The 10 Restaurants That Defined Detroit Dining This Year

No two trends defined Detroit dining in 2023 quite like French food and hotel restaurants. And no single restaurant nailed the overlap of the two quite like Le Suprême. Thanks to this true-to-form French brasserie, the long-vacant corner of Grand River and Washington Boulevard now feels like a slice out of La Belle Époque, with the beautifully restored Book Tower as the backdrop to a delicious blast from Detroit’s own Francophile history.

Philadelphia’s Method Co., which runs an impressive number of food concepts planned for the building, has made the experience wholly transporting for diners. Just entering the ground-floor restaurant, with its soaring ceilings, emerald tiles, and dark wood patina, is intended to feel like stepping through a portal to the 7th arrondissement.

The commitment to the Parisian bit runs through the buttoned up but friendly service to  pitch-perfect hors d’oeuvres (tangy, hand-chopped steak tartare; French onion soup with a legendary cheese pull) and bowls of well-dressed salad Lyonnaise, and then mains such as well-executed trout amandine and filet au poivre. Desserts, meticulously crafted by Detroit pastry veteran Ben Robison, are a tribute to the timeless elegance of French pâtisserie, each a nod to classics reimagined with a contemporary flair — much like Le Suprême itself, which feels like its been at this iconic corner of Detroit forever.

The chef at this French-inspired New American bistro (“coeur” means “heart” in French) has been a little coy about his cooking background, citing Culinary Institute of America training and vague references to stops in few coastal cities. But spend a few hours in the sleekly modern dining room at Coeur and the plates begin to tell a story of real cooking depth.

It turns out Smith spent some time at Quince in San Francisco, and the level of finesse gleaned from that high-caliber kitchen shows up in this decidedly more casual room, even if a plant-forward West Coast sensibility pervades. From the soft and airy house-baked country bread to the meaty maitake tempura, there are no misses. Coeur delivers deft plates without pretension, while an expertly curated wine list from sommelier Sean Crenny packs a few value sleepers among benchmarks. Don’t leave without sampling former Per Se pastry chef Carla Spicuzzi’s arresting desserts, like apple tarte tatin with housemade vanilla bean ice cream.

Call 248-466-3010 for more info.

If there’s one thing the Ash group does extremely well, it’s creating spaces that feel like setpieces from another era. That transportive experience happens the moment you hit the front door of The Siren Hotel, a beautifully restored Renaissance Revival building that once housed the Wurlitzer Co., which manufactured pianos, organs, jukeboxes, and other analog musical devices that defined the early 20th century. If the building hadn’t sat vacant for the better part of the last 40 years, you could be convinced that Ash—Bar had been the second-floor since the building’s founding in 1926.

With its stylish mint green palette and would-be continental cuisine, the restaurant acts as both meticulous throwback to a bygone era and an au courant play on the nostalgia everyone seems to be craving these days. If it sounds like Ash—Bar takes itself too seriously, fear not: The menu contains enough playful winks to break the facade, like a Parisienne hot dog on the happy hour roster: a beef and pork frank (from Marrow) topped with sauce gribiche and crispy shallots, tucked into a pillowy duck-fat brioche bun. (A proper Detroit-style coney, with chili, mustard, and onions, is another option.) Things get a little more serious on the dinner menu, where chef Scott Martinelli shows his technique in dishes like trout rillettes with horseradish crème fraîche. When in doubt, you can’t go wrong with the cheeseburger.

Speaking of cheeseburgers: The specimen at Bar Pigalle, Brush Park’s Parisian-inspired bistro from beverage veterans Joseph Allerton and Travis Fourmont, is another one of the city’s safest bets, though you’ll have to belly up to the bar to get a taste. (Three words:  housemade American cheese.) There’s plenty more to like at Bar Pigalle, too, especially since veteran chef Norm Valenti took over the kitchen a few months back, injecting some straight-ahead French comfort into the menu.

Think: roast chicken with butter-braised radishes, lamb persillade crusted in herbs and sauce Bordelaise. The heartiness of the food pairs well with the classic riffs found throughout the cocktail menu, embodied by drinks like Corsican negronis, Bohemian martinis, and Parisian painkillers. With just a handful of exceptions, the entire wine list derives from France, staying true to Bar Pigalle’s core identity.

Though it opened late in the year, the flagship ground-floor restaurant of the brand new Godfrey Hotel is already turning heads for multiple reasons. For one, the Godfrey is the first newly built hotel in Detroit’s oldest neighborhood, with rooms offering a view out onto the iconic red brick of Michigan Avenue. Two, Hamilton’s was developed in partnership with restaurateur Samy Eid (Leila, Forest, Phoenicia) and his culinary team led by chef Nick Janutol. Third, the kitchen and hotel’s food and beverage operations are overseen by rising star culinary talent Nyle Flynn, formerly of Bar Pigalle and The Apparatus Room, with a pastry department headed up by Hailey Enszer.

The all-day menu at Hamilton’s brings a big-city hotel vibe to the fore, with dishes like roasted Michigan carrots bathed in spicy green zhug and crumbled pistachio, hamachi crudo with serrano ponzu and persimmon, a fish ‘n’ chips play on halibut, Denver steak with celery root and anchovy zip sauce, and a requisite tavern cheeseburger. Visitors and locals alike will find something to be happy about here.

With its palm-studded dining room inside the brand new Cambria Hotel, Cibo takes the hotel restaurant format and adds a couple dashes of pan-Mediterranean flavors to the mix, partially drawing from the region’s vast Middle Eastern population as inspiration. That means breakfast options include za’atar in the biscuits and North African merguez sausage in the gravy, a chicken shawarma plate for lunch, and pomegranate-glazed ribs and lion’s mane moussaka for dinner as well as a 100-layer lasagna Amatriciana and selection of pizzas.

If it sounds overly eclectic, this mashup seems to be working, at least in early going. There is no shortage of ambition on the beverage side, either, with a bar program overseen by de facto Detroit ambassador John S. Neely, formerly of Highlands and co-founder of the Black on Both Sides bar popup. The cocktail ambition is evident right from the house old fashioned, made with brown butter fat-washed Elijah Craig bourbon, saffron demerara syrup, and saffron bitters.

Michigan native David Richter spent two decades in New York working with culinary luminaries like Joe Bastianich and Cesare Casella before ending his East Coast sojourn as City Winery’s director of operations. But after hearing about the buzz building back in Detroit, Richter decided to return to open his dream restaurant, a come-as-you-are neighborhood joint that serves exceptional food and wine from the countries surrounding the Alps.

Richter took over a cobblestone-fronted building that previously housed the award-winning Lady of the House restaurant, and launched Alpino this summer. And somehow, it worked, earning rave reviews and a growing following of folks coming for a taste of gooey raclette melted tableside and chef Colin Campbell’s salmon rosti. To sweeten the deal, Richter leaned on the musical programming of his City Winery days and brought in live bands for weekend dinner, and introduced fondue Sundays. It all adds up to one of the best and most original new dining experiences Detroit has seen recently.

More info here or call 313-524-0888.

For a city the size of Detroit, it has historically lacked options for dining with a view. That’s changed recently thanks to a couple new stylish rooftop lounges, none more evocative than Kamper’s, atop the restored Book Tower. Named for the building’s architect Louis Kamper, Kamper’s is more of a pre- or post-dinner bar and lounge rather than a full-blown restaurant. Though you could easily make a light meal from the focused menu of pintxos and tapas, like airy pan con tomate or a plate of thinly sliced jamon Iberico to go with a bottle of fino sherry. The lounge is only open Thursday through Sunday evenings, and the creme Catalan or Basque cheesecake both make a fine ending to any night out in the city, especially with a view this good.

Chef Hajime Sato jokes that the first 18 months of Sozai’s existence didn’t count. The Seattle transplant, who founded Mashiko 30 years ago and pioneered the concept of sustainable sushi before selling the restaurant to his staff, suffered from terrible timing. He moved to a state where he knew almost no one and opened a restaurant in a Clawson strip mall just as the pandemic bore down, effectively cutting him off from the culinary community he was about to join. Staffing in those first two years was impossible, and almost forced him to pull the plug on his Michigan experiment.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and today Sozai and Sato are operating as a best-in-class sushi restaurant on a level rarely seen this far from any ocean. Dining at Sozai is an educational experience, even for the most advanced guest, as Sato walks you through every meticulously sourced protein. You might leave having ingested Alaskan gooseneck barnacles or Maine uni or ikura that chef cured himself. No matter what, you are bound to go home with a deeper appreciation of ingredients and the lengths one man will go to honor them.

More info here or call 248-677-3232.

Heirloom Hospitality’s newest over-the-top stunner, Mad Nice takes a heavy dash of coastal Italian cooking and pairs it with breezy Californian vibes, adding a dose of proprietor Jeremy Sasson’s showy style to the mix — a true vote of confidence that Detroit is up for a more-is-more approach. That means the puffy pizzas are cut with Mad Nice-branded pink scissors, and the staff all wear white jumpsuits reminiscent of 1950s soda jerks.

But the main draw is chef Myles McVay’s polished but primal cooking style, evidenced by the likes of naturally leavened sourdough, duck pastrami cavatelli with parm broth and cured egg yolk, and whole branzino served with olive pistou and buttermilk culture, or half a chicken fresh from the rotisserie grill drizzled in honey and olives. The aforementioned pizzas, made with that naturally leavened sourdough, are certainly stars of the show, as is the space itself, designed by Parini to be endlessly Instagrammed until the next hot trend comes along.