and visibility. “I’m very outspoken,” said Chef León. “But that wasn’t always the case. For many years, I was hesitant to be very vocal about being an LGBTQ+ business owner. Then in 2017 or 2018, I realized that it is what it is. Sometimes I worried that it would affect the restaurant or my employees, but right now I think it’s incredibly important to be visible and stand your ground. I know that’s easier said than done, but the city of Milwaukee and our clientele have been incredibly welcoming.

“It’s the same with being HIV positive,” he said. “I was always very concerned that people were going to say, ‘I don’t want to eat there because I don’t want to get AIDS with my food.’ And I’m sure there are some of those people out there. With what’s going on right now in the world, and in the administration, I felt like it was time for me to step up to the plate and say, ‘Hey, you can go eat at a restaurant where the owner or the chef is HIV positive, and nothing is going to happen to you.’ We take this moment to try to educate people and so far, we haven’t seen any real backlash.”

Quite the contrary, this year Chef León has much to celebrate. After becoming a finalist for a James Beard award in the category of Best Chef: Midwest in both 2022 and 2023, he became a semifinalist for the national category of Outstanding Chef in 2024, and was listed as a semifinalist once again for the Outstanding Chef award this year.

“It’s very humbling. I looked at the list of people who’ve been nominated for this before, and it’s made up of these amazing chefs—some I’ve looked up to my whole career. So it’s quite an honor to be included in the same list as they are,” reflected Chef León. “But really, it’s not just about me. It’s a reflection on my team. I don’t do everything in the restaurant nor would I want to. Even though I’m the one that’s nominated, this really should shine a light on how amazing this team is. In the last six months, we have really achieved a cohesive sense of teamwork, which has helped us all excel. My Chef de Cuisine, Ethan Daugherty, is insanely good, and I never need to double-check anyone’s work because everyone just gets it. We have reached this balance with each other, which means I can step away and do other things if I need to.”

Seamless workflow & service 

And indeed, the balance León referred to is very evident, even as a first-time visitor to Amilinda. On top of the delicious meal, I found myself watching what I would describe as the “choreography” of the staff with servers flowing between making drinks, delivering food, hosting and interacting with guests, and the cooks putting out plates quickly without ever seeming rushed.

“I’m not a very scientific person,” reflected León. “But being able to do something that’s going to affect somebody for a little while, hopefully in a good way, is the ultimate goal. Maybe we help them forget about the bad day they had, maybe we help bring up a happy childhood memory or we bring someone a sense of happiness and fullness. I really enjoy that. I think it’s important to show that food can be more than just something that you need, that it’s more than just nutrition.

“At the end of the day, I think back to the fact that I have a very big family on my dad’s side. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, our house was full of people, and everybody was cooking,” he said. “There was always music and people dancing and that’s what showed me that food can be more. It is a vehicle to make people happy—and hopefully make their lives a little bit better. That’s what we try to do at Amilinda.”