At intimate Kindred restaurant in Bay View, flavor comes first

Reviewing restaurants really is like tracking a moving target. Never mind that a restaurant after a few weeks, a couple of months or a year isn’t the same place it was the day it first opened; there are changes that have nothing to do with maturity. Chefs leave, menus change.
                                               

Kindred, a handsome, intimate restaurant with delicious food, opened in March in Bay View, in the seven-room boutique hotel Kinn, in a renovated 1907 brick building. I was in the midst of visiting Kindred in late spring to review it when Marija Madunic, who owns the restaurant with her sister Vesna, emailed to say the chef had left.

Well. That didn’t seem like the right time to review a restaurant. The place it had been was most certainly not the place it would be when the review was published.

So I waited, and now chef Patrick Murphy is settled in; he’s made delicious food at restaurants including Le Reve in Wauwatosa and, more recently, All Purpose in Walker’s Point. The waiting, visiting the restaurant a few times .. and here it is, almost Christmas.

The room is large, but wood and exposed brick give it warmth, and it even manages to feel intimate by having tables tucked into a series of nooks. That is, all but a long table in the center of the room for large groups, which looks like it’s straight from a castle’s great hall. Lighting is sexily dim but strategic enough that dinner usually is illuminated just right for Instagram.

The bar off to the side in its own little room is stylish and cozy, too. Add the smart cocktails and a nice tap lineup of craft beers, plus some interesting wines by the glass (or bottle), and you’ve got a nice den for drinks.