Hour Detroit - May 2023

VOLUME TWENTY EIGHT ISSUE FIVE

PUBLISHER: Jason Hosko

EDITORIAL

EDITOR: Kate Walsh

DEPUTY EDITOR: Scott Atkinson

DIGITAL EDITOR: Christina Clark

ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Luanne Lim, Rachael Thomas

COPY EDITOR: Olivia Sedlacek

CONTRIBUTORS: Ronald Ahrens, Samuel Corey, Bill Dow, Nicole Frehsee Mazur, Steve Friess, Erica Hobbs, Ryan Patrick Hooper, Patty LaNoue Stearns, Mickey Lyons, Jenn McKee, Robert Stempkowski, Megan Swoyer, Jack Thomas, Lauren Wethington

INTERNS: Kira Gendjar, Arianna Heyman

DESIGN

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Lindsay Richards

SENIOR PRODUCTION ARTIST: Stephanie Daniel

JUNIOR ART DIRECTOR: Steven Prokuda

GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Keagan Coop

CONTRIBUTORS: James Heimer, Chuk Nowak, Sal Rodriguez, Rebecca Simonov, Brad Ziegler

SALES

PUBLISHING AND SALES COORDINATOR: Mikala Bart

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES: Cynthia Barnhart, Regan Blissett, Karli Brown, Maya Gossett, Donna Kassab, Lisa LaBelle, Mary Pantely & Associates, Jessica VanDerMaas

PRODUCTION

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR: Jenine Knox

SENIOR PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: Jill Berry

PRODUCTION ARTIST: Jonathan Boedecker

ADVERTISING COORDINATOR: Amanda Kozlowski

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS: Jim Bibart, Kathryn Dave IT

IT DIRECTOR: Jeremy Leland

WEB

DIGITAL DIRECTOR: Nick Britsky

DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: Matthew Cappo

DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT SPECIALISTS: Jim Bowser, Marissa Jacklyn, Kevin Pell

DIGITAL STRATEGY MANAGER: Travis Fletcher

VIDEO EDITOR: Taylor Lutz

VIDEO PRODUCER: Nicole Toporowski

DIGITAL MEDIA ASSISTANT: Robyn Banks

CIRCULATION

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Riley Meyers

CIRCULATION COORDINATORS: David Benvenuto, Susan Combs Jenna Degowski, Cathy Krajenke, Rachel Moulden, Michele Wold

MARKETING & EVENTS

MARKETING & EVENTS MANAGER: Jodie Svagr

MARKETING & EVENTS COORDINATOR: Jaime Presnail

COMMUNICATIONS & EVENTS LEAD: Cathleen Francois

MARKETING & EVENTS INTERN: Elassia Elias

MARKETING RESEARCH

MARKETING RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Sofia Shevin

MARKETING RESEARCH COORDINATOR: Kristin Mingo

MARKETING RESEARCH SALES COORDINATOR: Alexandra Thompson

MARKETING RESEARCH ASSISTANT: Alyssa Fueri

PRS GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Alexa Dyer

BUSINESS

CEO: Stefan Wanczyk

PRESIDENT: John Balardo

DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS OPERATIONS: Kathie Gorecki

ASSISTANT OFFICE MANAGER: Natasha Bajju

SENIOR ACCOUNTING ASSOCIATE: Andrew Kotzian

ACCOUNTING ASSOCIATES: Samantha Dick, Austin Schmelzle

DISTRIBUTION: Target Distribution, Troy

CONTENTS

38 In the LeDuff

The Pulitzer winnerturned-local TV news performance artist Charlie LeDuff no longer has corporate media overlords to please. Can he — and we — handle that?

47 Top Towns

A look at the ZIP codes in metro Detroit that have seen the biggest boom in home sales amid a national housing shortage.

Charles “Charlie” LeDuff records his semiweekly podcast The No

B.S. News Hour in the attic of American Coney Island in Detroit.

CONTENTS

Up Front

‘FOR T HE CULTURE’

A review of a new book from University of Michigan marketing professor Marcus Collins.

COPS & CLINICIANS

Mental health co-responders are now a bigger part of Michigan police departments.

ROOMS TO GROW

The latest on the new lifestyle-oriented hotels popping up on the downtown Detroit landscape.

24/Seven

MODEL CI TIZEN

Meet Dalia Fragoso, the aspiring social worker and emerging model who was mentored by supermodel Coco Rocha.

SEW IMPORTANT

These local entrepreneurs create apparel brands to support mental health advocacy.

GREENHOUSE GRACE

Interior designer Rachel Nelson creates a backyard retreat for an Oakland County rose aficionado.

BY MOMS, FOR MOMS

A look inside a Ferndalebased wellness studio dedicated to “the people who make the people.”

Agenda

CULTURE C ALENDAR

The return of Movement, an orchestra tribute to Aretha Franklin, and more May merriment.

BELLE ISLE REIMAGINED

The state park revamps its nature center to focus on showcasing wild life in an urban environment.

SUMMER OF SCREAMS

Ring in the unofficial start of roller coaster season on one — or all — of six new thrill rides within a day’s drive of Detroit.

Food&Drink

HERE’S THE SCOOP Booza Delights brings Arabic ice cream to Dearborn Heights.

VEGAN VACATION

Travel enthusiast Rebecca Gade Sawicki provides tips and trips for vegans.

REVIEW: TIGERLILY Japanese culture and cuisine blossom in the florally named Ferndale hot spot.

ALL ABOUT AGAVE M Cantina mixologist Junior Merino shares his love for spirits derived from the southof-the-border plant.

THE ULTIMATE BOOK ABOUT DETROIT’S HISTORY

Behind the Scenes

BACK IN FEBRUARY, when the Hour Detroit staff was planning this issue, we were brainstorming ideas for a travel story. One avenue was to highlight summer travel destinations. Another was to talk about day trips for May. Our digital editor, Christina Clark, had a thought that would cover both. “You know, May is the start of roller coaster season,” she said. “And there are a bunch of new ones opening this year in and around the Midwest.” Christina (pictured here with her partner, Mike) knows what she’s talking about. She travels all around the country visiting amusement parks to take on the biggest and baddest coasters — 137 so far. Check out six drivable destinations beginning on page 67. As for Christina’s favorite roller coaster: “Hands down, Lightning Rod at Dollywood, followed immediately by Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point and Intimidator at Carowinds.”

CONTRIBUTORS

Explore the latest book from award-winning journalist and DBusiness magazine editor R.J. King. “Detroit: Engine of America” is the real life story of how the city grew, step by step, from a French fort on the riverfront in 1701 to become the world’s largest manufacturing economy in 1900.

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE TOWN YOU CALL HOME?

To purchase copies of “Detroit: Engine of America” personally signed by the author, visit DetroitEngineofAmerica.com.

Brad Ziegler

PHOTOGRAPHED CHARLIE LEDUFF, PAGE 38

“I settled on Bloomfield Village South [five years ago] because I can easily walk to Birmingham, it’s close to the Lodge to get downtown quickly, and the neighborhood is charming with meandering, tree-lined streets and sidewalks. It’s quiet yet extremely close to so much!”

Brad Ziegler is a Detroit-based photographer who specializes in environmental portraiture for magazines, corporations, ad agencies, and more. His creative skills are frequently requested by publications around the country.

Patty LaNoue Stearns

WROTE TOP TOWNS, PAGE 47

“My husband and I returned to the Detroit area in 2015 after living on a lake outside Traverse City for 15 years. We found a 1958 ranch home in a wooded area of Troy and love the parklike property and the proximity to great restaurants, Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Woodward Corridor, and downtown Detroit via the I-75 freeway.” Award-winning journalist and author Patty LaNoue Stearns is a former staffer at the Detroit Free Press, Traverse magazine, Detroit Monthly, and Ward’s Auto World. She has written thousands of stories covering everything from cars to haute cuisine and is a regular contributor to state and national publications.

Ryan Patrick Hooper

WRITES CULTURE

CALENDAR EVERY ISSUE, PAGE 64

“My current home is in the historic Woodbridge neighborhood, walking distance from the Cass Corridor, where I’ve lived and worked for years. Yes, the Cass Corridor — not Midtown, which folks have been trying to rebrand for decades now. To me, Midtown is a place to come and spend money — a business district. Cass Corridor is a neighborhood and a sense of place — a community. That’s what has kept me there for almost my entire time living in Detroit, and I pray I don’t get Midtown-ed out one day by rising rents.”

Ryan Patrick Hooper is the host of CultureShift, a weekday arts and culture program that airs on 101.9 WDET, Detroit’s NPR station. He is a New York Timespublished writer and a 2020 Regional Murrow Award winner in broadcast feature reporting.

EDITOR’S LETTER

The best piece of advice I received when I was house hunting

for my family of three 20-something years ago was “Go to the playgrounds.” My husband and I were new parents to a 6-month-old, and we were looking to move out of Manhattan and into the suburbs. Our criteria were affordability, location, schools, and town amenities.

We had already narrowed down the general location before our son was born. We picked Westchester County because it was an easy commute from Grand Central Station and every time we drove there to visit friends, I felt like I was going Up North. It amazed me that you could drive just 30 minutes from New York City and be in charming New England-style towns on the Hudson River filled with parks, rivers, and a bit farther north, mountain views.

When we were deciding between two towns, our real estate agent gave us the playground advice. He said it was the best way to get a feel for your neighbors. We had gotten so caught up in price, location, and schools that we hadn’t thought of the people who make up a community. I was a working mom, and my husband was a stay-athome dad; we wanted to be in a place where we weren’t the oddballs. We loved the diversity and cultural options in our NYC neighborhood and wanted the same in our new hometown. After a few stalking visits to both towns’ playgrounds, we found a winner.

House hunting today across the country, including metro Detroit, is not that easy. We are in the middle of a housing shortage — which began in 2008 and worsened during the pandemic — combined with rising median home prices (they more than tripled from 1991 to 2021). For Hour Detroit’s first-ever “best places to live” feature, we wanted to look at areas that have seen the biggest boom in house sales in five counties: Oakland, Macomb, Wayne, Washtenaw, and Livingston. To acquire that information, we asked Jeanette Schneider and her team at RE/Max of Southeastern Michigan to crunch some numbers to find the hottest towns in metro Detroit and neighborhoods in the city of Detroit. They did this by looking at speed of sales (days on the market) and increase in sales prices (difference in median sales price from 2021 to 2022).

What you’ll find in the chart of the top towns in the five counties is not just all the usual suspects — i.e., the wealthiest ZIP codes. Some of those towns/cities are there, but you will also find towns that border those areas and some that aren’t even close. We also include data on the top towns in the luxury market ($500,000 and up) in Oakland, Wayne, and Macomb counties. Our profiles of 11 of these towns and two Detroit neighborhoods include interviews with new homeowners who tell us what they were looking for and what they found, as well as with Realtors who describe the appeal of each community.

My advice after raising three kids in a town we thought was perfect: Take time to go beyond the data. What you find on paper isn’t always what you get or what will meet your family’s needs. For example, my son ended up needing a school district with a great special education program, so the high school’s college readiness index didn’t mean much for him. But the support I got in that town from the community — and the parents I met at the playground (who are still friends 24 years later) — made all the difference in the world.

KATE WALSH, EDITOR K WALSH@HOUR-MEDIA.COM

From Our Readers

“Have dined there [Madam] twice. Both excellent dinners. I would like to see Madam expand its menu, though. Their Spanish octopus selection is both delicious and stunning [in] presentation!”

(“2023 Restaurant of the Year: Madam,” March)

—Ralph Kisiel, Facebook

“Took this [Wild Women of Detroit] tour last night with husband and friends. History with humor — what a delight! We learned so many things about women’s influence in the city and Detroit history. Tour guide Bailey is a wealth of knowledge. We are looking forward to going on more of these tours.” (“One for the HerStory Books,” March) —@brookemicheleschwartz, Instagram

“Love this place [C. King & Co. Café]. The pizza is sooooo good.” (“Restaurant Report: C. King & Co. Café,” March) —@vvandershell, Instagram

“Wow, this is so helpful! Ironically, I am in Dowagiac, Michigan, but I didn’t find the greatest place to stay. Your link will be very useful and much needed!! Beautiful photography!” (“An Insider’s Guide to Michigan’s Cabin Rentals,” March) —@clientconnections, Instagram

Digital Extra

From Movement and other music fests to hometown carnivals and food fairs, Detroit and the surrounding area have no shortage of summertime festivals for everyone. Get details on the biggest events happening during the summer of 2023, and keep your itinerary full, with our handy guide at hourdetroit. com/summerfestivals

Follow us online at hourdetroit.com or on social media: @hourdetroit @hour_detroit @hourdetroitmagazine

BOOKS

Book Review

BY

BEFORE SETTLING IN to read University of Michigan marketing professor Marcus Collins’ new book, For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be, I walked to a locally owned cafe, eschewing the Starbucks down the block, and I wore a Luke’s Diner T-shirt, thus declaring my Gilmore Girls fandom to those in the know.

Not long into the book, I recognized how these kinds of daily micro-decisions feed and express my sense of myself and outwardly signal the things I value — whether I’m always conscious of it or not.

So as you might imagine, the power that can be tapped by connecting with the “cultures” that drive our behaviors is considerable, since they often dictate

what we buy, where we shop, who we vote for, who our friends are, where we live — everything, really.

As Collins explains, “[Culture] moves beyond a brand having the sharpest razor, the fastest car, or the longest-lasting battery. Culture supersedes all these product differentiators because it does not revolve around what the product is. Culture focuses on who we are.”

Put simply: We aren’t what we buy; we buy what we believe we are.

And because of that, Collins argues, the way to make an impact, and get people to take action — whether it’s in an office, a store, or a voting booth; online; or in your living room — is to understand and connect with a specific culture and then find a way not to market products to this “congregation” but rather to contribute to and/or participate in that culture in meaningful ways.

By way of examples, Collins unpacks why hipsters adopted Pabst Blue Ribbon (not because of anything related to the drink, but because of what the brand seemed to represent); the origins of the Budweiser “Wassup” commercial and why it became such a cultural phenomenon (it keyed into the unique, versatile language of close friendships); and how companies like Patagonia and Nike could make choices that seem counterintuitive from a

traditional business standpoint — eco-friendly Patagonia discouraged customers from buying more stuff, and Nike built a campaign supporting former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kapernick’s controversial protest — and still come out on top.

Collins also draws from his vast experience as a marketing professional, and he wisely understands that his past missteps (and those of others) hold just as many lessons as, if not more than, the successes.

Among them is an attempt to create a “Beyontourage” for Beyoncé, when online fans had already constructed, on their own, what’s known as the “Beyhive.”

Collins writes, “We were looking for fans when we should have been looking for believers. Watching this all go down completely challenged the way I thought about getting people to move. … Instead of trying to create a community around you, perhaps you’d be better off trying to find the people who already believe what you believe and to facilitate the network that connects them.”

He also discusses the short-lived follow-up to Sprite’s “Obey Your Thirst” campaign, “Only for the Thirsty,” which failed because, over the course of several years, the slang meaning of “thirst” had morphed from “desire/drive” into “desperate” or “pathetic.”

Yet an even more profound cultural dissonance occurred when Kendall Jenner appeared in a Pepsi ad featuring protestors and police, wherein Jenner bridged the distance between sides by handing a white police officer a can of soda. Not only did this add yet another “white savior” narrative to the pile, but it demonstrated a lack of sensitivity to the protests happening in regard to the policing of (and violence committed against) Black people in America.

Collins notes that it’s hard to always know how your audience will interpret marketing, but “the onus is on the communicator to ‘read the room’ and signal meaning in such a way that it aligns with how meaning is made, however nuanced that may be.”

I’ll confess that there were a couple of moments when Collins lost me — specifically, in a chapter where he ventures into the technical, academic weeds of consumer signification. Plus, Collins perhaps-too-briefly touches on the potential for using these methods (i.e., tapping into “culture”) for immoral ends with little more than a Hill Street Blues-like admonition to be careful out there.

Yet overall, For the Culture is a highly accessible, smart, and well-written book. Whether you’re a marketing professional, a business owner, an activist, or simply a mindful consumer, the book offers itself as a go-to guide to the invisible forces that inform nearly every decision we make. (Consider this both a warning and an endorsement.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to close this MacBook — adorned with a sticker that reads “English majors: Doin’ it for the money” — and savor the last of my latte.

In his new book, Detroit native and professor Marcus Collins shows why we do what we do and buy what we buy

JENN MCKEE

“ [Culture] moves beyond a brand having the sharpest razor, the fastest car, or the longest-lasting battery.”

—MARCUS COLLINS

BY SAMUEL COREY | ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES HEIMER

WHEN HILLARY

Nusbaum is asked why she wanted to be a coresponder clinician working alongside police officers, she says one of the words that resonated most with her was “reconciliation.”

Her stepdad, someone she admired, was a former public safety director in Coldwater, in southwest Michigan, overseeing both the city’s police and firefighters and inspiring trust between them. The theme of reconciliation followed Nusbaum to Israel, where, for five summers between 2011 and 2016, she worked at a camp bringing Palestinian and Israeli children together to relate and acknowledge and reconcile their differences.

As a trained social worker and certified first responder counselor, Nusbaum wanted to work with police or military officers experiencing trauma. So, when a job opened up to work with police as a co-response clinician in Oakland County — working alongside police on 911 calls related to mental health crises — she took it. Nusbaum started working in August 2021, when the Co-Response Community Outreach program began under the management of the Oakland County Community Health Network, or OCHN.

Mental health co-responders have been around for some time now, but within a relatively short period, they’ve become one of the state’s biggest policy responses to cries against police violence and abuse. The Co-Response Community Outreach initiative in Oakland County started among the Auburn Hills, Birmingham, and Bloomfield Hills police departments. But according to Trisha Zizumbo, director of OCHN’s training and justice initiatives, the co-response program quickly expanded. In October 2022, the Rochester Police Department opted into the program. There’s now a co-responder with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office and one with the Troy Police Department, “and we are continuing to have conversations with local law enforcement to expand this initiative,” Zizumbo says.

What “co-responder” means can vary from department to department. For OCHN, it’s a position that requires a clinical license, and co-responders

undergo six weeks of training prior to assisting on police calls. “But there are models where a peer support specialist may also respond, and that is not a clinical position,” Zizumbo says, noting that “in Michigan, there is a certification to be a peer support specialist and/or recovery coach.”

According to Siiri Sikora, OCHN’s justice initiatives manager, all cities working with a co-responder want to fund the program independently after federal grant funding expires next year.

According to data released to Hour Detroit, between October 2021 and September 2022 in Auburn Hills, Birmingham, and Bloomfield Hills, co-responders received 640 referrals. In just over 200 of those times, co-responders were able to leave the client stable, in the care of a family member. In many of the other calls, the client was voluntarily transported to an emergency room (174) or received community-based resources (167). There have been only eight arrests while a co-responder was on scene.

One of the primary goals of co-responders is to divert people from the criminal justice system. Zizumbo says police appear to have accepted their new partners.

“Every time I talk to a chief or a lieutenant or even an officer, they see the benefit of having a co-responder with them or being able to follow up,” she says.

Auburn Hills Police Chief Ryan Gagnon agrees. Police officers in his department call the coresponder to help during calls related to depression, suicide, family troubles, or mental health episodes. He says co-responders have already helped reduce police calls to the same address and resident hospitalizations.

It’s on these calls where Nusbaum often finds herself. She began the job riding along with police officers, building relationships and learning how they respond. During at least 120 hours of ridealongs, she’s learned where she needs to stand when called to a scene, how to interact with particular officers, and when it’s appropriate to take action. She says it hasn’t always been easy.

Nusbaum says several officers told her they

originally didn’t want her on the beat but later changed their minds after seeing the range of services she provides. Since she began, she’s assisted people in the field but also listened to police struggling with trauma. She’s not allowed to counsel officers due to the conflict of interest but has done trainings for them on suicide, PTSD, and other mental health-related topics and even provided officers with mental health resources. Nusbaum says she focuses on her relationships with officers to improve her work and to help police navigate their own issues.

“I see how they work every day, and I see what they do,” she says. “I think it’s a very challenging job, and I think they’re faced with an excessive amount of traumatic situations weekly, if not daily, and I give them a lot of credit.”

It’s been three years since a police officer murdered George Floyd. That’s three years since some of the largest subsequent street protests in American history three years since institutional anti-Black racism, especially pertaining to police departments, became a larger part of public conversation. In the summer of 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic killing hundreds of thousands at home and millions around the world, many were confined to their homes and their screens, doom-scrolling through tragedy after tragedy taking place at the hands of police.

Disproportionate police violence against Black and Indigenous communities — and the broader issue of police violence against Americans writ large is not new. But much of the American public is now paying an unusual amount of attention to the problem of police violence. And since 2020, there have been changes to both police budgets and police work: With the state’s $1 billion investment to fund public safety, Michigan police have more money than in the recent past, especially as politicians attempt to mitigate a slight increase in certain violent crimes (despite a decades-long decline in violent crime). Mental health co-responders are on the scene. And crisis intervention team programming (de-escalation training) has been implemented in some police departments (this has been occurring since long before the summer of 2020).

Co-response work, like that in Oakland County, is widely available across the state. The co-responder is often tasked with helping individuals experiencing mental health crises and domestic disputes and alleviating problems related to wellness checks, suicide attempts, homelessness, family challenges, and more. Notably, this change is not specific to liberal hubs like Oakland and Washtenaw counties. Co-responders have taken root in places as distant as Ottawa and Ingham and in cities as culturally distinct as Newaygo and Detroit.

But what do these changes mean for Michiganders’ interpretation of safety? What does it say about how we address harm? And do co-responders prevent police violence and create a safer, healthier public?

The World of Police Work

According to the Harvard Law Review, in America, police are often trained to be warriors. This mythos, fostered by politicians, media, and police recruitment videos, supports the idea that police need to enter the streets like they would a battlefield, ready to apprehend “bad guys” and stop violence in its tracks. But addressing violent crime is a small portion of what officers actually do. A New York Times review of publicly available data demonstrates that police officers address real-time violence only about 4 percent of the time in a given year. Much of the work, instead, includes lessstressful and less-violent tasks, like traffic stops and intervening in neighborly disputes.

This is true in both large cities and small towns.

In Auburn Hills, about 10 percent of calls to police are related to substance use and mental health crises, according to Gagnon. Most policing, in fact, has nothing to do with intervening on knife or gun attacks, Gagnon says, meaning police infrequently need to use force on the job. Of the 21,892 calls to the Auburn Hills Police Department in 2021, there were 1,714 arrests. During that year, police force was used on 70 occasions — or less than 1 percent of the time.

“The overall majority of calls are not involving violence or threat of violence,” Gagnon says.

The majority of police work, then, is unrelated to the work they are trained for — instead, it includes things like helping those experiencing homelessness, mental health issues, and drug addiction. The same issues, in other words, that social workers are often trained to handle.

That might also help explain why Auburn Hills and several other cities across the state have added clinical co-responders to the beat. It’s also likely why at least 15 jurisdictions across the country implemented coresponder programs between 2020 and 2022. Before that time, 28 jurisdictions already had a co-responder.

But co-responders haven’t always been effective in both aiding the public and preventing police violence.

Last August, an Oakland County sheriff’s deputy was taped repeatedly punching a restrained Black woman (Diressee Wilson) suffering from mental illness in Pontiac (an officer said she was resisting arrest). And in October, Porter Burks was shot and killed by Detroit police while he was experiencing a mental health episode. In each of these incidents, coresponders were on the scene. (In response to the August event, OCHN said they were “disappointed” with the outcome in Pontiac.)

The World of Police Alternatives

Public conversations about police violence and police alternatives haven’t only produced co-responders.

There are broadly three models of mental health responses, says Leonard Swanson, a crisis response and stabilization manager at Wayne State University: mobile crisis units including mental health professionals that enter the field independently of police; office-based services where mental health

experts receive patients coming to their (often) county door; and co-response models, where mental health professionals team with police officers — a model that is quickly growing in Michigan.

That model is concerning to many police abolitionists. Many of them say the addition of coresponders is misguided because it doesn’t uproot or appropriately address harm. Angel McKissic, a senior program manager with the Just Cities Lab at the Detroit Justice Center and co-founder of the Metro Detroit Restorative Justice Network, says that for people to be liberated, police departments should not be expanded but rather abolished.

“What we need to do is to completely — even if we’re starting from mental health — divert from the institution of policing and create our own mechanisms of intervention and ongoing support,” she says.

McKissic, also a trained therapist, says harm cannot be disentangled from material conditions like access to housing or capital or immaterial ones like

enough for Michigan lawmakers to adopt them and turn away from law enforcement.

“We’ve always had policing. We’ve always had incarceration. We’ve never taken a chance on a nonpolice mental health response.”

A Shifting Dynamic

In Michigan, Washtenaw County is doing some of the most innovative work regarding who responds to what public calls for help. A 2019 county mental health millage provided funding for health clinicians to respond to calls independently of police officers as a mobile support unit. Currently overseen by the Washtenaw County Community Mental Health Department, about 25 of its clinicians can be called 24/7 by police officers or dispatchers to scenes deemed safe enough. In total, Washtenaw mobile health clinicians have called for police backup 12 percent of the time. None have been physically injured on the job, says Executive Director Trish Cortes.

The addition of the CAHOOTS-like and coresponse approaches has left Washtenaw with five general responses, which Wayne County Sheriff Jerry Clayton considers as existing on a continuum. There are police-only responses, non-police mental health mobile support unit responses, coordinated responses where the police or clinician call each other into the field for support, co-responses in which a clinician and an officer enter the field together, and an unarmed community-based response, which is currently being developed.

misogyny and racism. Rather than co-responders, she calls for funding projects that financially empower communities to decide what safety is for themselves. In other words, the definition of safety needs to rest, democratically, in the hands of neighborhoods.

But while community-led harm reduction groups are not generally well funded by government dollars, some non-police mental health field intervention programs are.

Swanson says Eugene, Oregon’s Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets (or CAHOOTS) program is, nationally, the most effective field approach to alleviating mental health crises. That response team doesn’t include police.

That program and Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response (or STAR) program, which also doesn’t include dispatched officers, have seen early success. CAHOOTS saved $22.5 million in public safety and emergency room costs, and STAR expanded by $1.4 million in 2021, in part because health-focused first responders were able to reduce various crimes by 34 percent, according to an independent study.

Alexandria J. Hughes, who worked as a behavioral health therapist and is now a mental health and criminal justice organizer with the group Michigan Liberation, which aims to end mass incarceration, says positive reports for STAR and CAHOOTS should be

The continuum of responses is forcing police and broader community residents to shift how they consider policing, safety, and harm reduction. Police dispatchers themselves, Clayton says, need to ask more specific questions to better understand behavioral health issues and best direct their various resources to a scene. The complexity means that these days, a call is often registered to Washtenaw’s dispatch as one thing but is cleared by the deputy sheriff as another.

“I think what we’re really thinking about is a shifting dynamic across the entire spectrum,” Clayton says. “We’re not only talking about changing culture in the first responder world. We should be thinking about changing the culture from the societal standpoint on who should respond when and also give ourselves some space and time as we start to work this out.”

Back in Oakland County, co-responder clinician Nusbaum continues diving into issues facing police and the broader public and working to reconcile officers and the people who may call for officers to help them. At 21 months in, she’s still doing police ride-alongs when time allows. It’s in these spaces that she’s better able to understand and appreciate police and expand her knowledge of the various needs of the communities she’s serving.

“I do think the addition of mental health working with police, together, is a really great benefit for both of us,” she says.

“I think what we’re really thinking about is a shifting dynamic across the entire spectrum.”

—WAYNE COUNTY SHERIFF JERRY CLAYTON

ROOMS TO GROW

New lifestyle-oriented hotels help Detroit win more conventions but also tilt toward leisure travelers

BY RONALD AHRENS

WALKING TO HIS 3 o’clock meeting one winter day, Claude Molinari, president and CEO of Visit Detroit, huffs and puffs while thinking about challenges to be overcome in the lodging sector. Detroit now ranks fifth nationally in rooms under development or construction, he says, and this should help to counteract the problem of events veering away to Atlanta, Dallas, Indianapolis, and other familiar host cities.

“Over the last five years, we’ve lost over 600,000 room nights for the specific reason that we did not have enough hotel rooms,” Molinari says. “Of that number, 50,000 were lost because we didn’t have a hotel connected to the convention center.”

Detroit is nearly a year away from a signature moment when the 89th annual NFL draft is staged in Campus Martius Park and Hart Plaza. And in April 2027, the NCAA men’s Final Four comes to town. Because of that, hundreds of luxurious rooms are under construction and coming online. The new or remodeled hotels will variously include patisseries, restaurants, deluxe coffee bars, a couple of rooftop lounges, and even one taco stand, the Detroit Taco Bodega, which was set to open this spring within the Cambria Hotel Downtown Detroit.

A boost came last December with the passage of Michigan Senate Bill 1222, signed into law by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, which allows for bond issuances and capital expenditures associated with Huntington Place so it could be expanded to accommodate more business. As a result, the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority — which Molinari chairs — “can now go out for bonds so that we can spur private developers to build additional hotels. We’re working with the Sterling Group to build a hotel connected to the west side of the convention center [Huntington Place] on the former Joe Louis Arena site.”

The continued development ensures that Detroit remains in line for mega-events like sports championships and for big conventions like Busworld North America, which in February brought thousands of group-tour operators to southeast Michigan. In May, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meets in Detroit with trade and travel ministers from many nations.

“It’s very exciting that we’re on the top of these lists,” Molinari says.

Beyond all this, Detroit can look forward to an increase in leisure travelers because of the current, more luxurious, approach to expansion.

“It’s helped position Detroit as an attractive leisure destination with more quality hotel products coming online,” says Romy Bhojwani, director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group in Washington, D.C. “A lot of the new supply is more lifestyle oriented as opposed to cookie-cutter hotels. That certainly helps the destination to attract more transient and leisure customers — and even group customers.”

Here’s a look at the status of some of the key projects in the works.

PROJECT: ROOST APARTMENT HOTEL

1265 Washington Blvd.

Rooms: 117

Cost: $300+ million (for historic restoration of the Book Tower)

Projected opening: Early summer

The long-awaited reopening of Book Tower, which is home to Roost Apartment Hotel as well as 229 residential units — is almost upon us. A crowning achievement of the Book brothers — Frank, Herbert, and J. Burgess Jr. — this 38-story salute to Renaissance Italy combined with the American skyscraper opened in 1926. (The Westin Book Cadillac Hotel numbers among Detroit’s other Book brothers buildings.) Bedrock acquired the tower and adjacent 13-story Book Building in 2015 — 500,000 square feet in all. The redevelopment incorporates apartments and offices; Roost Apartment Hotel will provide an enticing option for guests who want or need to linger in downtown Detroit. To execute the architectural and interior renovation of the Book Tower, the New York firm ODA was called in. At Roost Apartment Hotel, you will find 117 units on floors 4 through 8 with full-size kitchens and downtown views. If you prefer not to cook, there are two onsite restaurants (one French, one Japanese). Roost’s parent, Method Co. of Philadelphia, will run the lobby bar and lounge as well as a bakery cafe. An indoor/outdoor rooftop bar is available to guests, and an 8,000-square-foot skylit space provides a dramatic setting for select events.

PROJECT: CAMBRIA HOTEL DOWNTOWN DETROIT

600 W. Lafayette Blvd.

Rooms: 154

Cost: $70 million

Start with the 1936 limestonefaced art deco masterpiece that architect Albert Kahn designed for WWJ Radio, do an adaptive reuse of this building for public spaces, and then add a four-story hotel block atop the existing two-story parking structure. That gives you Cambria Hotel Downtown Detroit. After enduring the pandemic and port delays, construction managers had the 154-room hotel set to open in March with meeting spaces coming soon after. A fast-growing national chain of boutique hotels, Cambria Hotels is a brand of Choice Hotels International with 66 locations in the United States and another 15 opening this year, says Dawn Barth, director of sales and marketing for the Detroit location.

Krieger Klatt Architects of Royal Oak designed the hotel using prefabricated units that were lifted by crane and assembled atop the car park. A courtyard separates the hotel from the main building, within which two main ballrooms encompass 17,000 square feet. Cibo, a 250-seat Mediterraneaninspired restaurant, will serve three meals a day. A Detroit Taco Bodega will also be in the main building. “We’ll have charcuterie, pastries, and coffee available for the guests to come down and purchase as well as a walk-up window to the outside for anybody coming to the offices nearby. They can stop and grab a sandwich,” Barth says. The big surprise is in the basement, which will house Five Iron Golf, a virtual golf experience with 14 bays. And why not bowling? There are two lanes, adding to the potential for team-building exercises.

Roost Apartment Hotel at Book Tower

PROJECT: HUNTINGTON PLACE HOTEL

1 Washington Blvd. Rooms: 600-800

(projected)

Cost: N/A

Those 50,000 room nights that evaporated due to lack of a convention-center hotel are being addressed.

PROJECT: WESTIN BOOK CADILLAC DETROIT

1114 Washington Blvd.

Rooms: 453

Cost: $20 million

Projected opening: July

In these times of inflation, $20 million will still get you a glorious makeover of the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel. Valiantly hanging on after its, ah, well-timed 2008 opening, the Book Cadillac gained a solid claim for helping to revive downtown. Today, the interior wood trim looks quaint, and general wear and tear must be considered. The present makeover is five years late for the industry norm of an update every decade. “It became really important to change the look and feel,” says Scott Stinebaugh, the Plymouth native who is the sales and marketing chief. “What you’re going to see is lighter, brighter, and more art deco.” More specifically, all 453 hotel rooms will now shimmer with new elegance. Roast, the superb restaurant effort of chef Michael Simon, faded away during the pandemic, but the space is going to Michigan’s first Sullivan’s Steakhouse. “I just think the new product is going to be a ‘wow’ factor,” Stinebaugh says.

PROJECT: GODFREY HOTEL

1401 Michigan Ave.

Rooms: 227

Cost: $80+ million

Projected opening: Early June

PROJECT: ROBERTS RIVERWALK HOTEL

“We’re working with the Sterling Group to build a hotel connected to the west side of the convention center on the old Joe Louis Arena site,” Molinari says of a plan announced in January. Sterling Group owns the site. He forecasts 600 to 800 rooms and hopes for expeditious groundbreaking. A second hotel would make it a dream project. Modifications to Huntington Place are also planned as part of the undertaking.

Where a ramshackle former taxi garage once stood in Corktown, the handsome seven-story Godfrey Hotel has risen, and owners feel “very positive about June 1” for the opening, according to Aaron Black, general manager. Black, a veteran of 17 years with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, says the 227-room Godfrey is small in comparison to the average hotel but is a “legitimately large boutique hotel.” The name Godfrey derives from an ancient European antecedent meaning “peace of God” and implies a hearty welcome. Owned by Oxford Capital Group and operated by Oxford Hotels and

Resorts, the new hotel joins other Godfrey locations in Boston, Chicago, Hollywood, and Tampa, Florida. It’s a companion to the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit, another Oxford Capital property. The Godfrey’s 5,000-square-foot ballroom will allow guests to “stay and celebrate all in one location,” Black says. And the on-site restaurant, Hamilton Restaurant, is crafted by Samy Eid and Chickpea Hospitality. The Godfrey’s most spectacular feature, the rooftop lounge facing downtown Detroit, will be “a huge hit.” One of the two bars is outfitted with a greenhouse roof that, from Black’s description, is like the roof of a Ford Skyliner retractablehardtop convertible but with glass panels instead of metal. In the weeks before opening, much effort was going into assuring one thing: “When we finally hit the button, that thing will open and close.”

1000 River Place

Rooms: Undetermined

Cost: Undisclosed terms

Additional redevelopment of the East Riverfront is the promise in Bedrock’s acquisition of the Roberts Riverwalk Hotel late last fall. It had 108 rooms, a 5,500-square-foot ballroom, and 126 parking spaces. River frontage stretched 290 feet. Adding the Roberts Riverwalk promises further integration of Bedrock’s riverfront properties. Checking with Bedrock, Hour Detroit found that no update of plans was available, but expect one soon.

Westin Book Cadillac Detroit

Cambria Hotel Downtown Detroit

Godfrey Hotel

Huntington Place Hotel

MODEL CITIZEN

BY RACHAEL THOMAS

RODRIGUEZ

IT WAS AN INSTAGRAM direct message sent in 2021 by supermodel Coco Rocha herself that pushed Dalia Fragoso to give modeling a serious shot.

Up until that point, the 25-year-old, who grew up in Brighton and Dearborn, would connect with local photographers and model for their fashion photoshoots as a creative outlet while working as a lab coordinator for Michigan State University’s Clinical Neuroscience Lab (she obtained her undergraduate degree in psychology at MSU) and later pursuing a Master of Social Work at the University of Michigan.

She questioned if modeling was work that she could go far in, considering her height (she’s 5-foot3, which perhaps even a decade or so ago was a height that wouldn’t have even been considered by modeling agencies) and that she was living in Michigan. But when Rocha sent that message commending the work Fragoso was posting to her Instagram page and inviting her to apply for the Coco Rocha Model Camp — a master class taught by Rocha herself both online and in person in New York to aspiring models — Fragoso knew she had to go for it. She completed the four-day course in

early 2021, returning to metro Detroit with newfound knowledge on the industry, a portfolio of photographs to submit when applying to agencies, and a shaved head (she’d been considering making a drastic change to her then-long hair for some time and figured then was as good a time as ever to do so).

Now, Fragoso is an agency-signed commercial and editorial model. On the commercial side, she’s done commercials and photoshoots for clients like Ford Motor Co., MasterCard, and Zoom. Editorially, Fragoso has been published in indie beauty and fashion magazines including Rise, Scorpio Jin, and Detroit-based Something Different And as for her career as a social worker, a field Fragoso is still equally as passionate about, she is currently a clinical therapist at StoneCrest Center, a small psychiatric hospital in Detroit focused on behavioral therapy.

Here, Fragoso tells us more about her modeling experience, her own laid-back style, and more.

My personal style: I’m a “cute but comfortable” person. I like to prioritize comfort, if I’m being honest. If I could wear sweatpants every day, I would. I feel more androgynous because I wear a lot of men’s clothes — I’m a pants, flannel, boxers type of person.

Where I like to thrift shop: I get really lucky at Plato’s Closet. Goodwill, too. I’m all about going to places that have a bunch of stuff and you have to sort through to find the one thing that’s like, “Oh, my God, look at this.” A lot of the time, my shoots are just planned with friends and my pieces or their pieces. My favorite thing is to thrift and find statement pieces. I’ll find a piece, [the photographer and I will] plan a whole shoot around it, and it becomes a thing.

My ideal day in Detroit: Me walking around with coffee, thrifting, going to record stores, maybe getting some lunch and a cocktail. I love Vicente’s [Cuban Cuisine]. I’m Cuban, and they have the best Cuban food.

My most memorable modeling experience (aside from Coco Rocha Model Camp): I did a [TV commercial] shoot for MasterCard [a collaboration with Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever]. They had a little girl dress up; she goes into a bookshop, and the owner of the shop is a superhero. It was a really cool day. We shot at a movie theater and a bookstore [Comma Bookstore & Social Hub] in Flint. Just knowing it was for this movie and it was going to be a national commercial, it was really great.

Tips for aspiring models: Don’t give up and stick with your gut. Also, be careful, because not everyone in this field is genuine and safe. Don’t let anyone tell you [that] you can’t do something. If you have the passion and the drive, you can do it. And if it’s meant to be, it will be.

Keep up with Fragoso’s modeling work on her Instagram page, @DaliaFragoso.

Dalia Fragoso spends her days working in a local psychiatric hospital and filming national ad campaigns

PHOTO BY SAL

MI STYLE

Fragoso layers a Nicole Miller dress over a sheer Ralph Lauren shirt, completing her colorful look with Call It Spring pointed-toe purple boots and pink tights from Amazon. 

SHOPPING

Sew Important

These local entrepreneurs create apparel brands to support mental health advocacy

BY RACHAEL THOMAS

The Aware Brand

Mental health, self-love, and self-awareness all go hand in hand. Drew Sanders, the founder and CEO of this metro Detroit-based brand, knows that all too well. In the early 2010s, the New York native was experiencing his own evolution and desired to take action against various acts of police brutality occurring at the time. He recalls that those events helped encourage him to start The Aware Brand — which he did with childhood friend Richard Faison after reading author Deepak Chopra’s ideas on

self-awareness in his book

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. The brand sells T-shirts, hoodies, crewnecks, and home goods featuring Aware’s logo (an illustrated eye with a heart as the pupil) and affirmations like “I am aware,” “Love will heal the world,” and “Designed for aware humans.” And on the brand’s Instagram page, folks can find helpful content like tips for journaling and practicing mindful habits.

Sanders and Faison are dropping a spring/summer collection this month, which will feature new graphic tees, terry cloth shorts,

and crocheted bucket hats. Shop The Aware Brand at theawarebrand.com.

Love Yourself Clothing

During his senior year of college at the University of Michigan, Maher “Munch” Hachem was at a crossroads. He dreamt of moving to Detroit to pursue a career as a musician, but many people were telling him that wasn’t a smart move. Subsequently, it took a toll on Hachem’s mental health as he questioned the right path. On one of those rough days, he remembers

gazing in the mirror, grabbing a pen, and writing “Love Yourself” backwards on his shirt as he looked at his reflection — that moment was the genesis of his brand, Love Yourself Clothing. Folks can shop the Detroitbased brand’s hoodies, crewnecks, slouchy T-shirts, and tote bags. Hachem designs the “Love Yourself” message backwards on the garments, so anyone who wears the items can see the affirmation reflected in the mirror. A portion of the brand’s profits is donated to various mental health organizations,

 Coddiewomple Co. founder Jacki Wolverton poses with the brand’s “You Are Loved” and “Tomorrow Needs You” sweatshirts.

The Ann Arbor-based Coddiewomple Co. offers cozy crewnecks, hoodies, and sweatpants with sayings like “You Are Loved” and “I Feel All the Feels” as well as accessories and home goods. The brand’s name is a take on the word “coddiwomple,” an English slang word meaning “to travel in a purposeful manner toward a vague destination.” Fifty percent of the profits go directly toward The Coddiewomple Fund, the brand’s nonprofit arm, which provides financial assistance for those seeking mental health therapy. To date, the nonprofit has funded more than 10,000 therapy hours for individuals. Shop The Coddiewomple Co. at coddiewompleco. com and learn more about The Coddiewomple Fund at coddiewomplefund.org.

You Matter

including The Trevor Project, Wolverine Support Network, Spartan Support Network, and To Write Love on Her Arms. Shop the Love Yourself Clothing brand at loveyourselfclothing.com.

The Coddiewomple Co

After navigating her own struggles to pay for therapy despite having health insurance, Jacki Wolverton was motivated to create a resource that helped offset therapy costs for others. She did that through both a feel-good apparel brand and a nonprofit organization.

Millennials and Gen Zers who remember the days of the short-form video entertainment app Vine might recall popular content creator and Detroit native Demetrius Harmon, whose relatable skits on high school, work, and parents garnered him more than 1 million followers. As the platform began to fade, the now-Los Angeles resident’s career evolved into acting, writing, creative direction, and philanthropy. In 2017, Harmon’s brand You Matter came to fruition, inspired by sticky notes he wrote to himself during a time when he was suicidal. Folks can shop hoodies that Harmon says feel “soft like a hug but heavy like a gravity blanket and as light as a feather,” as well as crewnecks, T-shirts, sweatpants, and teddy bears with a 30-second voice recording device to share a message with a loved one. Most of the hoodies are stitched with the message, “I feel weak, but I know I’m strong” on the inner wrists, an added touch Harmon wanted for those who wear the product to cover their scars from self-harm. In 2019, Harmon launched the sub-brand You Matter University; in addition to selling collegiate-inspired apparel, YMU gave $10,000 scholarships to five students needing financial assistance. Shop the You Matter brand at youmatter.com

GREENHOUSE G RACE

As Mother’s Day nears, this gardener cherishes Mom in her backyard retreat

BY MEGAN SWOYER

AN OAKLAND COUNTY rose aficionado had dreamed of having a rose garden on her property year-round. Determined to create something great, she and her husband did a lot of research before landing on a specialized greenhouse firm called Wisconsin Greenhouse Co., based in Wisconsin. Interior designer Rachel Nelson of Detroit-based Concetti was the designer of choice. She previously worked with the couple on their home, which they moved into in 2017.

For design inspiration, Nelson suggested her client, who wishes to be anonymous, close her eyes and share what she saw, smelled, and felt for her green-thumb haven.

“We understood quickly that this greenhouse should have whimsy and a feminine touch with appealing colors, patterns, and textures,” Nelson says. “This was going to not only be a place to enjoy her gardening hobby but also to connect back to her mom. So, we wanted it to feel nostalgic and homey.”

The homeowner/gardener’s mother, who also cultivated roses, died in 2020. The greenhouse is a special way to remember her.

“I grow a Neil Diamond rose in her honor because she loved Neil Diamond,” she says. This variety features a strong, classic rose scent and is red, pink, and white striped.

Here, we share how the seeds of design creativity were planted for this gorgeous retreat.

Variety’s the spice: The gardener’s roses (1) bloom in various luscious colors, including purple, red, white, peach, orange, pink, and rose.

Guiding light: The homeowner’s favorite element is the chandelier lighting (2), a replica of the Heracleum style from Dutch interior design company Moooi. “We were after whimsy,” the designer says, “so the light fixture appears like dancing leaves and rose petals.”

This works: The homeowner wanted a workbench (3) that looked old but was also practical. Concetti sourced a 1900s antique from e-commerce

Book it: The gardener refers to the book Greenhouse Gardener’s Companion often. “It helps explain things like water supply, heating, and glass,” she says. Wisconsin Greenhouse crafted the glass walls (5), while DiMartino Landscaping of Rochester Hills designed and built the stacked stone walls (6). Other local companies, including C&G Cement Contractors of Clarkston and Brock Mechanical Plumbing Contractor of Howell, also contributed to the construction of the greenhouse.

Her cuppa tea: The gardener grows mostly hybrid tea roses. “I have 20 different plants and 10 varieties; they bloom most of the year,” she says, adding that hybrid tea rose breeders focus on long stems that are ideal for cutting.

Climate control: The wood raised flower beds (7) sit above a heated blue stone floor. Indoor temperatures are electronically regulated, so if the couple travels, there’s no need to worry about the air temperature becoming too hot or cool.

Hideout:

site 1stDibs. “We modified the existing workbench to include plumbing, lighting, and shelving for a fully functional replanting center,” Nelson says. Once the design was solidified, Concetti brought in Hamtramck’s Woodward Throwbacks to execute the concept. “She can display her vase collection there but also cut and arrange flowers.”

It’s in the details: Turquoise chairs (4) by Tidelli Outdoor Living complement the palette, while a cozy rug from Jaipur Rugs is underfoot.

The coffee table, from Four Hands, looks like concrete but is hollow.

The HVAC system — installed by Center Line Heating & Cooling in Center Line — is housed in an area that looks like an old shed. There’s also a small powder room (8) made of reclaimed Michigan barnwood within the shed. Nelson procured a teal concrete sink for the space from Kast, an English company that specializes in contemporary concrete basins and sinks. “That set the groundwork for the palette of peachy pink with teal,” Nelson says.

Zen zone:

Beyond tending to her greenhouse, you may find the gardener reading or enjoying a glass of wine with her husband in the space. “We sit out there and watch the weather; sometimes we have breakfast there,” she says. “You can be a part of the surrounding terrain — the trees, forest. It’s my Zen time.”

WELLNESS

By Moms, for Moms

A look inside a Ferndale-based wellness studio dedicated to ‘the people who make the people’

BY NICOLE FREHSEE MAZUR | PHOTOS BY REBECCA SIMONOV



Honey for Moms provides a sense of community and support for new and experienced mothers. Brooke

classes, moms’ support groups, and coaching. “I led about 90 percent of the offerings myself,” she says. “I brought my baby and toddler to everything. I created a front desk with shipping containers. It was very DIY.”

About a year into business, Honey had attracted so many clients that Miller relocated to a larger space in Ferndale, adding more workshops and groups and a second therapist. By 2018, she was planning an expansion. “We were busting out of our space,” she says. “It was like a party in there every day, it was so social. I remember watching these moms create relationships and thinking, ‘They’re going to talk to these women for the rest of their motherhood years in this stage, or maybe forever.’”

While Honey specializes in the period during and around pregnancy, Miller — whose kids are now 8 and 11 — says that moms both new and seasoned seek its services. From a clinical standpoint, she says, the most prevalent issues are birth trauma, feeding challenges, stress, and depression and anxiety — both in the immediate postpartum phase and beyond. Says Julie Dorfman, Honey’s life and relationship coach: “I see moms who need to talk about their feelings around their youngest going to kindergarten, or women who aren’t sure what they want to do now that their children are gone.”

Many of Honey’s approximately 25 employees are mothers, a fact that Dorfman — a mom of four — says comforts the women who come there. “When you have that mom connection, women know they’re not alone because their experience parallels someone else’s,” she says. “When they say, ‘I didn’t think motherhood would be this hard,’ I can say, ‘I know it is.’”

ONE FALL DAY IN 2018

, Angela Gill found herself sitting on the floor of a cozy, smartly decorated space in Ferndale, sobbing in front of a dozen women.

Though they were technically strangers, Gill felt an instant camaraderie — like her, these women were new mothers wrestling with breastfeeding, sleeplessness, and other challenges that Gill, who’d recently given birth to her first child, was facing. “It was totally out of my comfort zone,” says the Oxford resident, now 33. “But I was so relieved to be amongst people who understood what I was going through, that I was having all the feelings.”

“All the feelings” are on perennial display at Honey for Moms, a center that caters to the “people who make the people,” as founder Brooke Miller, who opened what she affectionally calls “Honey” in 2015, puts it. Honey’s services range from therapy and psychiatry to support groups, parenting classes, and lactation-consulting services — essentially everything a mom needs to help usher her through those disorienting

first weeks, months, and even years of parenting. About 500 clients receive therapy services at Honey monthly, and between 600 and 800 use the business’s other services every month (for insurance reasons, only Michigan residents are eligible for therapy, while coaching and support groups are open virtually to anyone).

Honey grew out of Miller’s own need for a postpartum support system. After moving to Michigan from California while pregnant with her second daughter, she yearned for a community of moms like the one she’d built in her former home. Battling depression and anxiety post-birth, Miller, a licensed psychotherapist, felt “rage and frustration” at society’s lack of resources for moms. “I had a supportive partner, the financial means to get help, and the education and knowledge as a mental health professional,” she says. “If I’m not OK, what of the mothers in the entire universe?”

In 2014, when her daughter was 6 months old, Miller launched Honey out of a chiropractor’s office in Royal Oak; programming included yoga

In the coming months, Miller plans to expand Honey’s services, adding resources for dads (her husband, Jason, is Honey’s fatherhood mentor, guiding men in their parenting journeys) as well as a massage therapist and more mental health professionals. Beyond that, she’s not sure what the future holds. “I just want to support as many moms as we can in the way that we’re doing it, and we’ll see what happens next,” she says.

However Honey evolves, one thing won’t change: the relief that moms like Angela Gill feel when they walk through the studio’s doors. Gill, who gave birth to her second child in December 2022, recently returned to Honey for the first time since the pandemic after struggling to breastfeed her daughter. Entering the space, she experienced the same rush of emotion she felt at her first visit. “I broke down in tears,” Gill says. “People there are genuinely concerned about you — everyone is willing to hold your baby so you can pee in peace. It sounds silly, but just knowing the help that’s there on arrival is huge.”

Learn more about Honey for Moms at honeyformoms.com.

Miller, Honey’s founder, is pictured at left.

monthly feature highlighting events, promotions, and opportunities of interest to Hour Detroit readers.

Tapper’s Jewelry Ribbon Cutting

RE/MAX Awards Event

O’Keefe Happy Hour

House of Dank, 8 Mile Recreational Ribbon Cutting

Photographs by Carrie Hall

Photographs by Lindsay Schweikert

Photographs by Lindsay Schweikert

Marla Tapper, Leora Tapper, Janet Bloom, and Mark Tapper

Magnus Sublett, Madeline Dishon, and Greg Little

Julie Lock, Amanda Rymiszewski, and Violeta Zdravkovic

House of Dank

Farah Shammami

Maria McGuire, Carol Boji, Doris LaBeau, and Sherri Saad

Keith Chulumovich, Connor Burke, and Sue Koss, John Ruther

Leora, Mark, and Marla Tapper

Jeanette Schneider and Pam Bellante

Matt Rizzo, Derron Sanders, and Pat O’Keefe

Prince Yousif, Coleman A. Young II, Lavonne Yousif, Mike DiLaura, Marvin Jamo, and Kevin Yousif

Tapper’s new Novi storefront

Susan Tedesco, Tom Tedesco, Tommy Tedesco, and Mary Kay Buckley

Spencer Wineman and Brian Vargeson

Prince Yousif, Coleman A. Young II, Lavonne Yousif, Mike DiLaura, Marvin Jamo, and Kevin Yousif

Photographs by Rodrick Nixon

the winner 's circle celebration of Detroit's best

Best of Detroit of

The race to the best is on, and the winner's circle is now open! Hour Detroit's Best of Detroit Party is BACK on June 2nd, bringing back the can't-miss event of the summer to downtown Detroit. The Best of Detroit Party was created to celebrate Hour Detroit's annual June issue, which announces the highly anticipated results of our readers' survey. The party attracts the metro area's best crowd, who come to indulge in delicious food, drinks, and dance their way through Hour Detroit's Best of Detroit list.

You can taste food from dozens of restaurants, including Aratham Gourmet to Go, Bar Pigalle, Brie & Bamboo, Cacao Tree Café, Green Lantern Pizza, Prime Concepts Detroit, Priya, and Spun Sugar Detroit.

Dance the night away to music on three floors featuring Annmarie Jo, Sound Cocktail, Spot Lite Detroit resident DJs Vincent Patricola and Jesse Cory, plus more!

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Charlie LeDuff prepares to host another episode of his podcast, The No B.S. News Hour, in his studio above American Coney Island in downtown Detroit.

Part Howard Stern, part Hunter S. Thompson, the Pulitzer winnerturned-local TV news performance artist no longer has corporate media overlords to please. Can he — and we — handle that?

In the LeDuff

by Steve Friess

Photos by Brad Ziegler

Charlie LeDuff

and I are in the studio he fashioned with his own bare hands out of the attic of American Coney Island in downtown Detroit. In a few minutes, his podcast, The No B.S. News Hour, begins a midday Monday livestream, but we’ve been going round and round about something and it’s making him cranky. “Why do you come in here before my show arguing with me about this?” he snaps. “I’m telling you my feelings.”

Well, maybe. I decide to keep pushing, to ignore the awkwardness of the moment, to badger my witness. You know, Charlie LeDuff-style. And a few moments later, he gives away the game.

The topic at hand: whether it was legal and appropriate for political action committees supporting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to run campaign ads built around a clip of Republican nominee Tudor Dixon enthusiastically telling LeDuff she’d force a raped teen to bear her uncle’s baby. That clip, with LeDuff’s mustache, the bifocals propped on his forehead, his pinstripes-and-vest outfit — all of it became the indelible image and a pivotal moment of the 2022 campaign.

LeDuff demanded Whitmer and her PACs take the ads down. They did not. On a local radio show in August 2022, he claimed that video of this extremely relevant remark by a gubernatorial contender did not qualify as “fair use.” In his Detroit News column, LeDuff called the footage “purloined.”

But Charlie LeDuff knows better. He’s a 57-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former New York Times correspondent with a

journalism master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He knows nothing illegal or unusual transpired. Yet even now, when it doesn’t matter anymore, he’ll still argue about it. “It’s not settled case law,” he tells me. “There was nothing transformative about what they did with it. It wasn’t commentary.”

Of course, it absolutely was commentary. Team Whitmer used the clip to support an argument that Dixon was too radical to be elected. And after a few more rhetorical pingpongs, LeDuff levels with me: He just wanted to grab some headlines and shame Whitmer into coming on his show. He’s been after her for years to answer questions about her handling of elderly COVID-19 patients in nursing homes and the veracity or absence of the data on it.

“What was that really about?” he says. Suddenly, in an almost British, intentionally theatrical accent, he pretends to be speaking to her: “I resent, madam, that you think you can take that, but for four years, you’re so afraid of me you can’t sit down and answer a question. That’s the gall of all gall.” Then, back in native LeDuff, he admits: “That’s really what I was doing.”

It didn’t work. Whitmer, sitting on a big polling lead, gave precious few interviews in the final months of the campaign. (Full disclosure: She turned me down for Newsweek, too.) And, as a Whitmer aide told me later, they certainly weren’t going to risk her talking to LeDuff.

His producers are reminding LeDuff the show is about to begin. He plops down on the ledge

of a bay window behind his desk and, per usual, places a 2-foot mic stand between his hanging legs as if he’s straddling it. He lights a cigarette; it occurs to me it has been decades since I’ve been in a workspace where people smoked. (The next day, my husband would refer to my still-stinking laundry as my “Charlie LeDuff clothes.”)

LeDuff sucks on the cig while a pretaped cold open unspools in which LeDuff points out the lack of progress on the construction of the planned skyscraper at the former Hudson’s department store site. It “never seems to get any taller, not in the last eight months. The only thing I see them swinging around is a port-a-john. That’s what they’re doing with 60 million of your dollars.”

Another episode begins.

I am going to admit something now that journalists rarely do, but if you’re profiling a rule-breaking reporter, it seems proper to break a few yourself: I came into this assignment eager to write about Charlie LeDuff as a clown and a weirdo. Not being a viewer of local TV news and vaguely aware of the fact that we overlapped for a while in the years I wrote regularly for The Times, I knew him primarily as the author of a well-reviewed book on the downfall of Detroit I should’ve but hadn’t read, for that Tudor Dixon clip and his attention-seeking complaints about its use, and for wacky pieces for Fox 2 Detroit that had gone viral.

You may know the ones. LeDuff golfing across 18 miles of desolate, abandoned Detroit. LeDuff canoeing the disgustingly polluted Rouge River, a camera lingering on a floating condom as John Denver’s “Sunshine on My Shoulders” plays ironically. LeDuff road-tripping with the KKK to a South Carolina rally, confusing one of the racists by offering him an actual cracker. LeDuff eating out of a dumpster. LeDuff offering himself to Donald Trump as his 2016 running mate at a Trump press conference. LeDuff illustrating the Detroit police’s slow response times by waiting with a woman who had called 911 about a burglary and having the time to buy her McDonald’s, wash his pants, and take a bath before they show up.

The common denominator there is LeDuff doing wacky things — Stunts? Antics?

Performance art? — that you just never see on local TV news. All of it makes most journalists trained not to “become” the story very uncomfortable and, in their heart of hearts, a little jealous. In a million years, most of these ideas would never occur to other TV journalists. And even if they did, would those well-coifed, square-jawed, expert small-talkers be willing to place their egos, their well-crafted images, and their physical well-being at risk to execute them? Why bother when all your job really requires is to

stand in front of a crime scene or outside in bad weather jabbering into a mic?

LeDuff explains his approach: “I do look at journalism as art, so if there’s some showmanship, why not? People are so bored. But if you’ve hung out with me at all, you know I insist we get it right as best we can. But even at The New York Times, I wondered why we work our asses off to show the world how things work only to have Jon Stewart or John Oliver take our work, cut the bullshit out of it, make it entertaining, and make people think. We should do that.”

By the time he tells me this, I have, in fact, started to see the method — and the sincerity to the madness. He’s not just bellowing at city hall or Lansing or large corporations because it’s a thing to do; he can back up a rant about subsidies or tax breaks for General Motors or Ford or Rock Ventures with a dizzying litany of completely accurate financial citations that only come from a lot of research. He spends Sundays in bed, he says, reading public documents. “You know, people read the paper in the morning? I just go through the chemical analysis of soil, I go through [Office of the Inspector General] reports. And it’s interesting.”

He’s also, strangely for someone so peripatetic and offbeat, surprisingly proper. When he goes on TV as a talking head, he typically dresses up. He uses words like “sir” and “madam.” When I mention to him that a mutual Times friend told

me he mooned his colleagues at his going-away party, he is quick to clarify that that happened at a bar and not in the office. Because the office is not a place for such things, I guess.

Not everything LeDuff tries while I’m following him around works. In one bit that borders on transphobic, he compares famous people wearing red dresses — Gretchen Whitmer, Caitlyn Jenner, notorious fabulist and occasional drag queen New York Rep. George Santos — in a who-woreit-best gag. In another, a cold open for his show, he affects a little girl’s voice asking her father to build her a snowman, and then, well, it becomes a joke about fellatio. There’s a whole episode where he debates a flat-earther about whether the planet is round, which seemed, for a guy like LeDuff who chastises the media for wasting time on frivolity, like an hour better spent on something real.

The seat-of-the-pants, gonzo gloss in which he coats himself sometimes undermines his intellect, but it’s a trade he makes to hold the public’s interest. “Some people didn’t think he had journalistic integrity, or they thought he was too crass or too rude or didn’t understand it or thought he was really about himself,” says former Fox 2 Detroit news producer Connie Smith, who worked closely with LeDuff for years. “But really, he just has this really creative way of telling somebody else’s story. It does draw attention to him, like when he squats with

a person or walks around like a chicken. It’s crazy, but it does get attention.”

Then Smith says something that sounds like a backhanded compliment but that LeDuff himself probably would love: “He is way smarter than most people think he is, or how he looks. His appearance does not match his intellect.”

Charles Royal LeDuff was born on April Fools’ Day in 1966 in Virginia and raised in Westland by a florist mother who would cycle through three husbands. That upbringing gave him a keen appreciation for working-class people, for Middle America, for getting dirt under your fingernails. The same curiosity that led him to try to figure out what people in power are up to and how governments operate also motivated him to understand how to work with his hands in ways few well-educated national journalists ever do.

It has paid off in fascinating ways. As a teen, for example, he learned to lay sod from his uncle. A decade or so later, as a Times reporter, he gained the trust of Mexican day laborers by laying sod with them at a Long Island manor. Those connections eventually led to one of his proudest journalistic feats, one he cites regularly to bolster his bona fides on the topic of immigration, in which he flew to Mexico and traveled with U.S.-bound migrants as they crossed the border. Thus began a lifelong

where Charlie LeDuff continues his long career of his signature brand of journalism: unflitered, unconventional, and calculated to get people’s attention.

LeDuff and his crew inside The No B.S. News Hour studio. LeDuff built out the studio himself after taking on handyman work for American Coney Island, which owns the space above the restaurant.

interest in border politics. As recently as last November, he went to Texas to do some intrepid reporting on how easy it remains to enter the country illegally.

He spent years after he graduated from the University of Michigan bouncing around the world. In 1992, the Ann Arbor Observer included him in a collection of profiles of a newfangled thing they called “slackers,” LeDuff looking handsome and super cool posing on a roof somewhere with a cigarette dangling from his fingers. Even then he was oddly misunderstood as lazy or a little strange; the magazine quietly mocked him for doing “important” things like making beeswax-and-rose-petals lip balm to send his girlfriend in Alaska. But far from being uninspired or lacking ambition, he also said then: “As far as I know this is my only life, and I want it to be something incendiary. Something big.”

Three years later, when LeDuff landed at The Times with a 10-week minority internship (he’s one-eighth Chippewa), he worried about how he’d fit in. The place was so high-brow and stuffy; he fixates with me on the fact that reporters there used the word “ebullient” a lot, and he chafed at the paper’s unnecessarily fancy writing. “I got there, and I’m like, ‘Holy crap, what am I doing here?’” he tells me. “I decided, ‘I’m just going to write the cadence in my head, the way that I think and feel.’”

Here he protests too much; his own writing is lyrical and vivid. His vocabulary is sophisticated. He may admire the sparse prose of Hemingway, but LeDuff’s words can be decorative and full of apt, inventive analogies. He plays the stooge sometimes — and may even occasionally regard himself that way — but he’s no stooge.

It was his ability to sniff out an intriguing, original narrative that helped him stand out. Sent off to the police department to gather up some crime briefs in those early months, he spotted a report of a 13-person brawl and spun it into a Hatfield-McCoy-esque tale between Puerto Rican and Cuban families that reflected certain realities about Brooklyn’s changing demographics. One Fourth of July, he was sent out to capture some “color” anecdotes for a de rigueur holiday story; he stumbled upon a colony of cross-dressing sex workers that he persuaded his editors to turn into a longer stand-alone piece. “That one was pretty good,” he tells me. (On Twitter earlier this year, a progressive activist questioned that 28-yearold story for its outmoded, lurid approach to covering trans people, right down to the headline reference to “he-shes.”)

Some at The Times appreciated his unusual eye; some didn’t. He got stuck in a supposedly dead-end bureau (Long Island) but also drew interest from an editor overseeing profiles for a series about race in America who sent him to write about the highly segregated workforce

of a North Carolina slaughterhouse. The series won LeDuff and its other contributors a shared Pulitzer Prize.

He’d help cover 9/11, got reassigned to the Los Angeles bureau, took a four-month turn being sent to Iraq to cover the war. From his LA perch, he gallivanted around America as host of a Times co-production with Discovery called Only in America in which he travels with a biker gang, attempts to ride a bull at a gay rodeo, and gets naked and badly sunburned at a Burning Man event. He turned those adventures into a book that explored American masculinity called US Guys and, in 2007, quit The Times while on paternity leave. At the time, his editor said he was leaving to promote the book, but LeDuff says now he’d just had enough after 11 years at the pinnacle of mainstream national journalism.

The birth of his daughter, he says, changed his priorities. “I wanted her to know my mother, my wife’s mother, her cousins, her family,” he says. “As the world gets closer, you have to be from

somewhere. So let’s go home. And here we are.” Home, of course, to Detroit.

It’s not easy to get people to talk about Charlie LeDuff. The list of people I tried to reach about him — Tudor Dixon; favorite target and exWayne County Executive Bob Ficano; colleagues at The Times and Fox 2; Whitmer campaign operatives — is too long to recite. Even an online troll who recently tweeted about LeDuff’s allegedly hiding some part of his personal biography respectfully declined comment.

“They’re afraid of how he’s going to react to them saying it, because he will come for you,” Smith says. “People just didn’t really want to get on his bad side. He’s very confrontational. We had an executive producer who is very much nonconfrontational, does not like to get into the face of anybody, and he would get into screaming matches with her. And it would make her cry.”

It’s more than that, though. In the 15 years

since he came back to Michigan, LeDuff bounced from a two-year reporting stint at The Detroit News; spent seven years at Fox 2, during which his wild pieces became so famous they aired on local news stations across the country; wrote two more books; made countless TV appearances; and, eventually, launched his podcast.

But then came the COVID-19 pandemic and, with it, LeDuff’s hard-charging attacks on Whitmer’s decision to force nursing homes to care for COVID patients despite the risk to other residents. Even now, he can’t relent: “Ninetynine percent of people that got COVID got a runny nose. The average age of the person that died was 76 years old. We knew that from the beginning.” (He’s close: The percentage of people who experienced mild symptoms is closer to 80 percent, but the overall fatality rate of COVID patients is about 2 percent. 75.5 percent of deaths have been of people 65 and older.)

He’s been on a hunt for years for information about how many of Michigan’s COVID deaths occurred at facilities for the elderly. “Where’s our data?” he asks me. “It’s messy in the beginning. I expect [Whitmer] to be better than that. … I asked for the data. They won’t give it. I gotta sue the state. … Turns out, we didn’t bother to count them. … I’ll never forgive it.”

To his mind, this is a major betrayal of the public interest by Whitmer, and he’s still pissed it barely registered as an issue in her reelection bid. “I’m from the people nobody gives a f--- about. Not highfalutin, not the best-educated people that live in Cape Cod. People who gotta rent. People missing a tooth maybe. You know what I mean? Good people.”

LeDuff saw himself as doing honest journalism, asking important questions, and refusing to relent. But many Democrats found his merciless attacks on Whitmer offensive — especially when he went on Fox News to do it. On Tucker Carlson’s show in January 2022, he ranted: “We shut down schools. We shut down business. We shut down sports. We ruined the economy. To what? To stop deaths. Of whom? The elderly. … We lied about it. … We blew it, man. And somebody’s gotta go.” Around the same time, though, he strayed into speculation about the kidnapping-murder plot against Whitmer, going on Carlson’s show to make the case that the perpetrators were egged on by the FBI and that the whole affair wasn’t really all that serious. Tell that to the three would-be kidnappers now in prison.

Nowadays, on social media, everything he says or does is viewed through a left-right lens, his every view on immigration or public corruption discounted by legions of progressives and independents as the mutterings of a conservative conspiracy kook. “Charlie LeDuff, bias, worked at Fox, makes him NOT credible. His so-called

opinion supports the Republican narrative,” wrote one tweeter in November 2022.

LeDuff steadfastly defends his views on all of that and insists they’re not politically motivated. He says he voted for Whitmer (at least the first time). And he says he’d pretty much appear anywhere.

“Is there a show I wouldn’t do? Possibly,” he says. “Put it this way: If you’re asking me to be on to ask my opinion, that’s fine, but I’m not a ‘plug me in and whatever you want to talk about’ kind of guy.”

On this point, too, he is right. His most recent appearance with Carlson came in December after a visit to the Southern border. Some of what he said was music to Carlson — the border is a sieve, Biden’s policies are encouraging an onslaught of migration, these asylum seekers are actually just “broke people looking for a better life” — but a lot of it was probably unusual for Fox News viewers. LeDuff made an impassioned argument about why a border wall would be useless and berated Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for failing to find a compromise solution.

“I find people like to criticize, and they do regardless,” says Karen Dumas, LeDuff’s podcast co-host and a Detroit News columnist. “People want to say, ‘Oh, because Charlie’s on their show, he must agree with everything that they stand for.’ That’s not necessarily true. To him, it’s another platform where he’s able to have a conversation, to share the work he’s doing.”

Indeed, others who may have once viewed LeDuff with suspicion or fear now are fans. When GQ journalist Devin Friedman profiled LeDuff in 2013 under the headline “Madman of the Year,” LeDuff bragged that he was responsible “for the firing of two Detroit police chiefs and a fire commissioner.” One of those was former top cop Ralph Godbee, who lost his job over an extramarital, intraoffice sex scandal in which one woman involved gave LeDuff a salacious interview complete with smutty text messages.

Godbee is now a friend and a frequent guest on LeDuff’s show to discuss law enforcement issues. “A lot of people assume I have some animus against Charlie because of his coverage of the end of my career with the Detroit Police Department, and nothing could be farther from the truth,” says Godbee, now a minister. “You can’t fault somebody for what they report. You have to take accountability for your own actions.”

One of the progressive activists who refused to comment for this report told me he felt it would only encourage LeDuff. That struck me as a remarkably short-sighted way of looking at his work and career.

LeDuff doesn’t need to be encouraged; he’s

shown time and again he’ll do whatever interests him, say whatever moves him, appear almost anywhere he’s invited. He could’ve been a New York Times lifer. Instead, in his late 50s, he’s taking advantage of the democratization of media accorded by podcasting — and he’s now got a robust audience of more than 100,000 downloads per episode and the show last year went to semiweekly.

“What’s so interesting about Charlie is that he doesn’t give a crap about how you feel about him at all,” Smith tells me. “He is just 100 percent authentically him, which I really respect. He was gonna go out there and do what he wanted to do in the style that he wanted to do it whether management liked it or not.”

And his resourcefulness seems limitless. LeDuff began working at American Coney Island as a handyman in 2017 after leaving Fox 2 because he suddenly discovered that health insurance for the self-employed is expensive. He’d made friends with the owner, Grace Keros, when he persuaded her to let him use the window booth for a regular political roundtable series he did for Fox 2. He’s used other skills to spiff up the joint with paint, tile, new pipes. Later, after he launched his podcast in fellow media renegade Drew Lane’s basement studio in Ferndale, LeDuff discovered Keros’ unused storage attic and turned it into his studio.

Whereas his renovations for the restaurant below showed he knows how to render a space clean, neat, and new, the studio he crafted is deliberately rustic with bricked-up windows, distressed paint, fluorescent lighting, and exposed wood beams.

A framed copy of the U.S. Constitution and mounted deer’s antlers hang on walls on each side of a long black desk that stands atop a busy, beaten-down area rug. There’s a short tree next to his desk; I ask why there are folded pieces of yellow paper hanging from many of its branches. Turns out, LeDuff makes guests play him in tictac-toe, and if he wins, he puts the game on his “Tree of Shame.” (I tie him, so my game is tossed in the bin.)

In other words, LeDuff seems eccentric and perhaps a bit unfocused, but he knows exactly what he’s up to. It’s a balance of art and artifice, and now that he’s freed himself of any media gatekeepers, there’s little to stop him.

Still, he claims he’s, actually, a sensitive soul.

“I won’t read it,” he tells me of this piece. “If you want me to, I will. But it can be the most accurate, most clever, well-written thing. And just like every other human being, when I read my Twitter feed, it’s the one asshole picking on me. So you write a sentence I don’t like, then I’m pissed. That’s why you don’t read your own press. Not to avoid getting big-headed. Because it’s useless.”

“I’m from the people nobody gives a f--- about. Not highfalutin, not the best-educated people that live in Cape Cod. People who gotta rent. People missing a tooth maybe. You know what I mean? Good people.”

—Charlie LeDuff

By Patty LaNoue Stearns

A look at the ZIP codes in metro Detroit that have seen the biggest boom in home sales amid a national housing shortage

in metro Detroit’s residential real estate market a “wild ride” is an understatement, says Oakland County Realtor Jim Shaffer. Like most of the nation, metro Detroit is suffering from an extreme housing inventory shortage. Why? Business Insider spells it out simply: “The U.S. hasn’t built enough homes in recent decades, and the shortage is among the reasons homes are unaffordable for many Americans.” And southeast Michigan has followed that trend.

Unlike during the post-World War II era, when returning GIs got help from the government to buy their first homes, which wrought a booming bungalow and tract housing market, today “there’s no plan in place,” Shaffer says.

A hike in interest rates to 7.5 percent (way up from the record low of 2.6 in January 2021) stalled the market last year, but with the recent drop to between 5.8 and 7.1 percent, the market is rolling again, except in the high-luxury sector.

Shaffer’s getting multiple offers on every house he lists, he says. “Seven offers is not uncommon,” he says. The offers have become so competitive that people are even waiving inspections, Shaffer says, which can be risky.

His company, Jim Shaffer and Associates, services the Woodward Corridor — Ferndale, Royal Oak, Berkley, Oak Park, Hazel Park, Clawson, Madison Heights, Pleasant Ridge, and Huntington Woods — and prices are rising in the most unimaginable way. Royal Oak saw its first million-dollar home sale back in 2019, and similar sales have followed. “Berkley is not quite there at $775,000,” he says.

The result? Buyers are looking in communities they might never have considered — still close to the amenities they are seeking, but not previously on their radar — which can only mean good news for the metro area as a whole, because, thanks to shows on HGTV and social media posts on Instagram and TikTok, many of these young buyers are also heavy into home rehab.

“Madison Heights is on fire,” says fourthgeneration Birmingham Realtor Kathy Broock. She sells “everywhere,” as she puts it, from homes $500,000 and up to those below. She agrees that in the very highest bracket, sales are slower. “But if it’s a good product, it’s going to sell — I just had a $659,000 listing that sold for $20,000 more. If it’s above $500,000 and in good shape, it’s still going to get multiple offers.”

Broock says there’s always a market for the

properties she offers, and sometimes renovation is part of the plan. But as the data shows, “good, solid metro Detroit communities are thriving those that are close to Detroit and are still affordable.” The housing shortage is a nationwide issue, she says, and “people need to put their homes on the market. We need inventory.”

Her forecast for 2023: “If rates stay stable and as long as there aren’t too many layoffs, right now is a great time to sell.”

Clarkston agent Lauren Fortinberry of Coldwell Banker Real Estate agrees and says she’s seeing that “people are off-loading what have been rentals, with budget-friendly list prices $200s to mid-$300s. If they’re well maintained, they’re flying off the shelf. A lot of people are getting out of the business of being landlords.”

Home seekers are also looking for vastly different styles of homes — and lifestyles, Fortinberry says. First, many people no longer work in offices, so they need an office in their home.

“Now there’s a great migration north, to Clarkston, Grand Blanc, and Lake Orion, for places with a pole barn, 4 acres for dogs to run, and access to a lake. People are saying, ‘I can be anywhere I want — I don’t need to drive downtown.’”

HIGHLIGHTS FROM TOP 11 LIST

Below are the areas seeing the biggest booms in home sales, based on days on the market and median sale price. Rankings come from the team at RE/Max of Southeastern Michigan. See page 34 for methodology.

Dexter (48130)

No. 1

Dexter, a former farming town in Washtenaw County, tops our list, and Realtor Carmen Knick of the Cadence Real Estate Group says buyers here are part of the overflow from Ann Arbor’s popular west side, along with the towns of Chelsea, Saline, Grass Lake, and Waterloo.

Dexter offers a walkable downtown with low to zero commercial vacancy and lots of retail shops and restaurants. It is also home to a farmers market, the Dexter Cider Mill and Cornman Farms, and Zingerman’s event space. As for arts, they have the Purple Rose Theatre, and Knick says a summer music series is a huge draw every Friday night in the city center. For fresh air and a long walk, the paved Border to Border Trail (which connects cities and parks throughout Washtenaw County) runs through downtown, and two Huron-Clinton Metroparks are within the town’s borders. She recommends the Dexter Bakery for breakfast and coffee, the Fillmore Bar & Grill or Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales for drinks and dinner, and Aubree’s or Cottage Inn for pizza.

Public School Review, an online resource that ranks and evaluates public schools by statewide averages on several key criteria, such as teacher-student ratios, ranks Dexter Community School District’s seven schools in the state’s top 10 percent.

St. Clair Shores (48081)

No. 2

After searching for months for a house in Grosse Pointe Woods to be near his family last year, John Hales — who was moving back to Michigan after living in South Carolina for 15 years — landed on a three-bedroom/onebath, 1,000-square-foot home in St. Clair Shores, just a few miles away, and he’s glad he did. It’s just over the border from Grosse Pointe Woods, the price of $190,000 was a deal for his fully updated home, and taxes are lower. “There’s even new sod,” Hales, 60, says of his pristine lawn. St. Clair Shores boasts the Nautical Mile gateway to Lake St. Clair, with a long stretch of marinas — six public and one private — and many eateries and shops. Hales’ faves for breakfast are Charlie’s on Harper Avenue and The Yolk Brunch House on Greater Mack Avenue. “I love it here — it’s close to downtown Detroit and all the sporting events, it’s quiet and easy to get around, and I have really nice neighbors.” Nearby is Lake St. Clair Metropark, which has a large beach on Lake St. Clair, bike-friendly trails, a golf course, and an Olympic-size swimming pool with a waterslide.

The city has three school districts; here’s how they rate on Niche, another rating service: South Lake Schools (B-minus overall, with an A for diversity), Lakeview Public Schools (B overall, B-plus for academics and diversity), and Lake Shore (B-minus overall, B-plus for diversity, and B for teachers).

Madison Heights (48071)

No. 3

Ashely and Justin Tebedo, both in their early 30s, had been renting in Clawson, but when they started looking for a home of their own, most of the towns they thought about were way outside their price range. “In our search, Madison Heights was not on our radar,” Ashely says. Then they fell in love with a 1,200-squarefoot, three-bedroom/1.5-bath ranch with a three-season room, a patio, and a finished basement listed for $267,000 — in move-in condition and close to both of their jobs. “We love our neighborhood,” she says. “It has a small-town feel, homey, and a good mix of young families and retirees — the kind of place where you can talk to your neighbors over the fence.” And, she notes, “We have some of the best authentic food here, like Tienda Mexicana on John R.” The celebrated circa-1955 Green Lantern Pizza is on the same street. She and Justin also love the city’s Red Oaks Nature Center, where they can walk their two dogs and enjoy the 5.2-acre Red Oaks Dog Park. Families will love Red Oaks Water Park, which has a wave pool, waterslides, and a river ride. The city is also known for its fantastic Asian American

grocers, including 168 Asian Mart and China Town Market.

Lamphere Public Schools are rated in or near the top third of schools in the Detroit area overall, plus in the areas of teachers and diversity, according to Niche.

Ann Arbor (48103) No.

5

Ann Arbor is hot, hot, hot! An article earlier this year on StudyFinds.com pronounced Ann Arbor No. 1 in its “Best Places to Live in America in 2023,” compiling comments from Money. com, among other sites, declaring that the city is more than just a college town — it’s “a mix of rural and urban, sporty and smart, outdoorsy and high-tech.”

Not to mention, it has a fantastic art, music, and food scene. Highlights include the annual art and folk festivals, music venues like The Ark and The Blind Pig, many bookstores and

●A marina along the Nautical Mile in St. Clair Shores. This stretch of Jefferson Avenue includes seven marinas (six public, one private) and lakeside dining on Lake St. Clair.

Above: A 1931 Tudor Revial in West Dearborn. Right: Dexter’s walkable downtown, where folks can grab a beer at Dexter’s Pub, a sweet at Dexter Bakery, or tools and toys at Hackney Ace Hardware.

an amazing public library, and a 100-plusyear-old farmers market. Historically, Ann Arbor is LGBTQ-friendly — Movoto, an online real estate guidance tool, ranked it the second best city in Michigan for LGBTQ families. It scored a 100 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2022 Municipal Equality Index Scorecard.

According to Knick, many sales in Ann Arbor near the University of Michigan — where condos and townhouses average about $377,000 — are from parents buying for their students attending the University of Michigan, and they plan on living there themselves after their kids leave college.

The 32-school Ann Arbor Public School District has one of the highest concentrations of top-ranked public schools in Michigan, according to Public School Review. On U.S. News list of the top high schools in Michigan, Skyline High School is No. 10 and Pioneer is No. 22.

Troy (48098) No. 6 (five-way tie)

This affluent and diverse burb was ranked No. 1 on Niche’s 2023 list of the best places to live in the Detroit area and No. 2 on its list of the best places to live in Michigan. The city also has plenty of parks (totaling more than 100 acres), a 127,000-square-foot community center with an aquatic center and licensed preschool program, and the annual Troy Daze weekend festival, plus plenty of restaurants (Morton’s, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Ocean Prime, Eddie V’s, Fogo de Chão, and others) and one of the best malls in the Midwest (the Somerset Collection, with Nordstrom, Saks, and much more).

“We’re getting a lot of inquiries for new builds and move-in-ready homes,” says Cathy LoChirco, director of operations and client management at TVA Homes, a real estate agency in Birmingham. While a recent

●This 2,388-square-foot home is located in Ann Arbor’s Loch Alpine neighborhood. It has four bedrooms and four bathrooms and sold for $493,000, according to Zillow.

search found one home for $1 million, the median listed home price in this area is $409,900 as of March 21, according to Realtor.com and a stately 3,700-square-foot new build in the West Troy Meadows community off Livernois Road with four beds/four baths and a three-car garage lists for $969,900.

Troy’s schools, among Michigan’s top 1 percent for diversity according to Public School Review, are a big draw for many families: Troy High School and Athens High School are ranked Nos. 5 and 12 in the state on U.S. News’ list, and Public School Review ranks the school district among the top 5 percent in Michigan overall.

●Sand volleyball in Troy’s Boulan Park. The city includes over 100 acres of wellmaintained parks and a 127,000-square-foot community center with an aquatic center.

Dearborn (48124) No. 6 (five-way tie)

“Architecture from the late 19th- and 20thcentury colonial and Tudor revival can be found up and down the streets of these charming neighborhoods,” says Laila Dakroub with RE/Max Team 2000. Ryan Allen, 35, bought a condo here in 2022 after living in Detroit and loving city life for a year.

It was a new job with Nokia Corp. that offered college tuition — he enrolled at the University of Michigan Dearborn — that prompted his move to Michigan’s seventh most populated city and into an 11-unit condo association called Garrison Hills off Military Street. “I didn’t realize how nice a downtown area Dearborn had,” he says.

“It’s walkable, cultural, and diverse.” He names several of his favorite spots for coffee: Qahwah House and The Great Commoner on Michigan Avenue, and the Parisian-inspired Gateaux Patisserie on Military Street. For dinner, he recommends Middle Eastern eatery Malek Al-Kabob and the Indian restaurant The Himalayan Flames, both on Michigan Avenue.

As far as museums, Dearborn is best known for being the home of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, but it also has the Automotive Hall of Fame and the

This Troy ranch-style house has three bedrooms, one bathroom, a two-car garage, and a back deck. It sold for $161,000 in late 2020, according to Zillow. It’s now listed to rent for $2,000 a month.

Whitmore Lake

(48189)

No. 6 (five-way tie)

Another spillover town from Dexter, this affordable, laid-back rural area with a mix of modest and luxury homes is all about the 667-acre spring-fed lake (voted the best inland lake in Michigan in a poll by MLive), with year-round water sports and fishing and acres of nature trails and woods.

“It’s definitely growing,” Knick says, point-

ing to a low tax base; public access to the lake, boat launch, and rentals; and fun places to hang out. RE/Max Classic associate Eileen Denhard calls it “a beautiful rural community with a vibrant yet relaxed feel,” adding that there’s interesting shopping in nearby Brighton and world-class health care, dining, and more in close-by Ann Arbor. For breakfast, try The Peaberry Bean & Beats, “a really cool mom-and-pop spot with open mic both day and night,” Knick says. Denhard likes the Whitmore Lake Tavern for a burger and a brew, and both real estate agents love Captain Joe’s Grill’s huge outdoor patio, featuring an American and Mediterranean menu, live music, and comedy acts.

Public School Review ranks the district in the top 50 percent in the state.

Below were the steps RE/ Max of Southeastern Michigan took to get the rankings featured in our county charts. Data was pulled using residential sales only, meaning this did not include condo sales data, vacant land, or farmland.

Left:

1. Median sales price was pulled for each ZIP code by month for 2021 and 2022.

2. Average median sales price was found for 2021 and 2022.

3. The percentage increase/ decrease from 2021 to 2022 was run for each ZIP.

4. A rank of “1” was assigned to the ZIP with the highest percentage increase in median sales price from 2021 to 2022; ranking continued downward through the list.

5. Days on market data was pulled by month for each ZIP code for 2022.

6. The average number of days on the market for 2022 was run for each ZIP code.

7. A rank for days on market was assigned, with “1” representing the ZIP code with the lowest average number of days on the market in 2022.

8. We then added up the rank each ZIP was given for the percentage change in median price with the rank for average number of days on the market and divided that number by 2 for an overall score.

Above: Whitmore Lake locals meet at the Farmers Market for fresh produce, crafts, live music, and more, June-October.

This recently sold two-story Colonial in Madison Heights is within walking distance of an elementary school and local eats.

Arab American National Museum.

Among Dearborn’s 42 public schools, the top-ranked by Public School Review are Henry Ford Early College, Howard Elementary School, and Haigh Elementary School.

MACOMB COUNTY

HIGHLIGHTS

Realtor Jeff Glover, of Birmingham’s Jeff Glover and Associates, is seeing plenty of movement in the luxury market, but not in the top-tier in communities such as Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, the Grosse Pointes, and Northville. “There are huge slowdowns and price reductions — 7 to 10 percent— in the above-$1.5 million range, but the more affordable homes below that price point are getting multiple offers.” Below are the top towns in the luxury market (homes over $500,000 median sale price) in Oakland, Wayne, and Macomb counties.

West Bloomfield Township (48324)

No. 1 in Oakland County

This exclusive, lake-rich — including Cass, Orchard, Upper Straits, Union, and others — and well-moneyed ZIP code includes Marshbank Park, the Orchard Lake Village community and its private country club, and some of the priciest real estate in the metro area. Portions of 48324 are contained within or border the city limits of Orchard Lake Village, Waterford, Sylvan Lake, Keego Harbor, and Bloomfield Township.

West Bloomfield made Money’s list of “Best Places to Live in America” in 2020, and Niche gives the township an overall grade of A-plus. If you’re a well-known sports figure, entertainer, lake person, or one of the movers and shakers in metro Detroit society, this primo ZIP code is where you want to be. It is also home to the largest inland lake in southeast Michigan, Cass Lake, which is also one of the most frequented, according to Pure Michigan.

“The latest and greatest coffee shop is Cafe Bliss on Haggerty Road,” Glover says, “and the best five-star dining is Prime 29 on Orchard Lake and Maple roads.” Many school districts serve West Bloomfield Township, including West Bloomfield School District, Waterford School District, Farmington Public Schools, Birmingham City School District, Pontiac School District, Walled Lake Consolidated School District, and the Bloomfield Hills School District.

U.S. News’ list of the top high schools in Michigan ranks International Academy in Bloomfield Hills as No. 3 and Seaholm High School in Birmingham as No. 15.

Canton (48188)

No. 1 in Wayne County (two-way tie)

Officially the Charter Township of Canton, this town dates to 1830 and once was known as the sweet corn capital of Michigan. Today, it’s a bustling community that Niche lauds with an A-plus for its “sparse suburban feel”; “restaurants, coffee shops, and parks”; and “highly rated” schools. It’s also close to De-

troit Metropolitan Airport, Ann Arbor, and Detroit via I-275.

“Canton is booming,” says Knick, who points out the great diversity of housing, with lots of custom-built neighborhoods with natural landscaping. Bart Patterson, associate broker with RE/Max Classic in Canton, notes that Canton’s main corridor along Ford Road features shopping galore, and the Summit on the Park facility includes a farmers market

and a recreation facility that hosts soccer tournaments, fitness classes, and events. It is also home to a world-class ice arena, Arctic Edge, where several Olympians have trained, and two notable golf courses — Fellows Creek and Pheasant Run.

The new-urbanist neighborhood of Cherry Hill Village boasts a 400-seat theater and an arts warehouse with art vendors and teaching programs. A smorgasbord of eateries represent Canton’s diverse population, and a favorite hangout is the Euro-style Coffee Haus on Joy Road with specialty coffees and divine edibles. Portions of 48188 are also contained within or border the city limits of Westland and Wayne.

The Plymouth-Canton Community School District is ranked in the top 5 percent of Michigan’s schools by Public School Review. Additionally, Canton High School is No. 25 on U.S News list of the best high schools in Michigan.

Grosse Pointe

(48230 and 48236)

No. 1 in Wayne County (two-way tie)/No. 3 in Wayne County

The elegant five-community Grosse Pointes east of Detroit is where young and old money (e.g., the Fords) live and play, and housing ranges from 100-year-old Tudors to castle-like mansions along the water. One of the most affluent communities in this ZIP code is Grosse Pointe Farms, the second richest city in Michigan, just behind Birmingham, according to Forbes It spans two ZIP codes: 48230 and 48236.

The Hill on Kercheval Avenue is considered Grosse Pointe Farms’ downtown and runs from Muir to Fisher roads, with regular events, lots of retail, and plenty of tasty food at eateries such as Morning Glory for coffee and farm-to-table Jumps or Luxe for vino and dinner.

Kathleen Best, an agent with RE/Max Eclipse, has sold four high-end multifamily units in Grosse Pointe Park to young professionals and doctors who are resi-

Above: Stony Creek Metropark Eastwood Beach, located in Washington Township. Families can soak up the sun, swim, or take a trip down the inflatable waterslide on the 500-acre Stony Creek Lake.

Right: A walking trail in Troy. This affluent and diverse city ranks No. 4 in the luxury market and No. 6 in the list of five counties.

WAYNE COUNTY

dents in nearby hospitals. The draw is multifaceted, she says: “It’s close to water and close to Detroit, where there are tons of new restaurants. Here you get that lake-life luxury, with the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club [Grosse Pointe Shores] and Bayview [Detroit], and you’re also close to Belle Isle.”

In 2022, Grosse Pointe Park was named the No. 1 best place to live in Wayne County by Niche, which cited its highly rated public schools, restaurants, coffee shops, and parks along Lake St. Clair. A popular spot in Grosse Pointe Farms is the Pier Park Pool and Beach, which has a swimming area on Lake St. Clair, a pool, a marina, and pickleball courts. Grosse Pointe also has a lively nightlife with numerous bars that regularly host live music, including the

This modest and appealing bungalow was built in 1950. It’s located in the Dearborn School District.

An overhead view of Wayne County, which has seen an increase in home sales in Westland, Dearborn, and Trenton. The luxury markets in Canton, the Grosse Pointes, Dearborn, Detroit, Northville, Plymouth, and Grosse Isle have also seen a bump.

Northville, ranking at No 4. and 5 in the Wayne County luxury market, has a charming downtown that features great eats like 160 Main, Lucy & the Wolf, and Browndog Barlor & Restaurant.

Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe and Cabbage Patch Cafe and Catering.

Public School Review ranks the Grosse Pointe Public School System in the top 5 percent in the state. U.S. News ranks Grosse Pointe South High School as the No. 5 high school in Michigan.

The 48236 ZIP code encompasses part of Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Woods, Grosse Pointe Shores, and part of Detroit.

Washington Township

(48094 and 48095)

No. 1 and No. 2 in Macomb County

Realtor Emer Kenny, of the Emerald Property Team at Keller-Williams Paint Creek & Somerset, says the historic village of Romeo, with its walkable downtown and annual festivals, has drawn homebuyers to this part of Macomb County. “Romeo has made an impact on the whole area — people love the charm, the

schools, the cafes.” She says Washington Township also features much larger lots and lower taxes than nearby Rochester and Rochester Hills, and thus newer and larger homes.

“You can even have a pool, with more privacy and space.” Kenny’s sales associate Jackie Bewick says the wide-open area offers residents both suburban and rural

living at the same time. “Plus good schools, parks [Stony Creek Metropark], and great restaurants like Bar Verona and the Brown Iron Brewhouse, both on Van Dyke Road.”

Some popular events in Romeo include Terror on Tillson Street — which earned the town the honors of being named one of the best “Halloween towns” in the country (along with Dearborn) by Country Living — and the

Romeo Peach Festival on Labor Day weekend. Fall is also a great time to check out the nearby cider mills: Westview Orchards & Winery and Blake’s Orchard & Cider Mill. Romeo Community School District, which is ranked by Public School Review among the top 30 percent in Michigan, serves Washington and Washington Township.

HIGHLIGHTS

Heights

a specialist

Detroit residential properties, says, “Investor activity has slowed within the city of Detroit — now is a great time for buyers to get out there and negotiate a deal with favorable terms.”

Northwest (48221)

No. 3 on Hottest ZIP Codes in Detroit

The most popular ZIP code in Detroit for single-family residential homebuyers is 48221, which comprises Tudor and other architecturally stunning neighborhoods built between the 1920s and ’50s, such as University District, Sherwood Forest, Green Acres, Palmer Woods, and, as Kain notes, the strong-selling Bagley community. “Overall, this market has held fairly steady in terms of number of sales,” Kain says.

Last June, 22-year-old Riley Peters moved from Washington state to a two-story, threebed/1.5-bath brick house built in 1939 near Mumford High School on Wyoming Avenue. He paid $135,000, besting three other offers on the house, which listed for $120,000, and he is delighted with his new home. “I love my neighbors — most people on my street have been there a long time.” Peters, who works as a behavioral therapist for autistic children in Livonia, fell in love with Detroit after his sister moved to Ann Arbor, then Royal Oak, five years ago. “After looking at other towns, Detroit was the place I liked and could see myself living,” he says, adding that his sister now lives with him. Peters bought his home from Kain, who highly recommends the upscalecasual Petty Cash on Livernois as a don’tmiss eatery. Peters has discovered his favorite mom-and-pop burger joint, O’s Burger Bar, on State Fair Avenue, “a create-yourown-burger place.”

This ZIP code puts you close to Palmer Park, which has hiking trails, gardens, a farmers market, and many festivals — plus it’s less than 3 miles from downtown Ferndale.

Indian Village/ East Village (48214)

No. 7 on Hottest Luxury ZIP Codes in Wayne County

This historic area, which includes Indian Village, East Village, West Village, Islandview, and the Joseph Berry community, features many mansions built between 1885 and the 1920s and architectural styles that range from Tudor revival to Romanesque. The Detroit riverfront, which runs along East Jefferson Avenue, features a long row of beautiful high-rise apartment buildings, many built 100 years ago and many with views of Windsor, Ontario, and the 982-acre Belle Isle Park.

“There are many larger homes (2,000-plus square feet) that sit within an active historic district that seeks to retain the character of the area — but that can lead to higher rehabilitation costs,” Kain says, adding that “the Parker Durand, a new-build apartment building, was recently completed in Islandview on Kercheval Avenue.” Residents have their pick of exciting eateries, like the Rattlesnake Club in River Place or Ivy Kitchen + Cocktails on Jefferson, and for coffee and breakfast, try Le Petit Dejeuner, also on Jefferson. As far as nightlife, it is close to Spot Lite and the newly opened Big Pink, which both regularly feature live DJs and dancing.

U.S. News ranks Renaissance High School, Cass Technical High School, and Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine as the top three in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Popular private schools on the east side are Gesu Catholic, U of D Jesuit High in Detroit, and University Liggett in Grosse Pointe.

A home in Detroit’s East Village, a historic neighborhood with tree-lined streets close to the Detroit riverfront and Belle Isle.

$118,687 $77,520

Ryan Kain, a Realtor for RE/Max Leading Edge in Dearborn

and

in

Travel Destinations

TRAVERSE CITY TOURISM

Guest Information: 101 W. Grandview Parkway, Traverse City, MI 49684 231-947-1120 | 800-872-8377 | info@TraverseCity.com | traversecity.com

Rebirth in Traverse City. G o ahead, take it all in. When spring arrives in Traverse City, there’s nothing like it! Nothing like 2 million cherry trees exploding with blossoms that carry your senses to new heights. Nothing like a walk in the forest while overlooking the stunning waters of Grand Traverse Bay. Nothing like sipping a glass of award-winning wine at one of the 40 Traverse Wine Coast tasting rooms.

Spring is a time of rebirth in Traverse City. It’s a time to explore hundreds of miles of looping trails on a bike. It’s a time to hike the

dunes at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and be treated to a panoramic view at the top. It’s a time to savor every bite of a true farm-to-table experience that gives new definition to the word “fresh.”

Spring is a season of events and activities. Check out just a handful of things going on:

• All of May – Traverse City Uncorked

• May 13 – Michigan Brewer’s Guild Spring Beer Fest, Turtle Creek Stadium

• May 27 – Bayshore Marathon, Traverse City

• May 27 – Beer & Brats Fest, Crystal Mountain

• May 29 & 30 – Traverse City Pit Spitters’ Home Games

Plan that spring getaway now, and watch a sunset at the expansive Frankfort beach. Or visit downtown Traverse City’s shops to look for a unique treasure you’ll only find here. Take the family out to the farm and enjoy a scoop of America’s Best Ice Cream at Moomers.

Plan your trip now at traversecity.com.

GERVASI VINEYARD RESORT & SPA

Guest Information: 330-497-1000 info@gervasivineyard.com | gervasivineyard.com

Experience the beauty and tranquility of Gervasi Vineyard Resort & Spa, a Tuscan-inspired winery resort that features three distinct restaurants, including an amazing Italian bistro, paired with award-winning wines and spirits.

Set on a beautiful 55-acre estate, Gervasi Vineyard offers luxurious suites with high-end amenities. Two new additions to the resort are The Cave, an intimate wine-tasting room, and The Spa. Take in the views, indulge, and celebrate life at Gervasi Vineyard Resort & Spa.

FLINT INSTITUTE OF ARTS

Guest Information: 1120 East Kearsley St., Flint, MI 48503 810-234-1695 | flintarts.org

The Flint Institute of Arts is the second-largest art museum in Michigan and has one of the largest museum-connected community art schools in the United States. Its world-renowned collection, which exceeds 8,500 objects, is significant for its depth of important European and American paintings and sculptures, as well as its extensive holdings of decorative and applied arts.

The FIA is committed to making art available, approachable, and accessible to all by providing multiple ways of accessing information on the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions. These include guided tours; lectures and community dialogues; art classes, workshops, and studio demonstrations; gallery, studio, and outreach programs for PreK-12, Head Start, and homeschool students; films and videos; and print, audio, and multimedia resources.

Easily accessible from I-75, the Flint Institute of Arts is the perfect day trip. Enjoy Huntington Free Saturdays and free glass-blowing demonstrations on the weekends. Learn more at flintarts.org.

The 2022 Tony winner makes its first stop in Detroit this month at the Fisher Theatre

Respect: A Tribute to Aretha Franklin (left) starts a threeday run at Orchestra Hall on May 26; Six comes to Detroit for the first time, opening at the Fisher Theatre on May 23.

Culture Calendar

Our carefully curated guide to the month in arts and entertainment

BY RYAN PATRICK HOOPER

MUSIC

An ode to Aretha Franklin with a full orchestra

“The story of Aretha Franklin is the story of America in the second half of the twentieth century.” That’s how the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is pitching its upcoming tribute to the Queen of Soul as

DON’T-MISS EVENTS

Save the dates for comedy shows, film screenings, performances, and more

part of its pops series, bringing the best of Broadway, film, television, and the pop world to the Orchestra Hall stage with the assistance of a full orchestra. Singers Tamika Lawrence, Coco Smith, and Blaine Krauss are up to the challenge of bringing Aretha Franklin’s biggest hits to life

for Detroit audiences, which are sure to pack the house for this one. Respect: A Tribute to Aretha Franklin opens at Orchestra Hall on Friday, May 26, and runs through Sunday, May 28. For more information and tickets, visit dso.org.

ceramics, videos, jewelry, and more. No cost with museum admission. Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; dia.org

MAY 1 • MUSIC

THEATER

Six gets ready to sing its way into the hearts of Detroiters

The Broadway in Detroit 2023-24 subscription season is kicking off with some major musical gravity. This powerhouse Broadway production lands in Detroit for the first

artist Butch Bastard. $40+. Masonic Cathedral Theatre, Detroit; axs.com

MAY 5 • COMEDY

time, bringing some heavyweight accolades along with it, including the Tony for best original score last year. Six puts the idea of popsinging divas into a historical context as the six wives of Henry VIII take the microphone to sing out their heartbreak and try to prove who suffered the most under the hand of the ruthless king. It’s a concept that Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss premiered back in 2017, when they were still students studying at Cambridge University. Their fresh eyes put together something smart, sassy, and full of historical nuggets to entertain even the most jaded lovers of musicals. Six opens at the Fisher Theatre on Tuesday,

MAY 6 • MUSIC

Candlelight Concert: 100

May 23, and runs through Sunday, June 11. For tickets, visit broadwayindetroit.com.

COMEDY Funny ladies take center stage in Hamtramck

Detroit’s comedy scene has grown quite a bit over the years, punching well above its weight class with a bevy of local talent and more showcases to see than ever before (and we’re not just talking about legendary staple Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle in Royal Oak, which is still a go-to for any fans of stand-up comedy). As in any comedy scene, however, getting diverse voices on stages remains a challenge -— it’s still very much a maledominated medium.

APRIL 22-MAY 28 • ART

COMPILED BY LAUREN

WETHINGTON

86th Annual Detroit Public Schools Community District Student Exhibition: Detroit Public Schools students in grades K-12 will have an opportunity to present their imaginative works to the DIA’s vast audience at this annual exhibition. The display includes paintings, prints, drawings, photographs,

Father John Misty: This prolific singer-songwriter rose to prominence as drummer and backing vocalist for Seattlebased indie band Fleet Foxes. After leaving the band in 2012, Misty went on to release multiple critically acclaimed solo albums, including 2015’s I Love You, Honeybear. He will support his latest effort, 2022’s Chloe and the Next 20th Century, when he embarks on a North American tour this spring with support from folk

Small Town Murder: On their hit podcast, Small Town Murder, comedians James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman analyze homicidal crimes in small-town America for their many listeners. Although the stories are troubling, the comedians’ witty and comedic perspectives keep audiences entertained and laughing. See them work their magic live on stage when they take their show on the road this month.

$39+. Masonic Cathedral Theatre, Detroit; axs.com

Years of Warner Bros.: Celebrate a century of memorable music from iconic films like The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, The Lord of the Rings, and more at this multisensory experience at Detroit’s Redford Theatre. The Listeso String Quartet will perform the 65-minute program amid the ambient glow of hundreds of candles, creating a uniquely memorable experience for ages 8 and up. $32+. Redford Theatre, Detroit; redfordtheatre.com

MAY 7 • MUSIC

KC and the Sunshine Band: Boasting a back catalog rife with party hits, including “That’s the Way (I Like It),” “Shake Your Booty,” and “Keep It Comin’ Love,” this legendary disco-funk ensemble is sure to get the audience dancing at Detroit’s Music Hall this month. Led by vocalist and songwriter Harry Wayne Casey, the group has sold more than 100 million records

The Detroit Women of Comedy Festival is taking a stab at changing that. It’s a celebration of marginalized voices across a spectrum of genders and from every medium — you’ll see improv, podcasts, and stand-up and have the chance to attend workshops over the two-day festival. Proceeds from the festival help support nonprofits like Ruth Ellis Center, which provides support for queer youth and young adults of color, and the Detroit Creativity Project, which helps put performing arts and improv classes into Detroit Public Schools. Detroit Women of Comedy Festival happens across two days (May 19-20) at the Planet Ant Theatre in Hamtramck. For tickets and additional details, visit planetant.com.

Ryan Patrick Hooper is the host of CultureShift on 101.9 WDET, Detroit’s NPR station (weekdays from noon to 2 p.m.).

worldwide over the course of its nearly 50-year career. $64+. Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts, Detroit; musichall.org

On My Playlist

A reason to Movement this year at Hart Plaza

The arrival of the Movement music festival will take this spot in my column every May until the Earth and the records stop spinning. It’s a force of nature too massive to ignore — a stunning ode to Detroit’s electronic music history, which is one of the city’s greatest cultural exports (and a massive source of cultural tourism, too, attracting over 110,000 patrons across three days). With six stages and over 115 acts, it’s one of the largest editions of the fest, which dates back more than 20 years (if you include a few name changes during that time). And the homegrown talent is once again the main highlight. Living legends who helped pioneer techno and house music in the city, like Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale and Carl Craig, are on the bill, plus the next generation of musicians, including Shigeto, Ladylike, and Ladymonix. National headliners to add to the list of must-see acts include Caribou, Basement Jaxx, and Three 6 Mafia. Movement music festival happens Memorial Day weekend (May 27-29) at Hart Plaza. Tickets are available via movementfestival.com.

Hear favorite songs from the original Disney feature, along with new music by Tony and Academy Award-winning composer Alan Menken, when the magical production makes a stop at Detroit’s Fisher Theatre for a five-day run. Recommended for ages 6 and up. $35+. Fisher Theatre, Detroit; broadwayindetroit.com

MAY 12 • MUSIC

2013 hit single “Break Every Chain” topped Billboard’s Gospel Songs chart. Grammy Award-nominated vocalists Tamela Mann and Jekalyn Carr will also perform, along with singer-songwriter Charles Jenkins. $54+. Fox Theatre, Detroit; 313presents.com

MAY 13 • COMEDY

est stand-up special, I’m From the Future, was released in February and can be streamed for free via his website. $42.50+. Royal Oak Music Theatre, Royal Oak; royaloakmusictheatre.com

embark on a new journey in this musical stage adaptation of the hit film franchise.

Kids of all ages will be dazzled by catchy songs, colorful costumes, vibrant sets, and opportunities to sing and dance along with the characters. $15+. Fox Theatre, Detroit; 313presents.com

MAY 19-20 • FILM

Harold Lloyd Celebration with Suzanne Lloyd: The granddaughter of legendary silent film actor Harold Lloyd will be on-site at Detroit’s Redford Theatre for two days of events to celebrate her grandfather’s legacy. Screenings will commemorate the 95th anniversary of two of Lloyd’s best-known films — The Freshman and Speedy — complete with live organ music. On Saturday, the theater will hold a VIP reception featuring a Q&A with Suzanne Lloyd, along with specialty desserts and screenings of rare home movies. $15+. Redford Theatre, Detroit; redfordtheatre.com

MAY 19 • MUSIC

The Mavericks: Hailing from Miami, this eclectic band blends country and Americana music with pop and Latin influences to create a unique, genre-bending sound. The group’s most recent album, 2020’s En Espanol, was recorded entirely in Spanish and emphasized the band’s Latin American roots by incorporating mariachi, salsa, ska, and Afro-Cuban elements.

$39.50+. Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor; theark.org

MAY 20 • COMEDY

celebration of his 30-plus year career. Hear hits like “Kiss From a Rose,” “Crazy,” and “Killer” when the singer performs his iconic first two records, Seal and Seal II, in their entirety. English newwave act The Buggles will kick off the show. $49+. Fox Theatre, Detroit; 313presents.com

MAY 24 • MUSIC

Janet Jackson: The five-time Grammy Award-winning global superstar will make a stop at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena on her upcoming Together Again North American tour. Fans will have a chance to hear Jackson’s newest song, “Luv I Luv,” along with charttopping classics like “Control,” “Rhythm Nation,” and “All for You.” Rapper and producer Ludacris will open the show. $72+. Little Caesars Arena, Detroit; 313presents.com

MAY 26-27 • FILM

MAY 9-14 • THEATER

Disney’s Aladdin: The beloved 1992 animated film comes to life in this musical Broadway adaptation directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw.

Mother’s Day Celebration: Presented by Mix 92.3, this night of soulful gospel music is the perfect treat for musicloving moms. The program features Grammy Awardwinning singer-songwriter Tasha Cobbs Leonard, whose

David Cross: Best known for his roles in acclaimed TV comedies, including Mr. Show, Arrested Development and Modern Family, this Emmy Award-winning comedian, actor, director, and writer will perform at Royal Oak Music Theatre as part of an expansive spring tour. Cross’s new-

MAY 13 • THEATER

Madagascar the Musical: Follow Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe, and Gloria the hippo as they

Tom Papa: With more than 20 years of stand-up experience under his belt, this New Jersey-based comedian, actor, and radio host is sure to bring the laughs when he stops at Royal Oak Music Theatre this month. His newest special, What a Day!, is streaming on Netflix and features the comedian’s hilarious takes on “post-marriage intimacy, his problematic pet pug, and why men are to blame for most of life’s inconveniences.”

$34.50+. Royal Oak Music Theatre, Royal Oak; royaloakmusictheatre.com

MAY 21 • MUSIC

Seal: The London-based Grammy Award-winning soul and R&B singer will launch a world tour this spring in

Internal Affairs Trilogy: Released in 2002 and 2003, this trilogy of films by Hong Kong-based directors Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak served as the source material for Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Academy Award-winning film The Departed. Featuring superstar actors Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah, the films utilize Buddhist philosophical motifs to weave tales of self-deception and betrayal in Hong Kong’s criminal underworld. Each film will screen separately. $7.50+. Detroit Film Theatre, Detroit; dia.org

MAY 30 • MUSIC

Ella Mai: This R&B phenom was discovered following her audition for the 11th season of the British reality music competition show The X Factor. Since then, she’s released three EPs and two full-length studio albums, which garnered her a Grammy Award, a BET Award, and three Billboard Music Awards. She’ll support her latest effort, 2022’s Heart on My Sleeve, when she hits the road for a North American tour this spring. $64+. The Fillmore, Detroit; livenation.com

Movement Festival returns to Hart Plaza Memorial Day weekend.

 Belle Isle Nature Center guests can look for bull frogs (left) in the "Detroit River" and become immersed in the world of pollinators (above).

RECREATION

Explore Detroit’s Wild Side

The revamped Belle Isle Nature Center focuses on showcasing nature in an urban environment

THIS TIME OF YEAR, birds begin to sing, wildflowers blossom, and tree buds grow into leaves. Spring reminds us of our cohabitant — nature. It resides in Detroit, and that’s the premise behind the recently revamped Belle Isle Nature Center.

“You’ll see the intersection of the built and the natural environment everywhere,” says Director Amy Greene. “It’s growing between the cracks in the sidewalks.”

The updated exhibits, which reopened in October, invite visitors to explore this intersection — from the possums and rats scavenging the Detroit sewer system to the insects pollinating urban gardens. It is two years and $2.5 million in the making.

Like most public attractions, the nature center closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff evacuated the animals to the Detroit Zoo’s main campus, closer to veterinary care (the Detroit Zoological Society has run the nature center since 2006).

After the second wave of shutdowns foiled their attempt to reopen that fall, the staff realized the extended vacancy left room to renovate. They brainstormed concepts, drawing from educational programming the nature center has provided for years. One activity that came to mind was hunting for bugs with children in an early childhood center

parking lot off Gratiot Avenue, Greene says.

“[We wanted to make the center] a place where children who live in the city will find value, belonging, and significance,” Greene says. “You don’t have to go out to the wilderness to experience how you belong and fit.”

The animal enclosures are upgraded for easier zookeeper access. They are also decorated to reflect environments where the animals live in metro Detroit. The turtles swim in front of a mural depicting the coast of the Detroit River. Water snakes and salamanders inhabit wetlands and woods.

The new frog and toad exhibit offers an interesting view and photo opportunity. Visitors can enter a tunnel underneath and pop their heads up into a plastic orb at the center of the enclosure to get a better look at the amphibians (it’s similar to a feature of the prairie dog exhibit at the Detroit Zoo).

This month, staff will set out bird feeders for hummingbirds and listen for migrating orioles — all on display through the improved birdwatching window.

The nature center is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week. Admission is free, outside of park access fees. For more information about the nature center and the events in the sidebar, go to belleisleconservancy.org

IN ADDITION TO THE NATURE CENTER, THERE IS PLENTY TO DO ON BELLE ISLE THIS SPRING AND SUMMER, INCLUDING:

Koi Festival:

This year marks the seventh annual Koi Festival, a celebration of Japanese culture inspired by the Belle Isle Aquarium’s koi collection. Enjoy family-friendly activities, performances, and snacks at the aquarium. May 6-7.

The Giant Slide:

Hang onto your bag and lean forward — the world-famous plunge is back in business starting Memorial Day weekend. Operating hours are 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday, through Labor Day. Tickets are $1 per ride. May 26-Sept. 4.

The Taco and Tequila Festival:

Grab an adult beverage with delicious food truck fare and listen to live music at Belle Isle. Tickets are $30 for general admission and $40 for VIP. Proceeds will benefit Friends of the River, a nonprofit dedicated to improving water quality and access in Michigan. June 24.

Belle Isle Art Fair:

See and purchase art from over 80 juried artists, grab a bite from a vendor, and enjoy acoustic music performances. Except for the park access fee, it’s completely free to attend. Aug. 5-6.

The following will not be opening or taking place on Belle Isle this year:

The Anna Scripps

Whitcomb Conservatory: The greenhouse will be closed for renovation through 2024. However, the Belle Isle Aquarium and Piet Oudolf Garden will remain open all year.

The Fallow Deer Garden:

The popular feeding attraction has retired. Detroit Zoo staff moved the remaining elderly fallow deer to the main campus in 2021. Since then, they have passed away peacefully and well beyond their life expectancy, Greene says. They were descended from a wild population, initially brought to the island in the late 1800s.

The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix:

Last year was the final year the Grand Prix took place on Belle Isle. The annual race is moving back to the streets of downtown Detroit, where the event first began. It takes place June 2-4. Ticket information is available at detroitgp.com/tickets.

Belle Isle’s Spring & Summer Events

Head to Kansas City to see the hybrid roller coaster Zambezi Zinger at Worlds of Fun. It stands 74 feet tall and reaches speeds of 45 mph.

Summer of Screams

Six new roller coasters open in and around the Midwest this summer

BY CHRISTINA CLARK

ROLLER COASTERS ARE MY THING. To me, nothing beats an ominous trip hundreds of feet in the air before a plummet back down to earth — and a ride that I’ve never been on makes the experience that much better. For coaster enthusiasts such as myself, May marks the unofficial start of roller coaster season in the Midwest, and these six amusement parks in and around the area are gearing up for it by unveiling new roller coasters for this summer.

Some parks in the list only need a day trip while others require a full weekend, or a short vacation, to enjoy, but all are worth the drive if you’re seeking a little extra adrenaline this summer.



Wild Mouse at Cedar Point

SANDUSKY, OHIO

Drive from Detroit: Approximately 2 hours

Cost: Regular single-day ticket prices start at $45 online

Wild Mouse is a part of Cedar Point’s new development, The Boardwalk, which includes revitalized family attractions, a new dining venue, roaming entertainment, and the park’s 18th coaster.

Wild Mouse is a small but mighty nod to the park’s original Wild Mouse roller coaster, which operated from 1959 to 1963. It will take riders on a “game of cat and mouse” as they climb 52 feet in a four-passenger car that spins 360 degrees as it travels along the twisty-turny track at speeds of up to 35 mph.

“The new Wild Mouse spinning family coaster will be a ride experience different from all others in the park,” says Tony Clark, the director of communications for the park. “Each Wild Mouse car will spin independently as it travels along 1,312 feet of track, providing not only a great traditional roller coaster ride but another dimension of thrills with its random movements — no two rides will be the same.”

Guests must be at least 48 inches tall to ride alone or 42 inches with supervision. Visit cedarpoint.com for more.

While you’re there: Sure, metro Detroiters can do Cedar Point in a day, but there’s enough to do around Sandusky that you can make it a weekend trip.

In addition to Cedar Point’s water park, Cedar Point Shores, the city is also home to a Great Wolf Lodge, which features eight slides inside a 30,000-square-foot water park, and Kalahari Resorts — Ohio’s largest indoor water park, with 173,000 feet of wet and wild fun. Not into water parks? Get your thrills at Ghostly Manor. This fun center has everything from an escape room and an indoor haunted house to indoor skating and mini golf.

Sandusky also offers several museums, including the MerryGo-Round Museum, a maritime museum, and a children’s museum, so there’s a bit of something for everyone.

American Dreier Looping at Indiana Beach

MONTICELLO, INDIANA

Drive from Detroit: Approximately 4.5 hours

Cost: Regular single-day ticket prices start at $40 online

Indiana Beach squeezes five coasters into a boardwalk on Lake Shafer. Its sixth coaster, American Dreier Looping, was to open in 2022 but is now expected to open this year.

Manufactured in 1984 by the classic coaster manufacturing company Schwarzkopf Industries, this ride has dished out screams since its first appearance at a fair in Hannover, Germany. It had been in three other parks before being relocated to Indiana Beach.

American Dreier Looping climbs just over 100 feet, reaches speeds of nearly 55 mph, and features three inversions that deliver 6.1 g-forces.

Visit indianabeach.com for more.

While you’re there: Trade the thrills of the park for the tranquility of nature at Altherr Nature Park. Located approximately 10 minutes from Indiana Beach, this park encompasses just over 16 acres filled with walking paths to see native plants and animals.

Grab a drink just up the road from the nature park at the family-owned Whyte Horse Winery or take about a 40-minute drive farther to Lafayette for an even wider breadth of places to explore, such as the Columbian Park Zoo, the Haan Museum of Indiana Art, and Tropicanoe Cove water park.

Zambezi Zinger at Worlds of Fun

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Drive from Detroit: Approximately 11.5 hours

Cost: Regular single-day ticket prices start at $35 online

The original Zambezi Zinger was a steel-extended Jumbo Jet-style coaster that operated as one of Worlds of Fun’s most popular roller coasters from the park’s opening in 1973 until the coaster was defunct in 1997.

At the new Wild Mouse on The Boardwalk in Cedar Point, guests can search for cheese in one of six colorful and spinning mouse-themed cars — lovingly named Ziggy, Zaggy, Dizzy, Mazey, Chase, and Larry — or the cheese car for a unique ride every time.

The new Zambezi Zinger is a hybrid coaster that pays homage to the original with a similar spiral lift, a surprise midcourse tunnel, and low-to-the-ground track. It’s also built in the same spot in the heart of the park’s African-themed area.

New elements include side-by-side seating rather than the original toboggan-style, safari theming, and modern Infinity Flyer trains. The 2023 version is also a smidge faster than the 1973 ride, reaching speeds of up to 45 mph to the original 41.2, and a bit taller at 74 feet compared with the original’s 57 feet. Visit worldsoffun.com for more.

While you’re there: Museums are a huge draw if you’re taking a vacation in the Kansas City area. Options to explore include The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the National WWI Museum and Memorial, the Arabia Steamboat Museum, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the Airline History Museum, the Museum of Illusions, and more.

Kansas City is also home to a Great Wolf Lodge, which includes 38,000 square feet of water fun, including the first-ofits-kind Triple Twist waterslide that launches rides down three successive funnels. Penguin Park and its animal statues are a can’t-miss for visitors with kids, as is Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead and Legoland Discovery Center.



The spiral lift on Zambezi Zinger is a tribute to the original Zambezi Zinger, which operated at Worlds of Fun from 1973 to 1997. With banked turns, quick transitions, and airtime, the new coaster aims to make riders feel as though they are racing through the African Serengeti.

Wildcat’s Revenge at Hersheypark

HERSHEY, PENNSYLVANIA

Drive from Detroit: Approximately 7.5 hours

Cost: Regular single-day ticket prices start at $50 online

This new hybrid coaster — a roller coaster with a steel track and wood supports — was built on the bones of the park’s old Wildcat, which operated from 1996 to 2022, by Rocky Mountain Construction, which is the same company that turned Cedar Point’s Mean Streak into Steel Vengeance.

This wild ride will flip riders upside down four times, including through the world’s largest underflip, at speeds of up to 62 mph. The ride’s largest hill is 140 feet tall, and its first drop measures in at 82 degrees.

Riders must fall in at least the park’s “Hershey’s” height category — that’s 48 to 54 inches tall — to ride.

For tickets, lodging, and more, go to hersheypark.com.

While you’re there: After you have your fill of rides, but before you leave the park, visit Hershey’s Chocolate World for a free chocolate tour, an opportunity to create your own candy bars, a 4D chocolate movie, and more.

Keep the fun going outside of the park with a visit to ZooAmerica, which is home to more than 200 animals, including vampire bats, American alligators, gray wolves, mountain lions, black bears, bald eagles, rattlesnakes, ferrets, elk, and many others.

Hershey Gardens, which is just a few minutes from Hersheypark, features 28 acres of botanical gardens, including 3,000 roses, and one of 25 indoor tropical butterfly atriums in the world, housing dozens of rare butterflies from South and Central America, Africa, and Asia.

Big Bear Mountain at Dollywood

PIGEON FORGE, TENNESSEE

Drive from Detroit: Approximately 8.5 hours

Cost: Regular single-day ticket prices start at $90 online

With 3,990 feet of track and a ride time of nearly two minutes, Big Bear Mountain will be the longest roller coaster at Dollywood when it opens in the Wildwood Grove area of the park this year.

It features three separate launches that reach top speeds of 48 mph and hurdles riders through airtime hills and high-speed turns against the backdrop of the Smoky Mountains. It also offers onboard audio, which is a first for the park.

Big Bear Mountain reaches 66 feet at its tallest point. Guests must be at least 39 inches tall to ride.

For tickets, lodging, and more, go to dollywood.com.

While you’re there: As the No. 1 theme park in the United States, there’s no shortage of things to do inside Dollywood, but there are even more fun activities to do in Pigeon Forge proper and in nearby Gatlinburg.

If you and your brood want the thrills to continue, take on one of the mountain coasters or fun parks in the area — there are plenty to choose from. You can also learn a little history at the Titanic Museum or the Alcatraz East Crime Museum. Need a break from all the attractions? Escape into nature at Great Smoky National Park or do some shopping — and moonshine tasting — along the strip in Gatlinburg.

Built by the same company that brought you Cedar Point’s Steel Vengeance, Wildcat’s Revenge at Hersheypark will take you on a wild ride up 140 feet and through four inversions at speeds of up to 62 mph. It joins the ranks of 14 other coasters at the Pennsylvania park.

VISITING MICHIGAN’S ADVENTURE

Michigan’s Adventure, the state’s largest water and amusement park, is just over a three-hour drive from Detroit to Muskegon and features more than 60 rides, slides, and attractions for the entire family to enjoy.

On the amusement park side of things, there are seven roller coasters, including the 125-foot-long Shivering Timbers, which takes riders a half-mile out and back at speeds of up to 65 mph, and Michigan’s first suspended looping roller coaster, Thunderhawk.

WildWater Adventure boasts the title of the state’s largest outdoor water park, featuring more than 15 water attractions. Among them

Darkoaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

Drive from Detroit: Approximately 11.5 hours

is the state’s only tornado slide, Funnel of Fear, which stands at a whopping 63 feet, and Snake Pit — a slide that features three different slides that are totally enclosed.

Both parks offer plenty of family-friendly rides and slides, too. In fact, the park just welcomed a new kids area called Camp Snoopy in 2021, which features five rides aimed at families, and this fall, they’re unveiling spooky, not scary, Halloween fun at the all-new Tricks and Treats Fall Fest.

Michigan’s Adventure is located in Muskegon and will open for the 2023 season on May 26. WildWater Adventure will open on June 10. For more information, visit miadventure.com.

Cost: Regular single-day ticket prices start at $52 online “Escape the storm” on North America’s first allindoor straddle coaster. Riders will climb into trains that look like snowmobiles for a journey along 2,454 feet of track, which includes four launches, in total darkness.

Built by Intamin Amusement Rides, Darkoaster reaches speeds of up to 36 mph and is located in the park’s Oktoberfest area. Guests must be at least 48 inches to ride.

For tickets, lodging, and more, go to buschgardens.com.

While you’re there: Take a step back into 18th-century America at Colonial Williamsburg. This living history museum features 300 acres of historic taverns and sites, including the Capitol, Governor’s Palace, and courthouse, along with working tradespeople. Take an interpreter-guided tour to see it all during the day or try one of the Haunted Williamsburg ghost tours at night.

Virginia’s largest water park, Water Country USA, is also in Williamsburg. For water in the outdoors, York River State Park is another must-see destination simply for the York River’s rare balance of fresh water and salt water. And, of course, U.S. history buffs could spend the whole summer exploring Colonial Williamsburg, the Jamestown Settlement, and the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown.

The Great Lake State’s cannabis market has seen incredible growth across nearly every product category with nearly $2.3 billion in sales last year, according to the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency (CRA).

That massive retail haul came during Michigan’s third full year of a commercial adult-use program and represents 28 percent growth over 2021 sales. Michigan is now the nation’s second largest cannabis market, trailing only California.

There are currently more than 500 medical cannabis dispensaries and over 470 recreational ones in Michigan, supported by more than 1,000 growers.

September was a record for marijuana sales in Michigan, hitting $195 million in recreational sales, according to the CRA. And projections are that these numbers will continue to increase - or get high-er.

According to research firm Headset, the market in Michigan will reach $2.5 billion by 2025.

These numbers are climbing while much of the U.S. cannabis market as a whole struggled to grow sales in 2022 after a cannabis boom during the peak years of the pandemic.

Used recreationally, as a medicinal drug or even for spiritual purposes, cannabis offers many positive attributes including easing pain, controlling nausea and vomiting and treating rare forms of epilepsy. A recent study found that CBD and other non-psychoactive cannabinoids can effectively be used to prevent and treat GI disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis and more.

Michigan is high on cannabis C N N

According to a recent report from the Michigan Marijuana Regulatory Agency, there are roughly 280,000 registered medical marijuana cardholders across the state. ■

B S I N E S S

Canna-Business Profiles

Mark Savaya has created a Michigan cannabis company unlike any other - how many people have their own brand-label cannabis? Yes, there is the Mark Savaya Collection, a hybrid-strain that he bred himself and is only available at Leaf & Bud, a growing number of Michigan-area centers offering both medical and recreational cannabis.

As co-founder and CEO of Future Grow Solutions, Savaya directs a Henry Fordlike integrated system for medical and recreational marijuana products.

“Future Grow Solutions is a Michiganbased company and was created to help the cannabis industry maximize their profits and produce exceptional products,” Savaya said. “With the constant changing of the laws and technology, our team at Future Grow Solutions help our clients with consulting in all aspects of the cannabis industry.”

Savaya and his team recently introduced Leaf & Bud Provisioning Center as a way to sell what they produce in their Detroit and Center Line facilities. “It was an outgrowth of Future Grow Solutions,” he says. “Our Leaf & Bud brand uses only premium nutrients and we handcraft all our own batches of edibles, concentrates, topicals, oils, and additional products.”

“It has been an incredible journey to bring Leaf & Bud to the Detroit community,” Savaya said. “I like to think I have put a lot of thought into the buying experience. Our locations are sleek, inviting, state-of-the-art, and futuristic in design. Our cannabis consultants are knowledgeable about our products and take time to understand customer needs and requests — whether medical or recreational.”

Savaya, who oversees multiple cannabis complexes across the state in various stages of development, has spent 16 years cultivating

an ambitious and enterprising cannabis growth and retail business. He brings his many years of experience as a successful start-up business investor and daily operations manager to Michigan’s medicinal and recreational marijuana market. Under his leadership, Future Grow Solutions has revolutionized the way cannabis is grown and harvested.

“Our indoor grow facilities allow us to produce more than 50 different strains indoors using soil organic growth,” he says. “This method produces high-yield crops to meet consumer demand.

“We specialize in exotic, quality products. The technology that we are employing is truly state-of-the-art, economical, and environmentally friendly. Our computer management systems monitor and manage every key aspect of our grow rooms to ensure optimum outcomes.”

Savaya expects - and is excited - to see Leaf & Bud continue to grow along with the high demand and medical need for cannabis products in Michigan. He has truly found his passion in helping others and making a positive impact in his community and beyond.

“It’s not work if you love what you do,” he says. “I get very excited when I can help growers and investors in all that is involved with the cannabis business, including securing real estate, finding finances, establishing a reliable security system, ensuring compliance, and helping to recruit the right talent.

“In addition to overseeing the daily operation of training and support of the grow operations, I am able to grow my business close to home by opening more Leaf & Bud locations and selling our quality products.”

Including the Mark Savaya Collection. n

Canna-Business Profiles

DeHydr8 LLC, which delivers a faster onset, a more predictable cannabis experience and increased bioavailability for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), recently announced a new subset of the DeHydr8 products in Michigan called HIGH TeHC.

“The product line is a subset of DeHydr8 leveraging the IP into a product line called High TeHC,” said Todd Webber, the company’s CEO. “The TeHC Stack is available in many forms including gummies, tablets, sublinguals, stick pouches, topicals, coffee, hot cocoa, chocolates, and more.”

The “Stack of Products” are focused on indications (Sleep, Relax, Kick, Regen, Extended Release, and Standard) and depending on the indication the THC is paired with additional CBD, CBN, CBC, CBG, THCv,

Vitamins, and Botanicals. DeHydr8’s patent protected process provides the consistent and focused products that consumers are seeking.

Jessica Webber, a co-founder in the company, has been responsible for the Product Development and Branding.

“The Michigan Market, while it has its current challenges, is experiencing consumer bifurcation which made us decide which consumer profile to target; we chose the ones seeking ‘Indication’ over getting ‘super high,’” she said. “High TeHC provides the solutions for the most common in-store experiences which is ‘I need help with xyz’ (sleep, anxiety, pain, focus, etc). The consumer behavior is beginning to change toward a more curiously

focused interest in seeking the benefits of Cannabis. Our products attempt to address these common concerns and contain all-natural, gluten free (GF) and vegan ingredients.”

DeHydr8 and High TeHC Products can be found in in many Michigan Dispensaries.

HighTeHC powered by DeHydr8

For High TeHC product information and Locations:

• Instagram:@HighTeHC_ and DeHydr8USA

• Email: Orders@HighTeHCCanna.com ■

Not gaining insight, advice and/or ideas from an experienced trusted adviser is not only a poor decision but can also lead to costly mistakes. It’s important, now more than ever, to weed through the weeds of misinformation, unfounded data and biased opinions to get to the facts of the matter.

The fact is making an important personal, professional, financial or health-related decision in today’s and tomorrow’s reality begins with creating a strong foundation of helpful and accurate information.

OUR TRUSTED ADVISERS ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS ON A WIDE RANGE OF SUBJECTS

And getting the right answers begins with asking the right questions and trusting your source. A second opinion never hurts. Do your research, write down the facts, and verify the information –in other words, do your due diligence.

An experienced adviser can be part of your team and help you to stay on schedule and within budget on a future project or purchase. And sometimes a new perspective or different viewpoint can be a game-changer.

Hour Media always provides the most reliable, experienced and educated experts in their field

to answer your questions. In this issue of Hour Detroit we have assembled not only knowledgeable and reliable sources, but local experts who are available for a “follow-up” question or consultation to help you make not just a better decision, but the best decision.

Remember, the better informed we are, the better the decision.

Contact the following trusted advisers, should you require their assistance. They’ll be happy to provide the information you need and answer your questions so you can make an informed decision.

Q: What are some key elements of a comprehensive financial wellness program for your employees?

A: According to The KeyBank 2023 Financial Mobility Survey, the share of Americans facing financial challenges grew to 55% over the past year, a nearly 20-point increase from the year prior.

A number of banks, including KeyBank offer complimentary workplace financial wellness programs to companies of all sizes. Of course, not all bank-provided programs are the same. To help you assess your banking partner’s program, here’s a checklist of key elements that can make your program successful.

A comprehensive workplace financial wellness program includes:

• A financial education curriculum with money management strategies that can be put into practice to address both short- and long-term financial goals.

• Covers beginning and advanced savings and budgeting strategies and practices.

• Addresses crisis preparation and provides strategies for managing through unexpected occurrences.

• Strategies for paying down debt.

• Helps your employees plan for retirement.

KeyBank’s complementary Key@Work can help bring financial wellness to your workplace.

David Mannarino is President of KeyBank’s Michigan Market. He can be reached at (248) 204-6550 or David_Mannarino@keybank.com.

This material is presented for informational purposes only and should not be construed as individual financial advice. KeyBank does not provide legal advice. KeyBank is member FDIC. ©2023 KeyCorp. CFMA #230314-1972828

KeyBank Michigan

David Mannarino President & Commercial Sales Leader KeyBank Michigan Market 248-204-6550

David_Mannarino@keybank.com

TRUSTED ADVISERS Q&A

Q: What are the top 5 trends for bathrooms from Virginia Tile?

A: 1. Large-format tiles: These tiles (24x24 up to 40x120) help create a seamless and contemporary look.

2. Natural stone: Porcelain tiles that mimic the look of natural stone (marble, travertine or limestone) are in high demand for flooring and shower walls.

3. Textured surfaces: Tiles

with textured finishes are gaining popularity in bathrooms. They add depth and interest to walls and floors and create a spa-like atmosphere.

4. Bold colors: While neutral tones are still popular tiles, bold colors (such as deep blues and greens) are becoming more common for accent walls or

shower niches and add a touch of luxury to the bathroom.

5. Mosaic accents: Mosaic tiles in a variety of shapes and colors are being used to create eye-catching accent walls in showers and full-wall backsplashes. They can be mixed and matched to create a unique and personalized look.

Virginia Tile Co.

28320 Plymouth Road

Livonia, MI 48150 734-762-2400 VirginiaTile.com

Q: What is YOMI-enabled dental implant surgery and what are the advantages compared to more traditional options?

A: Yomi is the country’s first robotically-assisted dental-surgical system following its clearance by the FDA and is the next generation in implant surgery that gives patients a better experience, expands offerings and boosts efficiency. YOMI provides assistance to the dental surgeon in planning and placing your implants

and is the least invasive, yet most precise and accurate method in dental-implant placement. With YOMI, there is no cutting of the gums or bleeding during surgery. There also is little or no pain medication required after the procedure. YOMI combines your surgeon’s skill with the benefits of

robotic surgery. The Elite Smile Center in Rochester Hills is one of the few practices in Michigan to offer YOMI-enabled dental implant surgery. There are over 100 practices in the country now using YOMI and that number is growing daily. It’s the future when it comes to implant surgery.

Q: Why is it important to work with a top realtor in a particular area?

A: It happens all the time. A couple shows up to tour a new home on the market only to find out that there are already three or four offers on the table. There is a reason the top agents in a particular area do the volume they

do and that’s because they have an inside track for a new listing. If you are looking to buy a home in a community you are not familiar with, it is very important to work with one of the top realtors in that town. Not only do they know

the area but, more importantly, they are often first in line when a home goes on the market. It’s also important to be prepared so when that house hits the market, you have your financing in order and are ready to make an offer.

Q: What has the most potential to ruin the design of your home?

A: One of the most common ways is to not have a plan. Think of it as a road map, and the more planning you do at the beginning the better results you will have at the end. Be patient and don’t make impulse decisions because you are going to have to live with the results for years.

What do you want to get out of that room - is it going to be for entertaining or for working or a cozy space to watch a movie. Do some research into finding styles you like to help your designer fulfill your vision. And if you have children or pets, consider fabrics and surfaces that are easy to clean.

Budget is also very important. Know what you can afford before you begin shopping, whether you are doing a whole room or a piece at a time.

Gorman’s is a design showroom that can customize everything to your personal lifestyle to make your house your home.

The Elite Smile Center

Dr. Shakeel Niazi 1390 W Auburn Road Rochester Hills, MI 48309 248-299-8300 elitesmilecenter.com

Kidd & Leavy Real Estate

Patrick Leavy 325 E. Lake St. Petoskey, MI 49770 patleavy.com

The Summer Scoop

Try

BY ERICA HOBBS

Ask Yasser Hashwi how he makes his ashta ice cream, and he’ll smile, shake his head, and tell you, “It’s a secret.” Hashwi, a Lebanese native, spent months perfecting the ice cream from his childhood during the pandemic from his home. In March 2022, it blossomed into Booza Delight, a specialty Arabic ice cream shop that he opened in Dearborn Heights.

“Booza” is the Arabic word for ice cream, but the difference from its American counterpart is more than just a name. Booza is not only denser than American conventional ice cream but features a stretchy, chewy texture that takes longer to melt and can be eaten with a fork. It’s also less sugary, which Hashwi says makes it

easier to enjoy.

“With mine, you keep eating and eating and eating; you don’t get that sweetness,” he says. “It’s just a perfect balance.”

Booza Delight’s counter of scoop ice cream features distinctive flavors like rose water, lotus, and pomegranate next to traditional favorites such as chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. The shop is also known for its fruit cups.

But what Booza Delight is most famous for is the ashta ice cream, which adds an Arabic clotted cream and other flavorings to the mix. Hashwi traditionally serves it rolled with pistachio and sliced, topped with ghazel banet — a type of Middle Eastern cotton candy — and raspberries. It is also available in scoops or inside

Going to Austin, Texas? Rebecca Gade-Sawicki can help you find vegan options like these.

baklava, cannoli, shakes, and crepes, or on top of kunafa, a Middle Eastern pastry made with dough and cheese, drizzled in syrup.

While Hashwi keeps his specific ingredients under wraps, ashta is traditionally flavored with mastic gum or rose or orange blossom water, but he says the taste must be experienced firsthand to understand.

“When people ask me, ‘What does ashta taste like?’ I can’t really tell you,” he says. “Even if you try it, you’re not going to be able to tell me, because it’s got its own flavor.”

Dearborn Heights

resident Rawane Bitar has been a fan of Booza Delight since she first discovered it on Instagram during the pandemic. She says she and her family order from the shop about once a week and especially like to share it at gatherings.

Also a Lebanese native, Bitar says she no longer has to wait until traveling overseas for her favorite ice cream and adds that visiting the shop is a great experience overall.

PASSPORT TO VEGAN DINING

Travel enthusiast Rebecca Gade-Sawicki provides tips and trips for vegans

BY ARIANNA HEYMAN

When Rebecca Gade-Sawicki entered pandemic lockdown, she started to reevaluate her career path and was motivated to find a job that aligned with her passion for living a healthy lifestyle.

“I’m vegan, and so I started looking for a job with a vegan company or an environmental company, but I couldn’t find anything that aligned with my background. So I thought, ‘I’ve got to get creative with this and figure out a new way reinvent myself,’” she says.

Sawicki’s reinvention came in the form of creating Veggies Abroad a vegan travel blog featuring vegan-friendly travel guides and eateries from around the world.

“Someone could really try and make their adventure as veganfriendly as they want or more sustainable as they want as well, too. So, I will focus on if hotels have sustainability initiatives or are doing things that are more eco-friendly,” she says.

In addition to promoting vegan businesses and travel tips, Sawicki also launched a travel agency in February.

“I can handle as much or as little for the traveler. So, if they just want to find some cool hotels that are vegan-friendly or maybe they have some cool sustainability initiatives, I can do that. Or if they want to talk about going on a carbon-neutral safari in Kenya, I can do all of that as well.”

“I always post about them [on Instagram], not because I just love their ice cream, but also you get good service,” she says.

“You feel comfortable going there, and you not only love their products but also them, the shop.”

Booza Delight is open 3-10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 3-11 p.m. Fridays, 1-11 p.m. Saturdays, and 1-10 p.m. Sundays. Check out its menu and summer hours on its Instagram page, @Booza_Delight.

“[Veggies Abroad] does focus mainly on all things vegan and not just food,” Sawicki says. “So, [in] some of the travel guides, I will pick out certain activities that would be considered vegan-friendly, like wine tasting, visiting an animal sanctuary, or if I found vegan shoe shops or other vegan shops to have a shopping adventure. Or if there’s a food tour that’s specifically focused on finding vegan or plant-based options.”

Veggies Abroad also highlights destinations where travelers can go to find strictly vegan or veganfriendly lodging.

One particularly rewarding aspect of her new venture is having a positive impact on smaller businesses that operate on lower budgets than major hotel chains. She also finds it rewarding to hear from travelers who have taken her suggestions and had a great trip as a result.

“It’s really great to be able to help people explore but then also to be able to help people explore and support places that are doing really good things,” she says.

To learn more, go to veggiesabroad.com or @veggiesabroad on Instagram.

Refreshing and beautiful

treats

such as an ashta slice (above) and an ashta ice cream cone (top) are just two of the items you will find at Booza Delight in Dearborn Heights.

Pretty Tony, This Tiger

Ferndale’s TigerLily is stylish for sure. Tour de force Japanese cuisine gives it the substance to match.

BY ROBERT STEMPKOWSKI | PHOTOS BY CHUK NOWAK

RESTAURANT REVIEW

ACCORDING TO MY PHONE

(smart as it is), the tiger lily flower — depending on its color symbolizes an assortment of enviable human conditions. The yellow variety, for instance, is said to celebrate thankfulness and the desire for enjoyment. Orange, like the varietal painted pretty across one wall of Ferndale’s TigerLily, an epicurean paean to Japan’s vibrant cuisine culture, is representative of confidence, pride, and abundance. Whoever hung that name on this restaurant hit the nail on the head.

One of Hometown Restaurant Group’s four centralized concepts — headed by downtown Ferndale civic champion Brian Kramer — TigerLily joined its sibling establishments in late summer 2022 in the space where Antihero previously plied its trade. Now, next door to sister Public House

(with her fully vegan-dedicated second kitchen), just one block over from One-Eyed Betty’s (her ambitious tavern menu belying a boozy namesake backstory), and across the street from Pop’s for Italian (self-explanatory), she’s looking to blossom as a hybrid izakaya-sushi-robata grill hot spot.

Credit Birmingham architects Ron & Roman for designing an interior spot-on conducive to all that. Kimonos hang in delicate display over the dining room — as does kimono-esque woodwork. Faux taiko (Japanese ceremonial drum) tables dot the lounge areas. A long bar is backed by colorful Asian tchotchke figurines flashing fine porcelain smiles to sake sippers on their barstools. And from the private dining alcove up front flanked by one gorgeous floral and another — almost obligatory, I suppose — anime-style mural to the sweeping

urban dragon artwork Detroit-born illustrator Glenn Barr was commissioned to create for Antihero, TigerLily looks the part of a sleek new player ready for prime time in progressive Ferndale. I’m without a reservation one visit, and a wait in the bar lets me soak in some vibe. There’s the clatter of conversations drifting over from the crowded dining room. Still, music adding to good energy in the more liquid half of the room distracts me from the din. I settle in, then order some soup and sake. My clarified miso broth is way better than good. The stock is well-crafted consomme, smoky somehow and studded with shimiji mushrooms (think sturdier straw-style) and wakame, a cold-water kelp that brings — and I’ll only mention this overused term once, I promise — umami to the bowl, whose bottom is lined with an almost custardy, caramelized layer of tofu. My sake selection, Manotsuru Pure Bloom ($17 glass/$35 half-bottle) wins me over with refreshing notes of coconut and pineapple.

Thanks to great service and good conversation, I decide to stay put rather than take a table. Ashley the bartender seems all about answering my questions and making suggestions, and a perfect stranger and I strike up a food conversation that finds us swapping stories and sharing a few dishes over the course of our stay. I break the ice, offering new friend David some of my Japanese street corn ($15), soliciting his opinion of a dish I kinda-sorta fell in love with on my first visit. For me, everything elemental to the dish is a winner: its star ingredient robata-grilled with fried garlic, chili threads, yuzu, and miso and slathered with shiso aioli. What I

 Executive Chef Chris Vasquez (top left) with the Chef’s Selected Nigirizushi; (above) hamachi kama, made with marinated hamachi collar, scallion, and pickled daikon.

Bartender Dua Yacoubi serves a cocktail at TigerLily’s speakeasy-style tiki bar, Mai Tai. 

Art, everywhere you look: urban dragon mural, lotus chandelier, and kimono woodcraft in the main dining space.

don’t like are the finger-size segments served still stuck to corn ribs. Gnawing on them in front of folks I just met in both instances feels awkward and embarrassing. I suggest that serving shaved kernels tossed in the other ingredients might make for a better presentation.

David disagrees. So there you go.

Cooked over searing hot binchotan charcoal, TigerLily’s grilled, skewered, yakitori-style options showcase the clean flavor purism Japanese cookery prides itself in. Binchotan is oak, pre-fired in a kiln to an almost carbonized condition. After the wood deeply chars but before it’s burned, the charcoal is covered in ash and sand to halt the process. Because of its high-carbon state when finally used for grilling, binchotan imparts no residual wood flavor, allowing the true tastes of the foodstuffs themselves to shine.

Grilled eggplant ($6), for instance, comes almost unctuously to life through this treatment, skewered with lotus root and touched up with shallot and shiso-basil aioli. Green beans ($16), the Asian long variety, come charred and crunchy with a crush of cashew crumb and soft-roasted black garlic.

Mildly spicy shishito peppers ($4), blistered and scented with lemon and sea salt, while maybe not a stand-alone item, make for a nice side bite. On the protein side of the grill, tako (octopus, $9), sous vide poached then grill finished, will remain one of my guiltiest pleasures, grill-marked and gilded with shiso aioli. Equal praise for the braised pork belly (Buta Bara, $7), crisped to a turn over the coals and coated with a good shellac of its reduced brining liquid, redolent with sweetened soy and ginger.

I’m trying to take it easy on the budget, and a coal-roasted half Maine lobster, ironically, proves the most economical main course option ($32). Basted with mignonette, crusted with togarashitossed breadcrumbs (panko?), and dabbed with you guessed it — yuzu miso aioli, it satisfies my craving for a little indulgence without investing four times as much in TigerLily’s A5 Wagyu ($120, 5 ounces).

While I’ve yet to get around to sampling the restaurant’s premium nigiri and sashimi, TigerLily makes the prospect easily approachable. Executive Chef Chris Vasquez-Yax offers seasonal selections. A tasting of sashimi (eight fish samples, two pieces of each) is offered at $80, while nigiri (nine pieces) is also available at $70.

As for sushi, David and I trade pieces of his karai tuna roll ($17, six pieces) for my mangekyou

($22, eight pieces). I enjoy the sweet-spicy yin and yang of the sweet potato straw and peppery chili paste in his choice. Unfortunately for him, the full, fatty flavor of the bluefin tuna belly in mine is more than the poor man can bear. I’m forced to finish it all myself.

“I just don’t like fish that tastes like fish,” David explains. Not a problem, pal. May I strike up a conversation soon during an upcoming review somewhere with someone who doesn’t like their steak to taste like steak.

On that note, surprise: I do have some of TigerLily’s A5 Wagyu after all. The shikotsu ($36, eight pieces) provides me a little taste, rolled with egg yolk, scallion, and cucumber and then drizzled with liquified marrow torched tableside from a cut beef bone. It proves not only a nice service sparkler but an unexpected reminder of how fat does undeniably add flavor.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being your alltime favorite dessert and 1 being red Jell-O, David and I give the matcha tiramisu ($16) a good, solid 7.5. This powdered green tea riff on a classic is a more subtly sweet mascarpone cake than its Italian inspiration. Finally, he and I agree; the best forkfuls include broken bits of pistachio. Less successful for me is the Okinawa cheesecake ($17), colored a lovely lavender by Japanese purple yam but otherwise merely a serviceable 6 for its lacking further distinction, save for the nickel-size coconut tuille it came with. Cap the entire cake top with it (like a brulee crust), and you’ll be onto something.

Less than a year after opening, TigerLily already appears in full flower. And like its namesake flora, which once naturally flourished in and around Ferndale, one finds reason to have high hopes that there’s a long-run return here in progress.

(Right) Room with a view: dazzling decor and the demonstration kitchen. (Above) Where hanging origami meets soaring anime: a private dining alcove.

DRINKS

All About Agave

Junior Merino of M Cantina tells us why spirits distilled from the Mexican plant are so hot — and why you need to give tequila another shot

BY MICKEY LYONS | PHOTOS BY CHUK NOWAK

AGAVE SPIRITS are on the rise, here in metro Detroit and throughout the world. Alcoholic spirits distilled from the agave plant overtook vodka in popularity for the first time ever last year, supplanting the long-reigning champion of spirits. And although people have been making drinks from the plants native to Mexico for hundreds of years (or more), their recent meteoric rise has piqued the interest of professional and home bartenders.

Junior Merino is more than happy to help spread the good news about Mexican spirits. He’s a celebrated mixologist who moved from central Mexico to New York, where he gained worldwide acclaim as The Liquid Chef, creating signature cocktails for some of the city’s most prestigious restaurants.

In 2017, Merino opened M Cantina in Dearborn as executive chef; before long, though, the allure of spirits returned, and he added a massive collection of agave spirits and whiskey to the restaurant’s offerings. M Cantina has more than 800 bottles of agave spirits, including tequilas, mezcals, and sotol, some worth up to $25,000 per bottle.

The restaurant also has more than 500 of the world’s rarest whiskies, and Merino is well practiced at advocating for the cultivation of agave spirits to those who are used to expensive bourbon but cheap tequila. On the contrary, Merino says, agave is “expensive by nature, because the agave plant takes anywhere from five years to 15 to 20 to mature.”

Most of Mexico’s spirits-makers have for many generations played a long game, producing small

batches with traditional methods using charcoal and brick ovens, carefully tending the agave plants for decades to craft a legacy product the same way their ancestors did. With the recent rise in popularity, though, some are scrambling to keep up with demand.

This is especially true for tequilas, with dozens of new celebrity-endorsed brands helping to drive the craze for agave. By law, tequila must have at least 51 percent blue agave, much as bourbon must contain at least 51 percent corn, and the rest can be made up of corn, rye, or barley. Premium tequilas use 100 percent blue agave; less expensive tequilas fill in the gaps with sugarcane or other less expensive products. “If you’re buying basically any tequila under $20,” Merino says, “that’s a mixto. A lot of people tell me, ‘I had a bad experience with tequila when I was in college,’ and I always tell them they were probably drinking mixto tequilas.”

Another factor that influences the quality of a tequila is how the distillers break down the agave to extract the sugar to convert into alcohol. There are a few methods to extract those sugars. An autoclave uses steam and high pressure to cook a batch of agave in as little as seven hours. The brickoven method cooks the agave over steam for 26 to 72 hours. The fastest method, diffusion, uses highpressure water, acid, and enzymes without heat.

As with whiskey, the fastest and most efficient methods often yield more volume but lackluster taste.

Mezcal, which Merino labels “the father of tequila,” can be produced from any one of 50 or so agave species found in nine states across Mexico. Mezcal must be made from 100 percent agave, but it does not need to be blue agave. The agave is cooked in underground pits, often with mesquite coals, lending a distinctively rich, smoky flavor to the spirit.

Mexican spirits like tequila and mezcal — and close cousins raicilla, bacanora, and sotol — express the terroir of their growing location. Much like with wine, factors like elevation, soil type, and sunlight exposure have a direct effect on the final product. “You really want to taste the varietal or the region for agave,” Merino says. Tequila and mezcal producers sometimes use wild yeasts to ferment the sugars, he says, and proximity to a lime or orange orchard can add delicate undertones of that citrus to the final product.

Because there is so little intervention or addition to the plant in traditional Mexican spirit production, the final products are complex and richly expressive of the time and place of their creation. For this reason, Merino strongly encourages his guests to step outside what they’re used to drinking and “try the really traditional tequila — they may just fall in love with tequila in a way that they have never done before.”

Junior Merino of M Cantina with a Cubico cocktail. The Dearborn restaurant has more than 800 bottles of agave spirits.

An assortment of rare and traditionally produced tequila and mezcal available at M Cantina.

Restaurant Guide

Wayne

Al Ameer $$

LEBANESE • This Lebanese restaurant is a recipient of the prestigious James Beard America’s Classics Award. The Al Ameer platter is perfect for sharing: two grape leaves, two fried kibbeh, chicken shawarma, tawook, kabob, kafta,and falafel. 12710 W. Warren Ave., Dearborn; 313-582-8185. 27346 Ford Road, Dearborn Heights; 313-565-9600 L,D Mon.-Sun.

Amore da Roma $$

ITALIAN • Guy Pelino, Roma Café’s chef, took over the ownership reins of this restaurant on the edge of the Eastern Market. He retained the menu, adding a charcuterie board and updating the wine list, and didn’t change the character of the old-school restaurant, known for its steaks and pastas. 3401 Riopelle St., Detroit; 313-831-5940. L,D Tue.-Sat.

Andiamo $$

ITALIAN • Over the past three decades, Joe Vicari has established several Andiamo restaurants in metro Detroit, all inspired by the late master chef Aldo Ottaviani’s philosophy of seasonal, fromscratch cooking. The menus differ slightly at the different locations, but the constant is the fresh, housemade pastas — handcrafted by the trinity of “pasta ladies,” Anna, Tanya, and Angelina, who have carried on the tradition. The downtown Detroit location offers a breathtaking view of the Detroit River, while the Livonia location offers a comfortable and casual vibe. 400 Renaissance Center, Detroit; 313567-6700. D Mon.-Fri., L,D Sat.-Sun. 38703 Seven Mile Road, Livonia; 734-953-3200. D Mon.-Sun.

Antonio’s Cucina Italiana $$

ITALIAN • The Rugieros have impressed restaurant guests for decades with authentic cuisine. Signature dishes include Gnocchi Rita and Chicken Antonio. There’s a full bar and a very extensive wine list. 2220 N. Canton Center Road, Canton; 734-981-9800. 26356 Ford Road, Dearborn Heights; 313-278-6000. 37646 W. 12 Mile Road, Farmington Hills; 248-994-4000. L,D daily.

Apparatus Room $$$$

NEW AMERICAN • The Foundation Hotel’s restaurant, the Apparatus Room, once housed the Detroit Fire Department headquarters. The cooking of chef Thomas Lents, who earned two Michelin stars while at Chicago’s Sixteen, is refined and highly skilled. 250 W. Larned St., Detroit; 313-800-5600. D Wed.-Sun.

Atwater in the Park $

GERMAN • At this casual spot, traditional German-style beer is the beverage of choice. Chef Chris Franz’ noteworthy menu is compatible with such additions as a platter of local bratwurst and other sausages teamed with sauerkraut, plus Bavarian soft pretzels and pierogi. 1175 Lakepointe St., Grosse Pointe Park; 313-344-5104. L,D daily.

Avalon Café and Bakery $$

ORGANIC BAKERY • The bakery’s mini-empire includes a café on Woodward Avenue in Detroit. Its bread is also the basis for dishes such as avocado toast with tahini, thinly curled cucumbers, lime, and

FEATURED Brome Modern Eatery

BURGERS

This healthy spin on a classic serves never-frozen, grassfed, antibiotic-free, organic burgers. There are beef, chicken, haddock, and vegetarian dishes — but no pork, as the restaurant is halal. There’s also a coldpressed juice bar. 22062 Michigan Ave., Dearborn; 313996-5050. L,D Mon.-Sun.

chili flakes. Vegetarian fare includes a grilled veggie sandwich with portobello mushrooms, zucchini, and goat cheese. Meatier highlights include a turkey and gouda sandwich, and BLTA with cider house bacon. 1049 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-285-8006.

B,L daily.

Babo $

NEW AMERICAN • This café settled into the Midtown Park Shelton building in July 2019, serving elevated comfort food made from local, small-batch producers. The self-described gourmet diner offers espresso drinks and such dishes as avocado toast, kimchi patatas bravas, and the Babo Burger. 15 E. Kirby St., Ste. 115, Detroit; 313-974-6159. B,L,D Tue.-Sat. B,L Sun.

Baker’s Keyboard Lounge $$

SOUL FOOD • This iconic lounge serves soul food: beef short ribs with gravy, creamy mac and cheese, collard greens, and sweet cornbread muffins. 20510 Livernois Ave., Detroit; 313-345-6300. L, D Tue.-Fri.

Baobab Fare $$

AFRICAN • With his New Center restaurant, Mamba Hamissi urges diners to venture into culinary territories they’d otherwise evade, like the Mbuzi starring a goat shank that is slow-roasted until the meat is so tender that it slides off the bone with ease. 6568 Woodward Ave., Ste. 100, Detroit; 313-265-3093.

L,D Tue.-Sun.

Barda $$$$

ARGENTINIAN Barda brings a new cuisine to metro Detroit. True to Argentinian culture, the restaurant celebrates traditional meat dishes. For starters, Carne y Hueso, meaning Flesh and Bone, features a mold of finely chopped beef tartare topped with spicy horseradish alongside a dense bone filled to the brim with buttery marrow. Tira de Asado, a classic Argentinian short rib dish, arrives on a plate in a coriander-pepper crust. And Inch-thick slices of rare Bife, or strip loin steak, lie on a bed of melted butter infused with chimichurri. 4842 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313- 952-5182; bardadetroit.com. D Thurs.-Sun.

Bash Original Izakaya $$

JAPANESE • From the proprietor of Canton’s popular Izakaya Sanpei comes a Japanese pub located in Woodbridge. Occupying the former home of Katsu, Bash maintains much of that eatery’s Asian-inspired décor, such as hanging lanterns and bamboo shades. Bash’s drink menu focuses on Japanese craft beer, while the food menu of small plates and sashimi includes Gyoza, Tempura Udon, and fried octopus balls called Tako Yaki. 5069 Trumbull Ave., Detroit; 313-7887208; L Wed.-Sat. D Tue.-Sun.

Besa $$$

EUROPEAN-INSPIRED This modern fine-dining eatery takes its name from Albania — where the owners trace their heritage — and means “pledge of honor.” Choose from starters such as roasted olives, fried calamari, and double-cut lamb chops. 600 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-315-3000. D Mon.-Sat.

Bobcat Bonnie’s $

GASTROPUB The menu is eclectic, featuring fried goat cheese, fish tacos, Buddha bowls, and a barbecue

YOUR COMPREHENSIVE RESOUR CE FOR DINING OUT IN METRO DETROIT

bacon meatloaf — plus, plenty of vegetarian and vegan options, The weekend brunch, complete with a Bloody Mary bar and all the classics, is a big hit. See bobcatbonnies.com for locations and hours.

Bohemia $$$

NEW AMERICAN • The former member’s only lounge in this restored Romanesque Revival in downtown Detroit is now a posh restaurant open to the public (the downstairs bar is also open to the public). The stunning dining room reflects the club’s history while staying fresh and modern with local art on the walls and an Instagrammable seating area in the middle of the dining room with plush couches and trees lined with lights. The food is upscale but approachable such as the Nashville Fried Chicken and the lobster fettucini, which is worth every indulgent bite. 712 Cass Ave., Detroit, 313338-3222. D Wed.-Sat..

Bronze Door $$$$

NEW AMERICAN • One of the newest restaurants under the Joe Vicari Restaurant Group brand (in partnership with Tony Soave of Soave Enterprises) revives the well-known name of a Grosse Pointe staple from the mid-1900s. In the 1960s and 1970s, 123 Kercheval Ave. was home to the Bronze Door, which closed to make way for The Hill Seafood and Chop House. In 2021, it was born again as the Bronze Door, offering classic bistro fare like steak frites and house specialties such as Potato Pillows and Shrimp (butter fondue, sage, cracked pepper, pecorino Romano, and truffle). 123 Kercheval Ave., Grosse Pointe Farms; 313-886-8101. D Mon.-Sat.

Bucharest Grill $

MEDITERRANEAN-AMERICAN • This bustling casual sandwich shop, now with five locations, is a cult favorite with its fresh Mediterranean fare, notably the best chicken shawarma wrap sandwiches in town. We’re serious. See bucharestgrill.com for locations and hours.

Cadieux Café $$

BELGIAN • This institution was like a slice of home for early Belgian immigrants. They serve up four varieties of mussels, and a wide range of hearty dishes such as Belgian Rabbit, but there also are classic sandwiches. 4300 Cadieux Road, Detroit; 313-882-8560. D daily.

Café Nini $$$

ITALIAN • This intimate spot offers well-prepared food that includes eight appetizers, more than a dozen pasta dishes, and 16 main plates, notable among which are tournedos di vitello — medallions of veal filet in a fresh mushroom sauce. The wine list is impressive as well. 98 Kercheval Ave., Grosse Pointe Farms; 313-308-3120. D Tue-Sat.

Cantoro Italian Market and Trattoria $$

ITALIAN • A restaurant inside the market serves great traditional Italian food. Do not miss the Tagliatelle alla Bolognese: wide pasta with a meat sauce featuring ground veal, beef, sausage, and pancetta. It makes for a delicious Italian feast you can conveniently pick up on your way home. 15550 N. Haggerty Road, Plymouth; 734-420-1100. L,D Tues.-Sat., L Sun.

Capers $$

STEAKHOUSE • This is the type of place longtime Detroit natives describe like an old friend. On Gratiot Avenue between Seven and Eight Mile roads, this place has been packing them in for nearly 40 years. There’s a massive a la carte menu, with items such as barbecue babyback ribs and potato skins, but the main draw is steak by the ounce, at market price. 14726 Gratiot Ave., Detroit; 313-527-2100. L,D Wed.-Sun.

Caucus Club

$$$

TRADITIONAL AMERICAN • The reborn spot emphasizes service and a traditional steak and seafood theme, with such tasty signature dishes as wood-grilled ribs, seared scallops, and steaks.150 W. Congress, Detroit; 313-965-4970. D daily.

Central Kitchen & Bar

$$

CREATIVE COMFORT The space facing Campus Martius is done up in gray and white under industrial light fixtures. Crowd-pleasers include buttermilk fried chicken, filet and frites, burgers, and salads. 660 Woodward Ave., Ste. 4A, Detroit; 313-963-9000. D Thu.-Sat., BR Sat.-Sun.

Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails $$

NEW AMERICAN While the menu rotates based on the season, its offerings always highlight the freshest local ingredients. Creatively prepared dishes range from cold starters to hearty entrees. But the Twice Cooked Egg is not to be missed. 15 E. Kirby St., Detroit; 313-818-3915. D Tue.-Sat.

City Kitchen $$

AMERICAN The emphasis is on fresh fish and seafood here, but also on the locals — especially lake perch. There are also such dishes as Cajun tenderloin tips and a few good angus burgers. 16844 Kercheval Ave., Grosse Pointe; 313-882-6667. L Mon.-Fri., D nightly.

Cliff Bell’s $$

EUROPEAN-INSPIRED • This restored Art Deco hotspot offers small plates such as oysters with cava granita and a salmon croquette. Large plates include sesame soy glazed shiitakes and summer stir fried vegetables with coconut rice. Jazz prevails on the bandstand. 2030 Park Ave., Detroit; 313-961-2543. D Wed.-Sun.

Common Pub

$

GASTROPUB Fans of Atlas Global Bistro, which shuttered in 2013, should be happy to learn that some of the principals may be found at this spot in the Belcrest Apartments. The well-edited menu includes duck fried chicken and a burger. 5440 Cass Ave., Detroit; 313-2858849. L Tue.-Sat.

Coriander Kitchen and Farm

$$

GASTROPUB At this Jefferson Chalmers eatery, guests can rent fire pits and roast housemade marshmallows to make s’mores, or sip mugs of Hot Buttered

Rum. By day, grab a picnic table and dip hunks of grilled flatbread into creamy fish dip made with smoked white fish and lake trout and seasoned with herbs from the farm. 14601 Riverside Blvd., Detroit; 313-822-4434. D Thurs.-Sat. BR Sun.

Cork & Gabel $$$

EUROPEAN-INSPIRED

• This Corktown eatery takes the form of a 4,450-square-foot renovated beer hall and is an ode to filling European staples. Try the chicken marsala, featuring a pan-seared 7-oz. chicken breast, sauteed wild mushroom blend, wild rice, seasonal grilled vegetables, cooked in a Lombardo Ambra Sweet Marsala wine sauce. Simply delicious! 2415 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-638-2261. D Thu-Sat. BR Sat. B,L Sun.

Cuisine $$$

EUROPEAN-INSPIRED

• Cuisine offers a romantic,

white-linen experience with the level of food, service, and ambience one might describe as timeless rather than trendy. Examples of the expertly prepared fare include the Thai snapper as well as the sea Scallops, featuring corn risotto, creamed leeks, and citrus butter. 670 Lothrop Rd., Detroit; 313-872-5110. D Tue.-Sun.

(Note: not wheelchair accessible.)

Dakota Inn Rathskeller $ EUROPEAN-INSPIRED • The sausages are the kind that snap when you cut them. The combo plate features one bratwurst and one knack-wurst, served with hot German potato salad and sauerkraut. And yes, sing along with the schnitzelbank song 17324 John R St., Detroit; 313-867-9722. D Thu.-Sat.

Detroit Shipping Company $

FUSION • This bi-level destination, created out of shipping containers, offers a variety of food options ranging from the Caribbean-fusion dishes at Coop to Thai fare from Bangkok 96 and more. 474 Peterboro St., Detroit; 313-462-4973. L Sat.-Sun., D daily.

Detroit Soul $

SOUL FOOD• A hidden gem on the city’s East Side. Detroit Soul serves its namesake with a healthy twist. Owners Sam Van Buren and Jerome Brown draw from the recipes of their grandparents, who relocated to Detroit from Alabama in the 1940s. The turkey and collard greens are savory standouts and yams are a sweet treat. This is the kind of place that every soul-food lover must visit. 2900 E. Eight Mile Road, Detroit; 313-366-5600. L,D Tue.-Sun.

Detroit Vegan Soul $

VEGAN The popular spot offers your classic soul food favorites but with plant-based twists — mac and cheese, maple-glazed yams, collard greens, and interpretations of catfish and pepper steak. 19614 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313-766-5728. L,D Wed.-Sat.

Dime Store $ BREAKFAST/BRUNCH • This popular breakfast and lunch spot adds just the right retro touch to a contemporary American menu typified by fresh, hearty omelets and Benedicts early in the day. 719 Griswold St., Ste. 180, Detroit; 313-962-9106. B,L Mon.-Sun.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR  2010

Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe $$$

GASTROPUB • A jazz club with top guest musicians and an American bistro menu in a traditional interior. Starters include shrimp pico and pan-fried calamari. Main entries include a beef short rib. 97 Kercheval Ave., Grosse Pointe Farms; 313-882-5299. L Tue.-Fri., D Tue.-Sat.

Eatori Market $$

SPECIALTY GROCERY • This stylish spot overlooks

downtown’s Capitol Park. The menu has steamed mussels with leeks, garlic, and toasted crostini. International flourishes abound with truffle aioli for the burger. 1215 Griswold St., Detroit; 313-395-3030. L,D daily.

El Asador Steakhouse $$

MEXICAN • A concentrated cuisine with little modern flairs that also stays faithful to traditional Mexican cooking. Don’t miss the Camarones en Salsa de Langosta: breaded shrimp stuffed with cheese, fried to a golden dark brown, and topped with a lobster cream sauce. It’s a delicious dinner spot you don’t want to miss and an unassuming Latin-American find in Detroit’s Springwells Village. 1312 Springwells St., Detroit; 313-297-2360. L,D Tue.-Sun.

El Barzon $

MEXICAN-ITALIAN • Norberto Garita prepares Italian and Mexican cuisines alongside his wife, Silvia Rosario Garita. Authentic Mexican entrees include enchiladas

with a homemade green sauce made with tomatillo, jalapeños, and roasted poblano pepper, while the Italian influence takes the form of spaghetti carbonara and zuppa di pesce (seafood soup). 3710 Junction Ave., Detroit; 313-894-2070. D Tue.-Sun.

Evie’s Tamales $$

MEXICAN • This Mexicantown restaurant makes some of the best tamales around. Pork or chicken is jacketed with sturdy masa, a dough of ground corn, and then wrapped in a corn husk and steamed. Eat in or order a dozen for later. 3454 Bagley St., Detroit; 313-843-5056. B,L Mon.-Sat.

Fishbone’s Rhythm Kitchen Café $$ NEW ORLEANIAN • Enjoy classic New Orleans dishes, such as jambalaya and fried catfish beignets. Come for breakfast, lunch, dinner, happy hour, or carry-out. 400 Monroe St., Detroit; 313-965-4600. 29244 Northwestern Hwy., Southfield; 248-351-2925. 23722 Jefferson Ave., St. Clair Shores; 586-498-3000. L,D (downtown), B, L,D Southfield and St Clair Shores.

Flowers of Vietnam $$

VIETNAMESE Chef and owner George Azar transformed a former Coney Island into an industrial-cool destination, but the neighborhood joint vibe remains. The menu is shaped around Azar’s appreciation of Vietnamese food, with a very personal twist. 4440 Vernor Hwy., Detroit; 313-554-2085. D Thu.-Sun.

Folk $ NEW AMERICAN • A charming Corktown storefront dishing up an all-day brunch menu. It’s an offshoot of the Farmer’s Hand grocery and farmers market. The menu focuses on globally inspired dishes, like salads, quiche, and sandwiches — all beautifully plated and nutritious. Infused milks and frothy lattes are well sought after, too. 1701 Trumbull Ave., Detroit; 313-7422672. BR Wed-Mon.

FEATURED Grandma Bob’s

PIZZA

If you’re wondering what that psychedelic building on Corktown’s Michigan Avenue is, it’s a pizzeria known as Grandma Bob’s. Chef Dan De Wall, previously of Wright and Co., offers a small, delicious menu of pies, including sausage and pistachio with ricotta cheese and thyme. Or try the Big Mack — the vegan pizza version of the popular burger. 2135 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-3153177. L,D Fri.-Mon.

Ford’s Garage $$

BURGERS • Henry Ford’s legacy is celebrated on Dearborn’s main thoroughfare. There are at least 12 variations on the classic American burger here. Try the Ford’s Signature, featuring a half-pound of grilled black angus beef, aged sharp cheddar, applewoodsmoked bacon, and bourbon barbecue sauce. Other appealing dishes include shrimp mac and cheese, and chicken wings. 21367 Michigan Ave., Dearborn; 313-752-3673. L,D daily.

Giovanni’s Ristorante $$$

ITALIAN This old-school Italian restaurant offers housemade pastas, including an outstanding lasagna. Elaborate veal and seafood dishes and desserts like orange Creamsicle cheesecake round out the delicious menu. 330 Oakwood Blvd., Detroit; 313-841-0122. L,D Tue.-Fri., D Sat.

Grand Trunk Pub $

NEW AMERICAN • Breads from Avalon Bakery and meats from Eastern Market anchor the hearty fare, which pairs well with a selection of Michigan beers. Staples include a reuben with Poet Stout Kraut and the Ghettoblaster beer-battered fish and chips. 612 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-961-3043.; BR, L, D, Thu.-Sun.

The Greek $ GREEK • Plaka Café was a presence on Monroe Avenue for years, and now its space is in the hands of the founders’ children. Notable dishes include spinach pie, lamb chops, and New York strip steak. 535 Monroe Ave., Detroit; 313-209-6667. L,D daily.

Green Dot Stables $ NEW AMERICAN The menu of sliders — with 20-plus eclectic bun toppings, including Cuban, Korean, and “mystery meat” — packs in fans. Local beers

are spotlighted along with Chicken Paprikas soup, a nod to the neighborhood’s Hungarian origins. 2200 W. Lafayette Blvd., Detroit; 313-962-5588. L,D daily.

Grey Ghost $$

NEW AMERICAN • The cuisine at this Brush Park hotspot isn’t easily defined, but the results are original and well-prepared — for example, the duck breast with cheese grits and fried shallots and pork tenderloin with gruyere spaetzle and dill pickle mojo. 47 Watson St., Detroit; 313-262-6534. D daily.

Highlands $$$

STEAKHOUSE/NEW AMERICAN • Occupying the top two floors of the Renaissance Center, Highlands comprises three separate concepts. A steakhouse of the same name provides a high-end dining experience, while the more casual Hearth 71 serves locally sourced dishes cooked over an open fire. The third concept within the space is the appropriately named High Bar, where guests can choose from a vast collection of spirits and decadent desserts. 400 Renaissance Center, Floors 71 and 72, Detroit; 313-877-9090; D Tue.-Sat.

The Hudson Cafe $

BREAKFAST/BRUNCH • The fresh, well-prepared fare from the kitchen of this breakfast/lunch spot has creative takes on the eggs Benedict theme, red velvet pancakes, and apple-walnut stuffed French toast, as well as lunchtime sandwiches and salads. 1241 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-237-1000. B,L daily.

Hungarian Rhapsody $$

HUNGARIAN • This Downriver restaurant offers authentic Hungarian dishes, such as chicken and veal paprikas, beef goulash, and palacsinta (crêpes). 14315 Northline Road, Southgate; 734-283-9622. L,D Tue.-Sun.

Ima $

JAPANESE-INSPIRED Japanese-inspired fare with a Midwest emphasis. Ima tacos trade the traditional shell for a slice of jicama-stuffed spicy shrimp, roasted tofu, or garlic chicken. Appetizers include edamame, dumplings, and clams. 2015 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-5025959. L,D Wed.-Mon. 4870 Cass Ave., Detroit; 313-8839788. 32203 John R Road, Madison Heights; 248-7810131. L,D daily.

Ima Izakaya $$

JAPANESE-INSPIRED Chef Michael Ransom has slowly and steadily built up his local chain of noodle shops over the past few years, and his latest one takes it up a notch with the izakaya concept, the Japanese equivalent to a pub. In addition to the staple noodles and soups that put Ransom on the map, the menu also includes grilled skewers from the robata grill such as Kawahagi Trigger Fish Jerky and Mini Kurobuta Pork Sausages. There’s also a tantalizing selection of cocktails and mocktails, sake, beer, and wine to make it a true izakaya experience. 2100 Michigan Ave., Detroit, 313-306-9485. L and D Wed.-Mon.

Ivy Kitchen and Cocktails $$$

NEW AMERICAN • This Black-owned restaurant was founded by Nya Marshall to bring fine dining to the East Jefferson Corridor where she grew up. The spot serves New American fare with international influences in a modern, elevated space bathed in neutral tones. The Mezcal Wings with pickled jalapeño and cilantro bring a Mexican kick, while dishes like the Shrimp Linguine Pomodoro contribute European flavors. 9215 E. Jefferson Ave., Detroit; 313-332-0607; L Fri.-Sun., D Wed.-Sun.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR  2012

Joe Muer Seafood $$$$

SEAFOOD • This reborn Detroit legend is stellar for a

romantic evening or a quiet business lunch or dinner. Located on the main floor of the GMRenCen, it has sweeping views of the Detroit River and a menu that walks the line between old-time favorites and hipper Asian-influenced seafood, sushi and raw bar. There’s also a Bloomfield Hills location. There are reminders of the past as well: white-bean stew, smoked fish spread, creamed spinach, and stewed tomatoes. A true Detroit classic. 400 Renaissance Center, Ste. 1404, Detroit; 313-567-6837. 39475 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills; 248-792-9609. L,D daily.

Johnny Noodle King $

JAPANESE-INSPIRED • This noodle shop offers bowls topped with pork belly, confit chicken, and tofu as well as seaweed salad and gyoza. There are several fusion bowls as well like the Southwest topped with shredded chicken and housemade crema. 2601 W. Fort St., Detroit; 313-309-7946. L,D daily.

Jolly Pumpkin $$

BREWERY • Jolly Pumpkin’s brews rule the offerings, along with other Northern United Brewing Co. beverages, such as North Peak and Jolly Pumpkin artisan ales. Pizzas with creative toppings abound. 441 W. Canfield St., Detroit; 313-262-6115. 419 S. Main St., Ste. 9, Royal Oak; 248-544-6250. D daily.

Karl’s Cabin $$

FEATURED La Lanterna

ITALIAN

The founder of Da Edoardo, the first Edoardo Barbieri, started it all in 1956 with a restaurant called La Lanterna. Now his grandchildren have revived it. Although the white and red pizzas — like Margherita, Liguria, and Da Edorado — dominate, there’s more, including a number of elegant pastas like the Lasagna Alla Bolognese. 1224 Griswold St., Detroit; 313-9628821. L,D Tue.-Sun.

AMERICAN • Dishes from their currently rotating drive-through menu such as pan-seared walleye and beef tenderloin tips with Cajun spice and gravy surpass typical roadhouse food. 6005 Gotfredson Road, Plymouth; 734-455-8450. L,D daily.

The Kitchen by Cooking with Que $$

VEGAN • This eatery created by Detroit-based cooking blogger Quiana Broden serves lunches of smoothies, salads, and sandwiches. Broden also often offers live cooking demonstrations. 6529 Woodward Ave., Ste. A, Detroit; 313-462-4184. B,L,D, Wed.-Sat.

Kuzzo’s Chicken and Waffles $

Lovers Only $

BURGERS • The star at Lovers Only, located in downtown Detroit’s Capitol Park, is pasture-raised beef from Ferndale’s Farm Field Table, used to make its standout burgers. Other key ingredients, including baked goods, are local as well. There’s also craft cocktails and beer. 34 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313-9861174. L,D daily.

Lucy & the Wolf $$

SPANISH This Anglo-sounding restaurant offers very good Spanish-inspired tapas dining. Standouts include a fire-roasted jalapeño cheese spread, shrimp tacos, and a grilled flank steak in chimichurri sauce. 102 E. Main St., Northville; 248-308-3057. L,D Tue.-Sat.

Lumen Detroit $$

NEW AMERICAN • A contemporary American menu and a Victor Saroki setting make the restaurant overlooking downtown’s Beacon Park one of the best of recent entrants onto the scene. Appetizers such as freshly made pretzels prelude main courses such as salmon with chimichurri herb sauce. 1903 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313-626-5005. L Fri.-Sun., D. Wed.-Sun.

Mario’s $$$

ITALIAN • This Midtown Detroit classic dates to 1948. Linen-covered tables, framed paintings on wood-paneled walls, expert waiters clad in black tie, and tableside preparation survive here. Italian dinners always begin with an antipasto tray and continue through soup, salad, pasta, and entree. 4222 Second Ave., Detroit; 313832-1616. L,D daily.

Marrow $$ NEW AMERICAN This West Village restaurant and butcher shop hybrid is an ode to meat, especially unusual cuts. Diners must walk through the butcher shop, bypassing cases of pastrami and sausage, before entering the restaurant. Offerings from a sample tasting menu include Roasted Bone Marrow and Lamb Kefta. 8044 Kercheval Ave., Detroit; 313-652-0200. L,D Thu.-Sun.

SOUTHERN COMFORT

• Several recipes, including a signature thin waffle, are family-owned at ex-NFL player Ron Bartell’s spot. Think comfort food kicked up a notch: fried catfish, salmon croquettes, shrimp and grits, and biscuits. Drink the Kool-Aid, too. 19345 Livernois Ave., Detroit; 313-861-0229. B,L,D Tue.-Sat., B,L Sun.

La Dolce Vita $$$

ITALIAN • Traditional Italian cuisine is key at this Palmer Park hideaway. Recommended is the lake perch in white wine sauce, the veal scaloppine with artichokes, and the lasagna. 17546 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313865-0331. D Tue.-Sun., BR Sun.

London Chop House $$

STEAKHOUSE • The kitchen turns out classics like oysters Rockefeller, French onion soup, and sautéed perch. This is the place to come when you need to satisfy a craving for steak in elegant surroundings with hospitable service. 155 W. Congress St., Detroit; 313962-0277. D Mon.-Sat.

Leila $$$

LEBANESE • The restaurant from the proprietors of Birmingham’s Phoenicia is named after the owner’s mother — just one facet of the establishment that pays homage to family traditions and heritage. The menu includes various Lebanese dishes, from falafel to Leila’s Mixed Grill that offers a little bit of everything with shish kebab, tawook, and kafta. Other menu items include Kibbeh Niyee — fresh lamb, cracked wheat, and spice — and tabbouleh made of parsley, cracked wheat, and spices. The beer and wine lists offer plenty of options to accompany any meal. 1245 Griswold St., Detroit; 313-816-8100; D Sun., L&D Mon.-Sat.

Maty’s African Cuisine $$ WEST AFRICAN • A small storefront in the Detroit Old Redford neighborhood is decidedly Senegalese. Fataya, a deep-fried pastry with savory fillings, are reminiscent of an empanada. The star of the show is the whole chicken with yassa. 21611 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313472-5885. L,D daily.

M Cantina $

MEXICAN • Nuevo Latino street food is the premise at this surprising spot where everything from the tortilla chips to the salsas are made in-house in the open kitchen. Juices are freshly squeezed and the menu of tortas, tacos, tapas, and salads from the kitchen of Heidi and Junior Merino from Hawaii and Mexico is distinctive. 13214 Michigan Ave., Dearborn; 313-399-9117. L,D Tue.-Sun.

Mercury Burger & Bar $

BURGERS • This Corktown joint seats 70 around the zinc-covered bar set with Mercury (Liberty) dimes. The burger is available in a variety of iterations, such as Southwest Detroit with a chorizo slider, jalapeno, Müenster cheese, tortilla strips, and avocado. 2163 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-964-5000. L,D daily.

Metropolitan Bar and Kitchen $$

LATIN The business brings a bodega-style market along with a neighborhood restaurant and bar to West Village. The menu highlights local and seasonal ingredients in dishes like the Buffalo Chicken salad with local greens and housemade blue cheese dressing and the Eggplant Sliders. 8047 Agnes St., Detroit; 313-4475418. L Wed.-Sat. D Fri.-Sat.

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RESTAURANT LISTINGS 05.23

Michigan & Trumbull $$

ITALIAN-AMERICAN • After a successful four-month run at Fort Street Galley, Michigan and Trumbull became one of the latest in a long line of Detroit-style pizza joints to open in the area. Not your traditional carryout joint, Michigan and Trumbull is housed in a sleek, refurbished car-repair garage. The menu features square, deep-dish pies with Detroit-inspired names, such as Packard Pepperoni and Woodward White. 1441 W. Elizabeth St., Detroit; 313-637-4992; L,D Wed-Sat.

Mi Lindo San Blas $$$

MEXICAN • Heaping platters of seafood such as shrimp, octopus, and scallops, tell the story at this spot that brings a corner of Mexico’s seaside Nayarit region to southwest Detroit. On weekends when live music is added, the tables are often pushed back to create a dance floor. 1807 Livernois Ave., Detroit; 313-789-5100. L,D daily.

Monarch Club $$$

NEW AMERICAN • At the 14th floor of the revamped Element Detroit Hotel located at the Metropolitan is the Monarch Club. It’s one of the most recent rooftop bars to open in metro Detroit and serves a variety of delicious small plates along with classic cocktails. 33 John R St., Detroit; 313-306-2380. L Sun. D Wed.-Sat.

Mootz Pizzeria & Bar $$

ITALIAN-AMERICAN • Bruno DiFabio, a six-time World Pizza Games champ, rejects the label New York-style for his fare. “It’s authentic New York pizza,” he says. In a hurry? Grab a slice from Side Hustle, Mootz’s by-theslice counter next door. 1230 Library St., Detroit; 313243-1230. L Fri.-Sun., D Mon-Thu.

Motor City Brewing Works $

BREWERY • Just 15 mostly nontraditional pizzas on excellent, chewy crust, and the option to build your own pie with various toppings. Plus, salads from locally grown greens to accompany the house-brewed beers. 470 W. Canfield St., Detroit; 19350 Livernois Ave., Detroit; 313-832-2700. L,D daily.

Mudgie’s Deli $

DELI • Seats are often filled in search of the House Smoked Pastrami Reuben or the Brooklyn (beef brisket, bacon, and beer cheese). The dinner menu features meat and cheese boards as well as build-your-own sandwich options. It’s a delicious place for a meal any time. 1413 Brooklyn St., Detroit; 313-961-2000. B Tue.Sat. L Mon.-Sat.

Nico & Vali $$

ITALIAN • This eatery offers favorites with unexpected twists. The artichokes and chilies appetizer boasts battered and fried artichokes with Fresno and jalapeno peppers, tossed with fresh basil in white wine. Popular choices include the Whitefish Filet. It’s a classic Italian spot with an update that’s worth a visit. 744 Wing St., Plymouth; 734-207-7880. L Thu.Sat., D Tue.-Sun.

Norma G’s $

CARIBBEAN • Lester Gouvia, the Trinidadian chef who brought us the famed food truck, opened a fullservice restaurant under the same name. Stop in for a plate of Chicken Pelau: a tasty blend of rice, diced chicken, squash, peppers, and golden-brown baked chicken. 14628 E. Jefferson Ave., Detroit; 313-2902938. D Tue.-Sat.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR  2022

Oak & Reel $$

SEAFOOD • Despite a global pandemic threatening to derail his longtime dream, chef Jared Gadbaw brought his vision of a seafood-focused Italian restaurant to life

in Detroit’s Milwaukee Junction neighborhood in fall 2020. Oak & Reel’s resilience in the face of extreme adversity and its commitment to the vision of bringing diners impeccable dishes showcasing the freshest seafood, all presented with welcoming and knowledgeable service, is the reason we’re naming Oak & Reel Hour Detroit’s Restaurant of the Year. The menu is seasonal and changes frequently. But in general, the crudos are pristine, the pastas are impeccable, and the seafood dishes are all well balanced and expertly prepared to accentuate the freshness and quality of the fish and shellfish. 2921 E. Grand Blvd., Detroit; 313-2709600. D Thu.-Mon.

Ottava Via $$

ITALIAN • Chef Ariel Millan sends out great thin-crusted pizzas as well as interesting small plates typified by bruschetta, calamari, roasted garlic, and whipped goat cheese to be spread on paper-thin crostini. 1400 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-962-5500. L,D daily.

Pao Detroit $$$

FEATURED Olin

MEDITERRANEAN

A taste of the Mediterranean in Michigan. Starters like the potatoes and artichokes “bravas” with harissa and black garlic aioli and paellas are inspired by Spain but showcase Olin’s unique spin on these iconic dishes.

25 E. Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313774-1190. D Tue.-Sat. BR Sun.

FUSION • Visit this upscale Pan-Asian fusion restaurant for Asian-themed cocktails and dishes, such as creamy rock shrimp, charred octopus, filet mignon, and orange sesame salmon. Based in the former Michigan Oriental Theater, the interior combines new and old. 114 W. Adams Ave., Ste. 200, Detroit; 313-816-0000. L Sun., D Tue.-Sun.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR  2018

Parc $$$

NEW AMERICAN • Excellent food, exceptional service, and a crisp and formal but distinctly unstuffy atmosphere set this Campus Martius gem apart. Appetizer highlights include a bright and fresh tuna tartare and wood-roasted oysters. Creamy roasted garlic butter and lemon add a zippy touch to the roasted oysters. Main courses are exceptional, including an interesting blend of Italian food, woodgrilled whole fish, and organic Scottish salmon. There’s also a large selection of dry-aged gourmet steaks, wood-grilled and served tableside. The wine selection is impressive and caters to a diverse set of price ranges and wine drinkers, so you won’t be disappointed with any bottle here. 800 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-922-7272. L,D daily. BR Sat.-Sun.

Park Grill $$

MEDITERRANEAN • Mediterranean fare gets a Balkan spin. The menu offers tasting plates, pita-wrapped sandwiches, and salads, as well as entrees including chicken and beef shawarma, beef and pork kafta, lemon-pepper pork tenderloin, and lamb chops. Service is friendly and informal. 15102 Kercheval Ave., Grosse Pointe Park; 313-264-1997. L,D daily.

Pegasus Taverna $$

GREEK • The cry of “opa!” resounds in St. Clair Shores at the second edition of the longstanding Greektown restaurant. The resturant boasts an extensive menu, from moussaka and spinach pie to gyros and roast lamb. 24935 Jefferson Ave., St. Clair Shores; 586-772-3200. 558 Monroe St., Detroit; 313-9646800. L,D Tue-Sun.

The Peterboro $$

ASIAN-FUSION • A contemporary take on AmericanChinese fare gives new life to the cuisine with robustly spiced dishes, including an “absurdly delicious” cheeseburger spring roll and a take on almond boneless chicken. 420 Peterboro St., Detroit; 313-833-1111. D Mon.-Sat.

Pho Lucky $

VIETNAMESE • This charming Midtown Vietnamese spot serves authentic fare emphasizing pho. Bowls of

spicy broth with noodles, round steak, and meatballs come in several variations. Other noteworthy dishes here include summer rolls and crisp spring rolls. Look for Asian beers and robust Vietnamese coffee. 3111 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-338-3895. L,D Wed.-Mon.

PizzaPlex $

ITALIAN • This pizza isn’t just authentic, it’s certified. PizzaPlex earned the title of Vera Pizza Napoletana, or real Neapolitan pizza, from Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana in Naples. Try the Margherita. Topped with mozzarella, basil, and EVOO, there’s nothing like a classic. 4458 Vernor Highway, Detroit; 313-757-4992. D Thu.-Sun.

Polish Village Café $

POLISH • The “Polish plate” includes stuffed cabbage, pierogi, kielbasa, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes and gravy. The dill pickle soup and city chicken are standouts, too. A Polish staple in Detroit, where there aren’t too many. 2990 Yemans St., Hamtramck; 313-874-5726. L,D daily. Not wheelchair accessible.

Portofino $

ITALIAN • This big waterfront spot in Wyandotte is both a local hangout and a restaurant with a menu that’s surprisingly ambitious. It offers a number of fish and seafood dishes, from lake perch to coconut shrimp and fried calamari, as well as steaks. Nearly every table in the restaurant has a river view. 3455 Biddle Ave., Wyandotte; 734-281-6700. L,D Tues.-Sun.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR  2019

Prime + Proper $$$$

STEAKHOUSE • Downtown Detroit dining gets a major shot of glamour with this over-the-top steak and seafood emporium on the corner of Griswold and State streets. Although red meat, from prime dry-aged Tomahawk ribeye to Wagyu strip, is the focus — and yes, there’s a burger made with a dry-aged butcher’s blend — oysters, king crab, and caviar aren’t far behind. An elegant white and gold setting backgrounds it all. 1145 Griswold St., Detroit; 313-636-3100. D Mon.-Sun., BR Sat.-Sun.

Prism $$$

NEW AMERICAN • Greektown Casino-Hotel’s renamed eatery is located off the main casino. The menu features local ingredients, steaks, and fresh seafood. 555 E. Lafayette St., Detroit; 313-309-2499. D Wed.-Sun.

Rattlesnake Club $$$$

NEW AMERICAN • This restaurant on the river remains one of the most appealing spots in town. The casually elegant space offers a range of appetizers, entrees, and desserts. Dishes that typify its style include seared diver sea scallops, an 8-ounce filet, and a 16-ounce porterhouse. 300 River Place, Detroit; 313567-4400. L,D Tue.-Sat.

Red Dunn Kitchen $$

NEW AMERICAN The Trumbull and Porter hotel’s spiffy restaurant is an ambitious undertaking, offering three meals a day. It is best experienced at dinner, with a la carte offerings such as foie gras-stuffed quail, smoked and marinated salmon collars, braised lamb leg, and bacon-wrapped duck breast with polenta. 1331 Trumbull Ave., Detroit; 313-887-9477. B,L,D daily except on Fri., which is B,L.

Red Smoke Barbeque $$

BARBEQUE • At Red Smoke, hickory and applewoodsmoked ribs, pulled pork, apple-smoked, all-natural chicken, and an array of classic sides are served out of one of the most attractive two-story buildings that are still standing on Monroe Street. 573 Monroe St., Detroit; 313-962-2100. L,D daily.

RESTAURANT LISTINGS 05.23

RECIPE LA LANTERNA’S

MEZZA RIGATONI ALLA LIVORNESE

PHOTO BY REBECCA SIMONOV

Ingredients

1 pound rigatoni

1 cup fresh grape tomatoes

10 Mediterranean olives, pitted

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 anchovy

Splash of white wine

1 teaspoon tomato paste

2 tablespoons butter

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 can Italian tuna

Fresh basil, for serving

Directions

1. Set a large pot of water over high heat and bring to a rolling boil. Add in the rigatoni and generously salt, cooking per package instructions.

2. Meanwhile, in a medium pan, saute grape tomatoes, olives, and garlic in olive oil until the tomatoes have blistered.

3. Add the anchovy and a splash of white wine. Once the wine is reduced, add in the tomato paste and butter and stir until the sauce is glossy. Season with salt and pepper. Add in the tuna and stir, warming the tuna through.

4. Once the

5. Serve garnished with

Rocky’s of Northville $$

NEW AMERICAN • Menu includes shrimp cocktail, salmon pate, and broiled Great Lakes whitefish. Also look for chipotle honey-glazed salmon. 41122 W. Seven Mile Road, Northville; 248-349-4434. L Tue.-Sat. D Sun.

Roman Village $

ITALIAN • The Rugiero family has been serving authentic Italian cuisine since 1964. They’ve launched three additional Antonio’s Cucina Italiana locations. Roman Village is the original and features their signature gnocchi Rita. 9924 Dix Ave., Dearborn; 313-8422100. L,D daily.

Rose’s Fine Food $

BREAKFAST/BRUNCH • The menu is straightforward, based mainly on fresh ingredients and from-scratch preparation. Breakfast eaters can choose from a variety of egg dishes, such as the Eggs and Cheese (soft scrambled eggs, herbs, and aioli). For lunch, there’s a selection of creative sandwiches. 10551 E. Jefferson Ave., Detroit; 313-822-2729. B,L,D Mon-Sat. B,L. Sun.

San Morello $$$

ITALIAN • This Italian gem serves pizzas, pastas, and wood-fired dishes that draw inspiration from the coastal towns of Southern Italy and Sicily out of the Shinola Hotel. Think Tartufi Pizza with fontina and black truffle, handcrafted by James Beard Award-winning chef Andrew Carmellini. 1400 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313209-4700. D daily.

The Sardine Room $$$

SEAFOOD • A seafood restaurant and raw bar, The Sardine Room is fresh, fun, and energetic, with a clean-line décor and a menu full of surprises. For starters, there is a Seafood Louie featuring jumbo lump crab, shrimp, egg, avocado, tomato, and bibb lettuce. Worthwhile is a grouper sandwich that’s available seared, pan-fried, or blackened. 340 S. Main St., Plymouth; 734-416-0261. D daily, BR Sun.

Savannah Blue $$

SOUL FOOD • Highlights at this upscale soul food joint include the twice-dredged fried chicken and the shrimp and grits. Shareables include perch fritters, okra fries, and a Georgian Hummus that substitutes black-eyed peas for chickpeas. There’s also a great bar. 1431 Times Square, Detroit; 313-926-0783. D Tue.-Sat.

Savant $$$

FRENCH • In a cozy-yet-upscale interior with leather couches and an open kitchen, Jordan Whitmore and Rebecca Wurster, formerly of Apparatus Room, serve up rotating European-inspired menu items, including Champagne Chicken, an Apple and Arugula Heirloom Salad, Calamari, and — for vegan diners — Ratatouille Confit. 51 W. Forest Ave., Detroit; 248-766-8071. D Fri.-Sat.

Scotty Simpson’s Fish & Chips $

SEAFOOD Head to this Brightmoor spot for perfectly prepared fish and chips. The key to Scotty’s longevity is the batter that coats the cod, perch, shrimp, chicken, onion rings, and frog legs. 22200 Fenkell St., Detroit; 313-533-0950. L,D Tue.-Sat.

Second Best $

RETRO AMERICAN • The talents behind nearby Grey Ghost have unveiled a second, more casual spot with a retro spin in Brush Park. The menu of lighter dishes includes the Yogi Gyro with roasted root vegetable and coconut tzatziki, and fried chicken sandwiches that accompany drinks that were popular more than a few years back. 42 Watson St., Detroit; 313-315-3077. L Sat.-Sun., D nightly.

RESTAURANT LISTINGS 05.23

RESTAURANT

OF THE YEAR  2016

Selden Standard $$$

NEW AMERICAN • What sets Selden Standard apart is that it is moving Detroit into a new era in which upperend dining with starched linen and tuxedoed waiters doesn’t hold much interest anymore. Chef Andy Hollyday, a multiple James Beard semifinalist, does farm-totable scratch cooking with ideas borrowed from around the world. A key to his cooking is the wood-fired grill. This spot has garnered national attention. 3921 Second Ave., Detroit; 313-438-5055. D Wed.-Sun.

Seva Detroit $$

VEGETARIAN • Seva offers such dishes as black bean and sweet potato quesadillas, gluten-free options, and colorful stir-fries — some vegan as well as vegetarian. There’s also a full bar as well as a juice bar. 2541 Jackson Ave., Ann Arbor; 734-662-1111. 66 E. Forest Ave., Detroit; 313-974-6661. L,D Mon.-Sat.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR  2020

SheWolf Pastificio & Bar $$$

ITALIAN • Chef Anthony Lombardo takes fresh and housemade to a new level with this Midtown restaurant that serves only dinner from a menu inspired by Italian cooking specific to Rome. Milling all of his own flour for his pastas, breads, and polenta in house, Lombardo, well known as the former executive chef at Bacco, serves a selection of simple but elegant regional Italian dishes. 438 Selden St., Detroit; 313-315-3992.

D Tue.-Sun

Slows Bar BQ $$

BARBEQUE • The brick-and-wood original in Corktown gained a following for its pulled pork, ribs, and chicken. They expanded with a “to go” spot in Midtown, as well. This is a true Detroit classic in every sense of the term.

Corktown location: 2138 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-9629828. L,D daily. Slows To Go in Midtown: 4107 Cass Ave., Detroit; 313-309-7560. L,D Wed.-Sun.

Smith & Co.

$$$

NEW AMERICAN • This Cass Corridor bar and restaurant is housed in the old Smith Welding Supply & Equipment Company building — hence cement ceilings and exposed brick that evoke an industrial vibe. The menu features small plates, sandwiches, and entrees such as mushroom toast; braised lamb shank; the fried chicken bowl with sweet sesame sauce and kimchi; and the Smith Burger, soy-ginger marinated and topped with a fried egg. Beverage options include craft beer, wine, and fresh takes on classic cocktails. 644 Selden St, Detroit; 313-6381695. D Wed.-Sun.

Standby $$

NEW AMERICAN • The libation menu — categorized by spirit — is longer than the food menu, but both food and drinks are equally emphasized. The fare ranges from small plates of marinated olives and tamari eggs to entrees such as grilled lamb kebabs and the house cheeseburger. 225 Gratiot Ave., Detroit; 313-241-5719. D Wed.-Sun. Not wheelchair accessible.

The Statler $$$$

FRENCH • A taste of Paris in downtown Detroit. This French-American bistro from the Joe Vicari Restaurant Group takes its name from the former historic Statler Hotel, which is now home to not only the bistro but also City Club Apartments. Classic French fare (with some modern twists) such as potted foie gras mousse; Henri Maire escargots (wild Burgundy snails, garlic butter fondue, parsley, Pernod, and profiteroles); and bouillabaisse provence (seafood stew with shrimp, scallops, lobster, mussels, saffron broth, croustade, and rouille) typify the menu. The large, year-round

open-air outdoor patio offers stunning panoramic views of the Detroit skyline and Grand Circus Park. There’s also a neighborhood market where customers can grab groceries and gourmet packaged meals on the go. 313 Park Ave., Detroit; 313-463-7111. D Mon.Sat., BR Sun.

Supino Pizzeria $$

ITALIAN Relax with one of the town’s best thin-crust pizzas — they come in more than a dozen variations, with or without red sauce. A few dishes from the La Rondinella menu made the list as well, such as paninis, salads, and small plates such as polpette and three delicious salads. Beer, wine, and cocktails add to the appeal. 2457 Russell St., Detroit; 313-567-7879. L,D Wed.-Sun.; 6519 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-314-7400. L,D Mon.-Sat.

Sweet Soul Bistro $

FEATURED Takoi

THAI

Thai-Laotian fare might seem out of place in Corktown, but virtually everything on the menu has distinction. There’s a depth, concentration, and balance between heat and coolness, the range of spices, the delight of moving from one superb bite to the next.

2520 Michigan Ave., Detroit; 313-8552864. D Tue.-Sat.

SOUL FOOD • The large menu includes homages to Detroit musicians, from Stevie Wonder Wonderful Wings to Aretha Franklin Catfish Bites. Also notable are the crab cakes. In the evening, the bistro transforms into a club. 13741 W. McNichols Road, Detroit; 313- 862-7685. L,D daily.

Tap at MGM Grand $

SPORTS BAR • More than 40 HD flatscreen TVs for sports fans, plus sports memorabilia. The menu features comfort food and pub classics: burgers, wings, and house nachos. Pizza and more upscale entrees are also available, as are more than 50 beers. Bring your family and friends for a very entertaining night on the town. 1777 Third St., Detroit; 313-465-1234. D daily.

Townhouse $$$

NEW AMERICAN • The downtown hotspot in 2021 underwent an aesthetic overhaul of the space and menu designed to elevate the spot’s signature comfort food fare. Staples, like the burger and fries, remain on the menu, but there are also fine-dining-inspired additions, like the caviar-topped crispy potato dish and the A5 wagyu with garlic, shallot rings, and grilled chicory. 500 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-723-1000. L, D Mon.-Sun.

Trattoria Serventi $$

ITALIAN • The brick pizza oven turns out an array of thin-crust pizzas and there’s an interesting daytime menu that offers a real bargain. In the evening, such dishes as scallopini style veal, and gnocchi alla palmina, recalling chef Aldo Ottaviani — who was instrumental in setting up the original Andiamo menu — typify the style. 20930 Mack Ave., Grosse Pointe Woods; 313-886-9933. D Wed.-Mon.

Urban Ramen $$

JAPANESE-INSPIRED • Urban Ramen serves bowls of steaming broth filled with house-made, springy ramen noodles topped with fixings like bamboo, egg, pork chashu, and sesame seeds. The menu also includes poke, salads, and sides such as garlic edamame and Japanese fried chicken. 4206 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-285-9869. L,D Mon.-Sun.

Vertical Detroit $$$

WINE BAR • This wine-centric restaurant puts the focus on pairing Chef Alex Knezevic’s innovative cuisine with owners James and Rémy Lutfy’s nationally recognized wine program. The menu emphasizes locally sourced protein, seafood, and produce. A must-try for any wine enthusiast. 1538 Centre St., Detroit; 313-7329463. D Wed.-Sat. Not wheelchair accessible.

Vicente’s Cuban Cuisine $$

CUBAN • An evening at this lively spot is more than just Cuban and Spanish dining. Appetizers and tapas include the outstanding Tapa de la Casa, pork leg marinated in mojo; a Spanish chorizo and fresh mushrooms concoction with garlic lemon sauce; and empanadas, a

Cuban turnover filled with ground beef or chicken. 1250 Library St., Detroit; 313-962-8800. L,D daily.

Vivio’s Food & Spirits $ SANDWICH/DELI • This Eastern Market classic has been run by the Vivio family for more than 40 years. Sandwiches and burgers are mainstays, but diners also appreciate the steamed mussels. 3601 Twelve Mile Road, Warren; 586-576-0495. L,D daily.

The Whitney $$$$ NEW AMERICAN • The historic 1890s mansion is still going strong. The menu is typified by classic beef Wellington, wrapped in spinach, prosciutto, and pastry; and pan-roasted Scottish salmon. Tableside cooking, by reservation only, is an optional feature. Don’t forget The Katherine McGregor Dessert Parlor for a sweet treat.4421 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-832-5700. D Wed.-Sun and high tea Sat.-Sun.

Wine Dotte Bistro $$

WINE BAR This interesting wine bar and restaurant offers a view of the Detroit River. The menu includes coconut shrimp, lobster tails, tenderloin medallions, and lamb chops. The wine is displayed in a cabinet across one wall and it’s the main focus. 2910 Van Alstyne St., Wyandotte; 734-556-3195. L,D Tue.-Sun.

Wright & Co. $$

NEW AMERICAN • The collaboration between chef Marc Djozlija and Dave Kwiatkowski of the popular Corktown craft cocktail bar Sugar House gives new life to the second-floor space in the Wright Kay building. Small plates such as tuna tartare with pickled pears, and pork belly sliders with tomato jam and sriracha aioli are the focus. 1500 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-9627711. D Tue.-Sun.

Yum Village $

AFRO-CARIBBEAN The former food truck opened a full-service restaurant in the North End in 2019. The space is bright and fun with wooden tables, mismatched chairs, and a colorful, geometric paint job. And the food is just as bold. The restaurant serves up piquant dishes like Lemon Pepper Jerk Chicken. 6500 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-334-6099. L,D Mon.-Sat.

Oakland

168 Crab & Karaoke $$

PAN-ASIAN • Don’t judge by 168 Crab & Karaoke’s unassuming strip mall location. It’s a unique experience that meshes food, karaoke, and pop party culture into a one-stop destination. As the name suggests, seafood is the main attraction here, specifically the seafood boils, which come with your choice of seafood (crab, clams, lobster, etc.), with sauce and corn and potatoes. 32415 John R Road, Madison Heights; 248616-0168. D daily.

220 Merrill $$$

NEW AMERICAN • The menu includes apps and small plates as well as Wagyu beef carpaccio, ahi tuna tartare, and classic roasted oysters. There are heartier entrees as well, like the braised beef short ribs. 220 Merrill St., Birmingham; 248-646-2220. L,D Mon.-Sat. BR Sun.

Adachi $$$

JAPANESE-INSPIRED • Heading the kitchen is Lloyd Roberts, who has trained in the kitchens of celebrity chefs such as Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Nobu Matsuhisa. Here, soy truffle broth is ladled over pork dumplings reminiscent of coin purses, and miniature tacos are filled with lobster, tuna, or vegetable pickings. 325 S. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248540-900. L,D daily.

Andiamo $$

ITALIAN • Over the past three decades, Joe Vicari has established several Andiamo restaurants in metro Detroit, all inspired by the late master chef Aldo Ottaviani’s philosophy of seasonal, from-scratch cooking. The menus differ slightly at the different locations, but the constant is the fresh, housemade pastas — handcrafted by the trinity of “pasta ladies,” Anna, Tanya, and Angelina, who have carried on the tradition. 6676 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield; 248-865-9300. L,D Mon.-Fri., D Sat.-Sun.

Anita’s Kitchen $

LEBANESE With pita pizzas and lamb chops, the Lebanese food here is some of the best around. And there’s vegetarian and gluten-free fare, too. Healthy, nutritious, and delicious. See website for locations; anitaskitchen.com

Assaggi Bistro $$$

ITALIAN • Seasonal offers encompassing rustic Italian, country French, and authentic Lebanese are all created in the open kitchen. Standouts include Moroccan duck legs, porcini-dusted day boat sea scallops, and cioppino (seafood stew). 330 W. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale; 248584-3499 D Wed.-Sat.

Bar Verona $$

ITALIAN • Modernized, made-from-scratch Italian favorites curated by Chef Salvatore Borgia as well as fresh craft cocktails fill the menu at this stylish eatery. Homemade pastas, such as Giuseppe’s and Spaghetti al Basilico, and specialty pizzas, including The Verona and the Truffle Mushroom, as well as a selection of steaks and seafood dishes typify the contemporary approach to fresh and uncomplicated Italian cuisine. 500 Loop Road, Commerce Charter Township; 248387-5400. D daily.

Bella Piatti $$

ITALIAN • The location right across from the Townsend Hotel has inspired a number of visiting celebrities, professional athletes, and film crews who stay there to check out the Italian fare at this restaurant. The menu of such dishes as Gemelli pasta with fresh tomato sauce, salmon baked with spinach, kalamata olives, white wine, and tomatoes, and tagliatelle Bolognese stands on its own. It’s one of our true favorites in the area in terms of Italian restaurants. 167 Townsend St., Birmingham; 248-494-7110. D Tue.-Sat.

Beverly Hills Grill $$$

NEW AMERICAN • This Beverly Hills institution has built a loyal following over the years with its California vibe and dawn-to-dark schedule. These days they’re serving only dinner but still features the fresh and innovative fare that put it on the map. 31471 Southfield Road, Beverly Hills; 248-642-2355. D Mon.-Sat.

Bi Bim Bab $$

KOREAN • Though sushi and a small selection of Japanese entrees share the bill here, it’s Korean food at center stage — on barbecue grills, on which meat and seafood are grilled to order. Or come for the restaurant’s namesake. 43155 Main St., Novi; 248-3486800. L,D daily.

Bigalora: Wood Fired Cucina $$

ITALIAN • The pizza concept from chef Luciano Del Signore, a four-time James Beard Award nominee, features small plates, fresh pastas, wood-roasted meats, and a range of distinctive Neopolitan pizzas. See website for locations; bigalora.com

Birmingham Pub $$$

GASTROPUB • This stylish yet casual gastropub from the Joe Vicari Restaurant Group took over the former Triple Nickel space. True to its name, the restaurant’s

bill of fare features pub classics taken up a notch, such as Alaskan cod butter roasted with everythingbagel crust and filet mignon with Parmesan truffle fries and zip sauce. There are also TVs at the bar so you won’t miss a minute of the game. 555 S. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248-885-8108. L,D Tue.Fri., D Sat.-Sun.

Bistro Joe’s $$$

GLOBAL • Part of Papa Joe’s Gourmet Market, Bistro Joe’s is in a mezzanine overlooking the open kitchen and market. There is an eclectic list of dishes like spicy tuna “tacushi,” steamed mussels, and tasty flatbread pizzas. 34244 Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248-5940984. L,D Tue.-Sun.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR 

2003

Café Cortina $$$

ITALIAN • Selections include prosciutto di Parma stuffed with greens and mozzarella; squid sautéed with fresh pomodori; gnocchi with porcini mushrooms; and meaty prawns finished with lemon, white wine, and herbs. For dessert, try the crepes 30715 W. 10 Mile Road, Farmington Hills; 248-474-3033. L Sun., D Tue.-Sun.

Café ML $$

NEW AMERICAN • Café ML is contemporary in décor and its “globally inspired food.” Such dishes as short rib steamed buns, Chinese chicken salad, Singapore street noodles, and Korean fried chicken share the menu with burgers, steak frites, and fresh seafood. Garage door-style windows open onto the patio on warm days. 3607 W. Maple Road, Bloomfield Township; 248-642-4000. D daily.

Capital Grille $$$

STEAKHOUSE • Hand-cut, dry-aged steaks and fresh seafood dishes are the stars at Capital Grille. The restaurant’s outstanding wine list features over 350 labels. The setting is appropriate for both business lunches and social events and includes wellappointed private dining rooms. 2800 W. Big Beaver Road, Troy; 248-649-5300. L,D daily.

Casa Pernoi $$$$

ITALIAN Three months after its grand opening, what once was a multi-hyphenate concept, blending French, Asian, and Italian cuisine, soon defaulted simply to a cuisine most familiar to chef Luciano DelSignore: Italian. Housemade pastas rolled by hand, chicken parmesan, and a meaty branzino typify the menu. A cannoli cake layers sweet ricotta atop a spongy cake and a base of dark chocolate reminiscent of a Nestle Crunch Bar. 310 E. Maple Road, Birmingham; 248-940-0000. D Tue.-Sat.

Churchill’s Bistro & Cigar Bar $$$

TRADITIONAL • You can buy your cigar and smoke it too. Plus, enjoy dry-aged steaks, pan-roasted sea bass, seasonal East Coast oysters, and lamb chops, among other options. A full bar boasts a large selection of whiskey, scotch, and bourbon — and plenty of wine. 116 S. Old Woodward, Birmingham; 248-6474555. L,D daily.

Como’s

FEATURED Bacco Restaurante

ITALIAN

Chef-owner Luciano Del Signore’s pastas are like pure art. Try the Strozzapreti

Norcina: Italian sausage, truffles, tomato, and white wine, tossed in handrolled pasta. From local grass-fed beef to sustainably farmraised sea bass to a fresh caprese, the ingredients are topend. Based in the heart of Southfield, Bacco is a true Italian gem in the suburbs. And the desserts are not to be missed. 29410 Northwestern Highway, Southfield; 248356-6600. L Tue.-Fri. D Tue.-Sat.

Cornbread Restaurant & Bar $$ SOUL • In 1997, Patrick Coleman melded his experience in fine dining with his grandma’s southern roots to create Beans & Cornbread Soulful Bistro. It racked up accolades and fans over the years, including Stevie Wonder and Thomas (Hitman) Hearns. Cornbread is the sequel to Beans and Cornbread, continuing the tradition of soul food with an upscale twist. Classics like catfish and a gravy-smothered pork chop endure. 29852 Northwestern Hwy., Southfield; 248-208-1680. L,D Thu.-Tue.

Crispelli’s Bakery Pizzeria $

ITALIAN-INSPIRED • This hybrid offers artisanal pizzas from a brick oven, salads, paninis, and soups. A bakery offers crusty breads, desserts, and meals to go. Two patios add to the appeal. See website for locations; crispellis.com

Culantro $$

PERUVIAN • Native Peruvian Betty Shuell brings a taste of her home to Ferndale. The casual, homey, seat-yourself establishment is named after an herb that is often used in traditional Peruvian cooking. An especially notable dish is the Pollo a la Brasa, marinated chicken served with French fries, rice, and a variety of dipping sauces. 22939 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; 248-632-1055. L,D daily.

Diamond’s Steak & Seafood $$$

STEAKHOUSE • This Howell restaurant is the perfect location for ribeye, fresh gulf shrimp, or a classic cheeseburger. Plus, weekends boast a buffet-style brunch. 101 W. Grand River Ave., Howell; 517-548-5500. D Tue.-Sat.

Eddie’s Gourmet $$

NEW AMERICAN • Chef Eddie Hanna’s gourmet diner is a simple concept that works to perfection. The menu offers standard selection of breakfast items, burgers, sandwiches, and lunch specials, but the real draw is the counter-side gourmet and pasta specials. Offerings include Veal Marsala and Chicken Milano. 25920 Greenfield Road, Oak Park; 248-968-4060. L,D Mon-Sat.

Elie’s Mediterranean Grill/Bar $$ LEBANESE • The lamb and chicken shawarma, shish kafta, kibbee nyeh, and other Lebanese dishes are emphasized by the décor, including photomurals of old Beirut and strings of blue beads cascading from the ceiling. A fun place to frequent for a quick lunch or a night out with friends. 263 Pierce St., Birmingham; 248-647-2420. L,D Mon.-Sat.

The Fed $$

GASTROPUB • An attractive restaurant with great food and a delightfully refreshing atmosphere. The menu crosses boundaries, from shareables, like Spanish Octopus and Wild Mushroom Crostini, to heartier fare, like Braised Lamb Pappardelle and Steak and Frites. Plus, the bright and airy bohemian-chic interior is highly Instagrammable. 15 S. Main St., Clarkston; 248-297-5833. D Wed.-Sat., B,L,D Sun

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR  2009 Forest $$$

$$

NEW AMERICAN • This Ferndale favorite reopened in May 2019 under the ownership of Peas & Carrots Hospitality with a trendier, fresher look. The warm, homey feel is still intact, but it’s ditched the old menu for — among other things — chef Zack Sklar’s square, deep-dish, Detroit-style pizza that’s leavened from a sourdough starter as opposed to commercial yeast. 22812 Woodward Ave., Unit 100., Ferndale; 248-677-4439. L,D daily.

EUROPEAN-INSPIRED • The menu is brief but designed to let the kitchen assemble sharp flavors from various farm and market ingredients. Try the delightful pastas, like the Bolognese and the agnolotti, as well as the understated Farm Egg. 735 Forest Ave., Birmingham; 248-258-9400. D Tue.-Sat.

The Fly Trap

ECLECTIC AMERICAN • This “finer diner” typifies trendy Ferndale with its tin ceiling, red-topped tables, and counter with swivel stools. It offers sandwiches, salads, pastas, and omelets.22950 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; 248-399-5150. B,L Tue.-Sat.

Garage Grill & Fuel Bar $$

NEW AMERICAN • The car-themed rooms of a former 1940s gas station are as fresh and appealing as the dishes themselves. The kitchen serves up a variety of seafood starters and “full-size sedan” entrees, as well as pizzas. 202 W. Main St., Northville, 248-9243367. D Wed.-Sun., BR Sat.-Sun.

Gran Castor $$

LATIN STREET • From the duo behind hit spots like Vinsetta Garage and Union Woodshop comes this vibrant Latin-American café and restaurant.Diners can choose to sit behind one of the two bars, a cozy café, or in the 245-seat dining room all decked in colorful textiles. At Gran Castor, the dining room is equally as decadent as the food and drinks served. Grab a $5 margarita between 4 p.m.-6 p.m. daily. 2950 Rochester Road, Troy; 248-278-7777. D Wed.-Mon.

Hazel’s $$

SEAFOOD • What was once multiple concepts under one roof named after the three neighborhoods that converged right where the restaurant stands (Hazel, Ravine and Downtown) is now simply Hazel’s. The casual and comfortable restaurant specializes in authentic dishes, drinks, and vibes from some of the country’s top seafood destinations. Here you’ll find dishes like Maine-caught lobster, Maryland Blue Crab, and more. 1 Peabody St., Birmingham; 248-671-1714. D Tue.-Sun., B,L Sat.-Sun.

Honcho $

LATIN FUSION • From the owners of Vinsetta Garage and Union Woodshop, this restaurant can be described as “Latin food that speaks with an Asian accent.” Menu items include a chicken burrito fried and tossed in a soy fish sauce and Korean pork tacos, featuring Woodshop pulled pork tossed in Korean BBQ sauce and topped with toasted sesame seeds and Malay radish slaw. 3 E. Church St., Clarkston; 248707-3793. L,D daily.

Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse $$$$

STEAKHOUSE • This plush modern steakhouse offers dry-aged prime and Kobe-style wagyu beef in a fun, clubby setting. An extensive wine list accompanies the restaurant menu that also features platters of chilled fresh seafood. 201 S. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248-594-4369. D daily. 17107 Haggerty Road, Northville Twp.; 248-679-0007. D Tue.-Sat.

Imperial $

MEXICAN-INSPIRED • The menu offers Californiastyle tacos on soft tortillas, including lime-grilled chicken, carnitas, and marinated pork, as well as slowroasted pork tortas, and guacamole. 22828 Woodward Ave., Ferndale, 248-850-8060. L,D daily, BR Sun.

J-Bird Smoked Meats $$

BARBEQUE • Offering wood-smoked meats served with the traditional sides of cornbread, buttermilk slaw, and mac and cheese, popular dishes include the Three Meat Sampler and JBird Gumbo, as well as St. Louis Ribs and old-fashioned JBurgers. If you love meat, this is your place. 1978 Cass Lake Road, Keego Harbor; 248-681-2124. L,D Tue.-Sun.

Joe Muer $$$$

SEAFOOD • The Bloomfield Hills location of the iconic restaurant continues the tradition of excellent food, service, and ambiance. The menu emphasizes classic fresh fish and “Muer Traditions” such as Dover sole and Great Lakes Yellow Belly Perch. There’s also a raw and sushi bar as well as premium steaks. And make sure to save room for dessert, because the coconut cake is not to be missed. A piano bar adds to the ambience. 39475 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills; 248-792-9609. D daily.

Kaizen Ramen $

JAPANESE • A downtown Royal Oak space with exposed ductwork, orange booths, and a lively, floor-to-ceiling, black-and-white robot mural may not seem like the obvious choice for authentic Asian noodles. But this casual spot offers a variety of vegan and meat-based ramen dishes, as well as gyoza, poke, spring rolls, and karaage — Japanese-style fried chicken. Don’t skip out on desserts like mochi ice cream and cheesecake tempura. 411 S. Washington Ave., Royal Oak; 248-677-1236. L,D Mon.-Sat.

Lao Pot $$$

CHINESE • In 2019, the owners of Madison Heights’ international market 168 Asian Mart opened Lao Pot, which specializes in Chinese Hot Pot cuisine. Hot Pot is a traditional method of cooking, using a pot of simmering broth, which sits in the center of the dining table. Lao Pot allows diners to customize and cook their meals right at their tables, combining great food and a memorable experience. 32707 John R. Road, Madison Heights; 248-689-9888. L,D daily.

FEATURED

Hong Hua

CHINESE

One of the best area restaurants dedicated to Asian food offers some rare delicacies — shark’s fin and bird’s nest soups, fresh abalone — as well as more customary items. One signature dish is stirfried yellow grouper fillet with vegetables.

27925 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills; 248489-2280. L,D Tue.-Sun.

La Strada Dolci e Caffé $

ITALIAN • A slice of European elegance offers an impeccable little menu of Italian dishes and rich coffees and espresso. Paninis, delicious fresh green salads, hearty minestrone soup, pastas, pizzas, and decadent and artistically crafted pastries are prettily served and very tasty. 243 E. Merrill St., Birmingham; 248-480-0492. D Tue.-Sat.

Lelli’s Inn $$

ITALIAN • Dinners begin with an antipasto tray, creamy minestrone, salad, side dish of spaghetti, and then — nine times out of 10 — a filet mignon with zip sauce. 885 N. Opdyke Road, Auburn Hills; 248-3734440. L Mon.-Fri. D daily.

Loccino Italian Grill $$

ITALIAN • Loccino is a “family-friendly” yet upscale Italian restaurant. Choose from fresh seafood, steak, chicken, and veal dishes, plus traditional pastas, pizzas, salads, and more. They also offer happy hour specials from 3-7 p.m. weekdays. A great special occassion place or delicious workday lunch spot for whevener you need a break from the office. 5600 Crooks Road, Troy; 248-813-0700. L Mon.-Fri., D daily.

Lockhart’s BBQ $$

BARBEQUE • The heart of this joint’s authentic barbecue is the dry-rubbed meat smoker, which can smoke up to 800 pounds of meat at a time. Choices such as pork ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, burnt ends, and chicken are served atop butcher paper on metal trays for the true experience. 202 E. Third St., Royal Oak; 248-584-4227. L,D daily. BR Sun.

Loui’s Pizza $

ITALIAN • Sure, you can now get a Michigan craft beer, but not much else has changed. And that’s a good thing. Parties dine on square pizzas with crisp crust, faintly charred around the edges. Hailed by food critics and Detroiters alike as one of the city’s most classic Detroit style pizzas, it’s well worth a trip. 23141 Dequindre Road, Hazel Park; 248-547-1711. L,D Thu.-Sun.

Luxe Bar & Grill $$

NEW AMERICAN • The simple menu at this Grosse Pointe Farms joint offers burgers on brioche buns and interesting salads and sides, as well as entrees typified by wild-caught salmon, prime filet, and Greekstyle lamb chops. 525 N. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248-792-6051. 115 Kercheval Ave., Grosse Pointe Farms; 313-924-5459. L,D daily.

Mabel Gray $$$

NEW AMERICAN • Chef James Rigato produces some masterful dishes on this tiny menu, which does not miss a beat. The menu includes a multi-course tasting option, as well as a daily listing of changing items that never disappoint. It’s a fine dining experience that is certainly worth a visit. 23825 John R Road, Hazel Park; 248-398-4300. D Tue.-Sat.

Mad Hatter Bistro, Bar & Tea Room $$

ECLECTIC AMERICAN • The whimsical setting inspired by Alice in Wonderland welcomes far more than the tea-sipping set with burgers and sandwiches, rabbit Porchetta, truffle risotto bites, and baked brie with pistachio, honey, and pomegranate. There are also pastries, of course. 185 N. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248-540-0000. B,L Thu.-Sun., D Fri.-Sat. Tea by reservation. Lower level not wheelchair accessible.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR 

2023

Madam $$$

NEW AMERICAN • Since opening in 2021, Madam has carved its niche with its global take on farm-totable cuisine, taking diners on a tour from Michigan to Asia to Europe. Staples from chef de cuisine Clifton Booth include mushroom dumplings, Spanish octopus, steak frites, and pasta dishes. 298 S. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248-283-4200. B,D daily, L Mon.-Fri., BR Sat.-Sun.

Mare Mediterranean $$$$

SEAFOOD • Inspired by restaurants in Sicily where the catch of the day is the basis of dinner, this sophisticated restaurant from Nino Cutraro and his partner offers the freshest seafood flown in from the Mediterranean several times a week. You select the type of fish you want from the market in front of the open kitchen and how you want it prepared (acqua pazza, salt baked, grilled, or pan fried). It’s then served tableside in glorious fashion. Not to be missed are the Mare Tower and moussaka. It’s a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach. 115 Willits St., Birmingham; 248-940-5525. D Tue.-Sat.

Market North End $$

AMERICAN • Joe and Kristin Bongiovanni opened this eatery just across the street from the family’s existing restaurants, Salvatore Scallopini and Luxe Bar & Grill. It represents a younger, more casual alternative to the cult-favorite classics, with a serious kitchen that offers traditional American dishes as well as hints of global influences. 474 N. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248-712-4953. L,D daily.

The Meeting House $$

ECLECTIC AMERICAN • This eclectic American menu includes Gulf Shrimp Gratin, steak frites remarkably close to those at Paris bistros, and a housemade soft pretzel with roasted jalapeno-goat cheese dip. Or, try the beef short rib with shawarma spices, pistachio basmati, and pickled vegetables. 301 S. Main St., Rochester; 248-759-4825. D daily, BR Sat.-Sun.

Mesa Tacos And Tequila $

MEXICAN-AMERICAN • The two-story setting includes balcony seating in a big, open room where the bar gets equal time with the kitchen. The pop-Mexican menu — which includes guacamole, nachos, and the titular tacos — is backed up with an array of tequilas. 312 S. Main St., Royal Oak; 248-545-1940. L & D daily.

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR  2008

Mon Jin Lau $$

ASIAN-FUSION • Explore such dishes as Singapore noodles, combining chicken, shrimp, chilies, and curry with angel-hair pasta; Mongolian beef; or seared scallops with lemongrass-basil Thai curry sauce. The patio

opens up and the dining room transforms into a dance floor for weekly events. 1515 E. Maple Road, Troy; 248-689-2332. L Mon.-Fri., D daily.

The Morrie $$

NEW AMERICAN • Music and munchies can be a great combination when served in the right proportions. Such offerings as the smoked chicken wings, smoked apple burnt ends and Detroit style pizza, as well as the requisite burger and steak, appeal to a wide demographic. The rock’n’roll-themed eatery also brought its much-loved American dishes and cocktails to Birmingham in 2019. 511 S. Main St., Royal Oak; 248-216-1112. D daily. 260 N. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248-940-3260. L,D Mon.Fri., B,L,D Sat.-Sun. BR Sat.-Sun.

Oak City Grille $

NEW AMERICAN • This downtown Royal Oak spot bridges the gap between bar food and upscale dining. Order a dressed-up sandwich or burger, or elevate your dining experience with an 8-ounce filet mignon or lamb chops. The friendly price range makes anything possible. 212 W. Sixth St., Royal Oak; 248-5560947. D daily.

Ocean Prime $$$$

SEAFOOD • An upper-end steak-and-fish place and a popular business lunch site. The menu features naturally harvested fresh fish and prime aged beef. Don’t miss the chocolate peanut butter pie or the carrot cake. A tried-and-true metro Detroit spot. 2915 Coolidge Hwy., Troy; 248-458-0500. L Mon.-Fri., D daily.

One-Eyed Betty’s $$

ECLECTIC AMERICAN • Picnic-style tables and blackboards lettered with scores of brew choices add a beer-hall sensibility to this popular spot. The kitchen delivers New Orleans-themed dishes such as Chicken Tchoupitoulas with tasso ham and bearnaise sauce, as well as a mouth-watering bacon burger. Weekend brunch features delicious housemade doughnuts. 175 W. Troy St., Ferndale; 248808-6633. D daily, BR Sat.-Sun.

O.W.L. $

MEXICAN-AMERICAN • This Royal Oak spot offers sustenance for the early birds to the night owls. Step up to the counter and order from the letterboard menu before grabbing a stool at the counter or along the window ledge. Dishes here include such diner musts as eggs, sausage and potato hash, burgers, and chicken wings as well as tacos and nachos served from the open kitchen. 27302 Woodward Ave., Royal Oak; 248-808-6244. B, L,D daily.

Phoenicia $$$

LEBANESE • This long-standing upscale Lebanese eatery has clean, contemporary lines that complement the French door-style windows. Don’t miss the morel mushrooms or roasted garlic cloves with tomato and basil as an appetizer. The menu expands to unexpected items such as baby back ribs and singleserving-sized local whitefish. 588 S. Old Woodward Ave., Birmingham; 248-644-3122. L Mon.-Fri., D daily., BR Sun.

Pinky’s Rooftop $$

ECLECTIC AMERICAN • With its second-floor view of downtown Royal Oak, Pinky’s Rooftop is a go-to spot for a night on the town. The name hearkens back to a Detroit restaurant and speakeasy on the east side that was called Pinky’s Boulevard Club (and the fact that everything is pink). The playful and eclectic menu offers a taste of a little bit of everything, from Kasseri Saganaki to Red Chile Beef Taco. It’s part of the Adam Merkel Restaurants group, which includes Howell hot spots The Silver Pig, Cello Italian, and Dia-

mond’s Steak & Seafood. 100 S. Main St. Rear, Royal Oak, 248-268-2885. D Tues.-Sun. Br. Sat.-Sun.

Pop’s For Italian $$ ITALIAN • It doesn’t sound fancy, but this Ferndale restaurant serves well-prepared, Italian dishes paired with an ambitious wine program. The fairly brief menu starts with a list of Neapolitan pizzas, then moves to pastas, but has all the classics to hit the spot. There are charcuterie boards and Italian desserts, too. 280 W. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale; 248-2684806. D Tue.-Sun.

Prime29 Steakhouse $$$$ STEAKHOUSE • The 29-day aged prime beef, including the 24-ounce tomahawk bone-in rib-eye, still stars here. There’s also Chilean sea bass, Loch Duart salmon, and lamb chops with lobster fried rice. The service is notable, as is the Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator. 6545 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield; 248-737-7463. D Tue.-Sun.

Public House $$ NEW AMERICAN/VEGAN This Ferndale spot reopened under new ownership and with a refreshed look in late 2021. Standout selections include its burgers, sharable plates like barbecued carrots, and craft cocktails and mocktails. It also features a special vegan menu and carries plenty of gluten-free options. 241 W. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale; 248-733-4905. D daily., BR Sat.-Sun.

Quán Ngon Vietnamese Bistro $ VIETNAMESE • This gem of a bistro in a hand-some space adds to the local Vietnamese offerings. Dishes such as cha gio (elegant little eggrolls), bun bo nuong sa (grilled steak atop angel-hair rice noodles), and banh mi made with fresh ingredients.

30701 Dequindre Road, Madison Heights; 248-2684310. L,D Fri.-Wed

Redcoat Tavern $ BURGERS • The half-pound choice beef hamburger is always atop the list of local favorites. But a low-fat, high-flavor Piedmontese beef one is tastier than the original. This is the place for your burger craving.

31542 Woodward Ave., Royal Oak; 248-549-0300.

6745 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield Township; 248-865-0500. L,D Mon.-Sat.

Rochester Chop House $$ NEW AMERICAN • Two restaurants in one; Kabin Kruser’s and the Chop House. There’s a throwback roadhouse-style feeling about the Chop House, which has a menu divided between red meat and fresh fish and seafood. Signature dishes include calamari, Maryland jumbo lump crabcakes, and a large selection of aged steaks, rack of lamb, and steak/seafood combinations. 306 S. Main St., Rochester; 248-6512266. L Mon.-Fri., D daily

Ronin $$

JAPANESE • The sushi menu, ranging from spicy tuna rolls to yellowtail and salmon eggs and well beyond, is augmented by a concise menu of cooked fare. Front windows open onto the sidewalk, making the cocktail lounge open-air during the warm months. 326 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; 248-546-0888. D daily.

Silver Spoon $$

ITALIAN • This quintessential slice of Italy features excellent food, knowledgeable staff, and friendly service. Try the bucatini made with pancetta, onion, red wine, and fresh tomato sauce. Also worth trying: saltimbocca alla Romana, or veal scaloppini sautéed in white wine. A truly delicious place for any kind of outing. 543 N. Main St., Rochester; 248-652-4500. D Mon.-Sat.

Social Kitchen & Bar $$$

NEW AMERICAN • The energetic Birmingham spot allows guests a view of the kitchen action. It has a creative and varied menu typified by falafel lettuce wraps, fried chicken sandwiches, crispy Brussels sprouts, and salmon with braised lentils, crispy kale, and a mustard vinaigrette. 225 E. Maple Road, Birmingham; 248-5944200. L Mon.-Fri., D daily, BR Sat.-Sun.

Streetside Seafood $$

SEAFOOD Small and cozy yet sophisticated, the restaurant has a pared-down menu of fresh fish and seafood on a seasonal menu. There are always two soups: a bisque and a chowder. Favorites include the oysters and bouillabaisse. A delicious restaurant for all palates to enjoy and feel comfortable in. 273 Pierce St.Birmingham; 248-645-9123. L Mon.-Fri., D daily.

Sylvan Table $$$

NEW AMERICAN • With a working farm on the 5-acre property, Sylvan Table isn’t just talking the farm-totable talk. The restored 300-year-old barn feels grand and vast when you step into the stunning space, but it is homey, welcoming, and inviting. The menu changes often to reflect what’s growing but some of the staples include the trout — seasoned with herb oil, salt, and pepper, cooked over a wood-fired grill, and served whole — and Chicken Under a Brick, which is cooked to charred perfection. 1819 Inverness St., Sylvan Lake, 248-369-3360. D Mon.-Sun. Br. Sat.-Sun.

Take Sushi $$

FEATURED Sozai

JAPANESE

To truly experience Sozai, you have to reserve a seat at the custom-built sushi bar where chef Hajime Sato will curate a unique sustainable sushi dining experience called omakase. There’s also a menu offering crowd pleasures like chicken karaage and rolls featuring familiar ingredients with tuna, jalapeno and avocado. 449 W. 14 Mile Road, Clawson; 248-677-3232. D Tues.-Sat.

JAPANESE • Crisp salads, miso soup garnished with the tiniest dice of tofu, sashimi and sushi, oversize bowls of soba or udon noodles, and all the familiar — and some not-so-familiar — entrees, combine together to make this spot special. 1366 Walton Blvd., Rochester Hills; 248-652-7800. L,D daily.

Tallulah Wine Bar & Bistro $$ WINE BAR • Understated décor and a pared-down menu of seasonal dishes make this spot a Birmingham classic. The kitchen turns out dishes like Lamb Belly Ragu with housemade pasta; and whole branzino with charred zucchini and romesco. Wine is served by the glass, the pitcher, or bottle. 155 S. Bates St., Birmingham; 248-731-7066. D Mon.-Sat.

Three Cats Restaurant $ BREAKFAST/BRUNCH Formerly a small café serving customers of the boutique Leon & Lulu, Three Cats is now a full-fledged restaurant and bar. Located in the former Clawson movie theater next door to the shop, the spot serves small, simple plates, including vegetarian and vegan options for brunch, lunch, and dinner. The beverage menu features local selections, such as vodka from Ferndale’s Valentine’s Distilling Co. and wines from grapes grown on the Leelanau Peninsula. Patrons can even take home the colorful, quirky chairs or tables they’re dining at, as most of the furniture at Three Cats Restaurant is available for purchase. 116 W. 14 Mile Road, Clawson; 248-288-4858. L,D Mon.-Fri., B,L,D Sat.-Sun.

Toast, A Breakfast & Lunch Joint $ BREAKFAST/BRUNCH • It’s fun, it’s breezy, and the food at Toast, A Breakfast & Lunch Joint is very, very good. The house specialty smothered burrito has plenty of fans, as does huevos rancheros: fried eggs upon corn tortillas, pintos, and cheese. Toast, a Neighborhood Joint, the spinoff of the Ferndale original has a more elaborate setting pairing ’50s retro with sleek contemporary in a pair of rooms. The new menu features twists to comfort food. 23144 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; 248-398-0444. 203 Pierce St., Birmingham; 248-258-6278. B,L daily.

RESTAURANT LISTINGS 05.23

RECIPE

FLOWERS OF VIETN AM’S VIETNAMESE CURRIED MUSSELS

PHOTO BY REBECCA SIMONOV

Ingredients

For the curry paste

4 cups lemongrass (rough chopped)

1 cup fresh chopped galangal (about one 4-inch root)

28 cloves of garlic

1.5-pound bag of shallots (peeled)

25 Thai chilis

4 tablespoons fresh chopped turmeric (about 2 knobs worth)

¾ cup palm sugar dissolved in 6 tablespoons hot water

1 ¾ cup fresh lime juice

¼ cup sesame oil

2 tablespoons crab paste

2 cups makrut lime leaf — very loosely packed (roughly 100 leaves)

2 ¾ tablespoons sea salt

1 cup Red Boat fish sauce

15 bunches fresh cilantro

For the mussels

1 pound New Zealand green lip mussels (or any fresh mussels you can get your hands on)

¾ cup curry paste

1/2 of a 14-ounce can of coconut cream

Sliced scallions, for garnish

Directions

1. In a blender, add in all of the curry ingredients and blend until smooth. Set aside. You will not need the full amount, but the curry freezes very well and will be good for months.

2. In a large bowl of salted water, soak the mussels and chill for 1 hour. Make sure to remove any beards from the mussels.

3. In a pot over medium heat, fry the curry paste until fragrant. Add in the coconut cream and the mussels.

4. Lower the heat to a simmer and cover, cooking until the mussels start to open.

5. Garnish with scallions and serve!

RESTAURANT LISTINGS 05.23

Toasted Oak $$$

BRASSERIE • The menu revolves around the charcuterie sold in the market next door and a list of hot grill items, such as grilled steaks with béarnaise sauce. In 2019, the restaurant earned a Wine Spectator magazine award for its outstanding wine program. Plus, just across the lot is Twelve Oaks Mall, should you fancy an evening of shopping and dinner. 27790 Novi Road, Novi; 248-277-6000. B Mon.-Fri., L,D Tue.-Sat.

Townhouse $$$

NEW AMERICAN • This popular Birmingham spot for comforting New American dishes has several exceptional offerings on its menu, such as the specialty 10 ounces of 28-day dry-aged beef hamburger on brioche. 180 Pierce St., Birmingham; 248-792-5241. L,D daily, BR Sat.-Sun. 500 Woodward Ave., Detroit;313-723-1000. D daily.

Union Woodshop $$

BARBEQUE • Part of the ever-growing Union Joints restaurant group, this is a self-described wood-fired joint, where pulled pork, ribs, chicken, and beef brisket come from the smoker, and Neapolitan-style crispcrusted pizzas from the wood-burning oven. And definitely check out the mac and cheese. There’s also a delicious kid’s menu for any youngsters in your party.

18 S. Main St., Clarkston; 248-625-5660. D Tue.-Sun.

Vinsetta Garage $$

NEW AMERICAN • This restaurant, which is housed in a vintage car-repair shop, offers well-prepared comfort-food classics such as burgers served on pretzel buns, macaroni and cheese, the Chef Bowl with spaghetti and tomato basil sauce, pizzas, and brown sugar-glazed salmon. A restaurant that pays true homage to the city of Detroit. 27799 Woodward Ave., Berkley; 248-548-7711. L,D daily.

Voyager $$

SEAFOOD • Fresh seafood with emphasis on oysters is the premise in this hard-to-find location. The space entails convivially close quarters for such dishes as peel-n’-eat shrimp, chili crab spaghetti and grilled swordfish. The premium bar offers short but notable lists of beer and wine as well as craft cocktails. 600 Vester St., Ferndale; 248-658-4999. D Tue.-Sat.

Waves

$$

SEAFOOD • Seafood covers most of the menu at this Nautical Mile favorite. It’s a tough task choosing between such popular appetizers as coconut shrimp, crispy grouper nuggets, and plump steamed mussels. Entrees include al dente pastas and several choices from “over the wave,” such as lamb chops and New York strip steak, plus lump crab cakes, and beer-battered cod. 24223 Jefferson Ave., St. Clair Shores; 586-773-3279. L,D daily.

Macomb

Andiamo $$

ITALIAN • Over the past three decades, Joe Vicari has established several Andiamo restaurants in metro Detroit, all inspired by the late master chef Aldo Ottaviani’s philosophy of seasonal, from-scratch cooking. Menus differ slightly between locations, but the constant is fresh, housemade pastas — handcrafted by the trinity of “pasta ladies,” Anna, Tanya, and Angelina, who have carried on the tradition. The Warren location is the flagship that started it all. 7096 14 Mile Road, Warren; 586-268-3200. L,D Mon.-Fri., D Sat.-Sun.

Barleycorn’s Public House $$ GASTROPUB • This casual spot offers a wide-ranging cocktail menu, craft beers, and elevated pub fare (try

the Southerner, a buttermilk-soaked fried chicken, or the fish and chips). Located near Emagine theater, it’s an ideal spot to grab a burger and drinks before or after a movie. 50985 Hayes Road, Shelby Township; 586-271-8700. L,D Tue.-Fri., D Sat.-Sun.

Bar Verona $$

ITALIAN • Scratch-made Italian favorites as well as fresh craft cocktails fill the menu at this stylish eatery. Homemade pastas, such as Giuseppe’s and Spaghetti al Basilico, and specialty pizzas, including The Verona and the Truffle Mushroom, as well as a selection of steaks and seafood dishes typify the modernized approach to fresh and uncomplicated Italian cuisine. 59145 Van Dyke Ave., Washington; 586-4730700. D daily.

Butter Run Saloon $

GASTROPUB • Solid American fare that’s beyond bar food (although their burgers are certainly noteworthy). There’s escargot, perch, steaks, and a huge whiskey selection — 900 at last count. 27626 Harper Ave., St. Clair Shores; 586-675-2115. L,D daily.

Da Francesco’s Ristorante & Bar $$

ITALIAN • Da Francesco’s has been around for more than 15 years, but its massive new facility is packing in the crowds by offering traditional Italian dining with an upbeat modern twist. 49521 Van Dyke Ave., Shelby Township; 586-731-7544. L,D Tue.-Fri., D Sat., L,D Sun.

Gaudino’s $$

ITALIAN • The trending market-restaurant combo has a good example at this spot. It offers imported pastas and sauces, plus a butcher counter with sausages and a wine assortment. The menu offers pasta and pizza, salads, and entrees, including a Chicken Milanese. 27919 Harper Ave., St. Clair Shores; 586879-6764. L,D Tue.-Sat

Isla $$

FILIPINO • Dishes at this Filipino restaurant, formerly sheltered at Fort Street Galley, are reflective of the culinary traditions of the founders’ Iloilo City hometown. Annatto is used to punch up the color of Chicken Adobo, the unofficial dish of the Philippines, and juicy mangoes complement sweet and savory dishes. 2496 Metro Pkwy, Sterling Heights; 586-883-7526. D Tue.-Sat., BR Sun.

J. Baldwin’s Restaurant $$$

NEW AMERICAN • The menu showcases talented chef Jeff Baldwin’s contemporary American food: cedarplanked salmon, chicken fettuccini alfredo with pesto, and herb-crusted chicken, with housemade breads. The desserts include chocolate bumpy cake, spiced carrot cake, apple cobbler, chocolate mousse layer cake, and banana foster bread pudding. 16981 18 Mile Road, Clinton Township; 586-416-3500. L,D Tue.-Sun., BR Sun.

Mr. Paul’s Chophouse $$$

STEAKHOUSE • This bastion of red meat as well as classic dishes is still going strong. Try old-school tableside presentations such as Chateaubriand and Caesar salad. There’s a solid selection of fresh seafood and pasta, too. The founding family still runs the place and emphasizes great hospitality and a heckuva good time. 29850 Groesbeck Hwy., Roseville; 586-7777770. L,D Mon.-Fri., D Sat.

Sherwood Brewing Co. $

GASTROPUB • Quality local ingredients raise Sherwood’s fare to well above “elevated pub grub.” Some notable choices include the hearty House Beer Chili, savory Better Made-crusted fish and chips, and spicy Buffalo Mac. Homemade extends to dessert, including Cashew Outside Cookies. This isn’t

FLOWERS OF VIETNAM 4440 VERNOR HIGHWAY DETROIT 313-554-2085

just bar food, it’s elevated bar food. 45689 Hayes Road, Shelby Township; 586-532-9669. L,D Tue.-Sat.

Steakhouse 22 $$

STEAKHOUSE • The late Nick Andreopoulos once spent time as a “broiler man” at London Chop House. His family stays true to those roots at this American steakhouse with a casual, neighborhood feel. They offer an array of well-prepared angus steaks, plus seafood and pasta dishes. With the sizable lunch and portions offered at Steakhouse 22, good luck saving room for dessert! 48900 Van Dyke Ave., Shelby Township; 586-731-3900. L,D Tue.-Sun.

Testa Barra $$

ITALIAN • The newest spot from talented chef and restaurateur Jeffrey Baldwin and his wife, RoseMarie, offers modern Italian fare in a lively, upbeat setting. Pastas are made in-house. 48824 Romeo Plank Road, Macomb Township; 586-434-0100. L Sun., D daily.

Twisted Rooster $$

SPORTS BAR • This “Michigan-centric” chain (Chesterfield Township, Grand Rapids, and Belleville) has takes on classics, with mac & cheese variations and steaks with “zip” sauce. 45225 Marketplace Blvd., Chesterfield; 586-949-1470. L,D daily.

Vast Kitchen and Bar $$

NEW AMERICAN • Chef Nicole Justman heads the kitchen at this fresh spot that brings a touch of Birmingham to Shelby Township. A contemporary menu at Vast Kitchen and Bar includes pan-seared salmon and sous vide pork shank. 52969 Van Dyke Ave., Shelby Township; 586-991-6104. L,D Mon.-Sat.

Washtenaw

Bellflower $$$

NEW AMERICAN • A restaurant housed in a former exchange of the Michigan Bell Telephone Company, Bellflower answers Ypsilanti’s call for fine dining with an adventurous flair. Boudin sausage with roasted okra, baked oysters, and ginger ale or CocaCola-roasted beets showed up on early menus as chef Dan Klenotic’s way of straddling the line of creole tradition and an imaginative style that is entirely his own. 209 Pearl St., Ypsilanti. L,D Mon.-Sat.

Black Pearl $$

SEAFOOD This seafood and martini bar is especially popular during patio season. But step inside for a host of craft cocktails, then stay for dinner. A seafood-dominated menu includes a notable roasted scallop dish. Non-seafood options include the eponymous burger, roasted butternut squash salad, and filet mignon. And make sure to order dessert.

302 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; 734-222-0400. D daily.

Blue LLama Jazz Club $$

CREATIVE AMERICAN Come to this swanky jazz club for the music, which includes headliners such as the Grammy-nominated Ravi Coltrane Quartet, but stay for Chef Louis Goral’s delicious food. Try the crispy foie gras PB&J with Marcona almonds and strawberry jam. There is also a delicious Sunday brunch with decadent orange blossom beignets and strawberry pancakes. 314 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; 734-372-3200. D Tue.-Sat.

The Blue Nile $$

ETHIOPIAN • The real treat of the meal at this quaint Ferndale restaurant is that it’s scooped up with a spongy bread called injera, and all the lentils, often seasoned with an Ethiopian spice mixture known as Berber, and vegetables are equally delicious. 221 E. Washington

St., Ann Arbor; 734-998-4746. D Tue.-Sun.545 W. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale; 248-547-6699. D Thu.-Sun.

Cardamom $$

INDIAN • Check out the Hyderabadi Biryani —chicken, goat, and vegetable dishes, in which the rice is first cooked then baked. All the Indian favorites are available at Cardamom, such as Chicken Tikka Masala, Lamb Rogan Josh, and warm, fluffy, made-fresh garlic naan. It’s the ideal spot for when you’re craving the classics. 1739 Plymouth Road, Ann Arbor; 734-6622877. L Sun., D Tue.-Sun.

The Common Grill $$

SEAFOOD • Founded by Chef Craig Common, whose skilled work drew the attention of the now shuttered Gourmet magazine and the James Beard House, this mainstay was acquired in 2022 by Peas & Carrots Hospitality. Chefs Zack Sklar and Josh Humphrey most of the beloved restaurant’s menu, such as the expertly prepared oysters and seafood dishes as well as the coconut cream pie. 112 S. Main St., Chelsea; 734-475-0470. L,D Tue.-Sun., BR Sun.

KouZina Greek Steet Food $

GREEK • The Greek “street food” at this Ann Arbor spot comes in lamb and beef, and chicken. Try the lentil soup for a delicious lunch or go for something more filling like falafel. Either way, you can’t go wrong with this excellent spot. 332 S. Main St., Ann Arbor; 734997-5155. L,D Tue.-Sun.

Mani Osteria & Bar $$

ITALIAN • This popular casual restaurant infuses freshness with lower prices than most osterias in the area. It’s a well-rounded blend of modern, eclectic Italian with classic standbys. The pizzas are hot, fresh and perfectly executed to suit your tastes. 341 E. Liberty St., Ann Arbor; 734-769-6700. L Fri.-Sun., D Wed.-Sun.

Miss Kim $$

KOREAN • This spinoff from the Zingerman’s mini empire comes courtesy of chef Ji Hye Kim, a James Beard semifinalist. Kim meticulously researches Korean culinary traditions and recipes to create her unique blend of modern Korean food highlighting Michigan vegetables, from housemade kimchi to the tteokbokki (rice cakes). Some of the restaurant’s standouts include a craveable Korean fried chicken and its plantbased counterpart the Korean fried tofu. 415 N. Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor, 734-275-0099. L and D Wed.-Mon.

Paesano $$

ITALIAN • With a friendly waitstaff and decked in vibrant colors, this lively restaurant is not to be missed. The innovative menu changes seasonally. Must-tries have included the pasta carbonara, featuring shrimp, duck bacon, and Italian greens, as well as beet and ricotta gnocchi with brown butter. 3411 Washtenaw Ave., Ann Arbor; 734-971-0484. L,D daily.

Seva Ann Arbor $$ VEGAN • Seva offers such dishes as black bean and sweet potato quesadillas, gluten-free options, and colorful stir-fries — some vegan as well as vegetarian. There’s also a full bar as well as a juice bar serving creamy smoothies and dense shakes, fresh-squeezed juices, and craft mocktails. Choose from one of the most extensive vegetarian menus in the Detroit area. 2541 Jackson Ave., Ann Arbor; 734-662-1111. L,D Mon.-Sat.

Shalimar $$

INDIAN • Offering North Indian, Tandoori, and Mughlai dishes, Shalimar is suitable for carnivores and herbivores alike. Standouts include the Tandoori Lamb Chops marinated in creamy yogurt,

spicy ginger, and fresh garlic, which is best eaten with the restaurant’s flavorful, chewy garlic naan served fresh and hot. 307 S. Main St., Ann Arbor;734-663-1500. L, D daily.

Slurping Turtle $ JAPANESE • This fun, casual Ann Arbor restaurant, owned by celebrity chef Takashi Yagihashi, offers plenty of shareable dishes, such as hamachi tacos and duck-fat fried chicken. But the star at Slurping Turtle is the noodle (Yagihashi’s “soul food”), which is made in-house daily on a machine imported from Japan. 608 E. Liberty St., Ann Arbor; 734-887-6868. L,D daily.

The Boro Dining Room and Bar $$$$ NEW AMERICAN • Much like the restaurant’s ambience, the cuisine at The Boro is both refined and relaxed. The Grilled Bone-In Pork Loin typifies the vibe. In flavor, the pork is reminiscent of a slab of tender brisket at a family barbecue. The loin is sweetened with a smattering of St. Louis-style barbecue glaze. In presentation and accoutrements, though, the dish is worthy of white-tablecloth status. 5400 Plymouth Road, Ann Arbor; 734-6693310. B,L,D daily.

Zingerman’s Delicatessen $ SANDWICH/DELI • Zingerman’s Delicatessen is a household name for Michiganians, and a must-try staple in Ann Arbor. The temptations at Zingerman’s are endless: fresh breads and a menu of filling sandwiches, olive oils and housemade balsamic vinegars, chilies, and mustards. 422 Detroit St., Ann Arbor; 734663-3354. B,L,D daily.

FEATURED

Yotsuba

Japanese Restaurant & Bar

JAPANESE

The semicircular sushi bar is the center of this restaurant. Sushi chef Bobby Suzuki has a loyal following for his precise nigiri rolls. There are also tatami rooms and conventional seating. 7365 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield Township; 248-737-8282.

2222 Hogback Road, Ann Arbor; 734-9715168. L,D Tue.-Sun.

Zingerman’s Roadhouse $$$

CLASSIC COMFORT • This eatery celebrates the food of various American cities, from fresh Maryland crab cakes to the delicacies of New Orleans. The buttermilk biscuits are beyond-this-world. 2501 Jackson Ave., Ann Arbor; 734-663-3663. B,L,D daily.

DETROIT CRISTO REY HIGH SCHOOL’S ANNUAL SPRING GALA: “CARING FOR CREATION”

Friday, May 19, 5 p.m. - 10 p.m. The Masonic Temple

500 Temple St., Detroit

Join Detroit Cristo Rey High School for our annual Spring Gala celebrating our core educational belief: Caring for Creation. Guests will enjoy a strolling dinner with a program highlighting the students. Detroit Cristo Rey High School provides excellent collegepreparatory Catholic high school education, in the Cristo Rey Model, to students from economically disadvantaged families in Detroit. The school emphasizes faith, morals, and service to the community.

BUILDING A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR PONTIAC: AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE

Friday, May 19, 6 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Traveling Chef Catering, Lafayette Grande 1 Lafayette, Pontiac pontiaccommunityfoundation.org

Celebrating five years, Pontiac Community Foundation continues to work diligently to make a broad impact in the city of Pontiac and has been able to leverage more than $10 million in financial resources for the Pontiac community.

NOISES OFF

May 31 - June 25

Meadow Brook Theatre

378 Meadow Brook Road, Rochester Hills theatre.com/noises-off

This play-within-a-play captures a touring theater troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance, and a performance toward the end of a debilitating run. Progressing from flubbed lines and missed cues in the dress rehearsal to mounting friction between cast members, slamming doors, falling trousers, and flying sardines in their final performances, audiences are treated to a hilarious behindthe-scenes peek that truly challenges the age-old saying “The show must go on.”

needed enable

Through its work-study program, the school fosters skills and attitudes important in the workplace, such as responsibility, determination, and respect for self and others. In the finest tradition of Catholic outreach, we welcome families of all denominations. With a challenging and supportive college preparatory program, we equip students with the core knowledge and competencies needed for college and the workplace. Our ultimate goal is to enable students to gain the skills to be successful in life and the commitment to make a difference in their families, their neighborhoods, and the world.

Please join us in celebrating and experience how Pontiac Community Foundation works to improve the quality of life for Pontiac residents by immersing yourself in our four focus areas: neighborhood investment, economic vitality, civic engagement, and racial equity. The evening includes a sitdown dinner and short program.

TONY ROKO’S ART IN THE VILLAGE PRESENTED BY COMMUNITY FINANCIAL CREDIT UNION

Saturday, May 20, 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Art Foundation

198 W. Liberty St., Plymouth artfoundationdetroit.org

Join artist Tony Roko for an evening of art and entertainment you won’t want to miss on Saturday, May 20, from 7 to 10 p.m. at his studio located at 198 W. Liberty St. in Plymouth. Tony Roko’s Art in the Village is presented by Community Financial Credit Union, and proceeds benefit Art Foundation. For tickets and more information, visit artofroko.com.

GODFATHER’S CHARITY GOLF OUTING

Monday, May 22, 8:30 a.m.

Pine Knob Golf Course 5580 Walden Road, Auburn Hills golfplanners.com/store/category/ godfathers

5580 Godfather’s where benefit which world. are lunch ceremony.

Join us for the third annual Godfather’s Charity Golf Outing, where portions of the proceeds will benefit the Yellow Ribbon Fund, which supports service members and their families all around the world. Included in your ticket price are green fees, a golf cart, range balls, a continental breakfast, lunch at the turn, a golfer gift bag, dinner, and the awards ceremony. Registration starts at 8:30 a.m., and shotgun starts at 9:30 a.m. Tickets and sponsorship packages are available now through Professional Golf Planners of America. Tickets can be purchased in advance online.

MBT Rating: Middle school & up TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOUR MEDIA'S SPONSORED EVENTS AND SEE PHOTOS FROM THOSE EVENTS, VISIT VISIT HOURDETROIT.COM

2023 KENTUCKY DERBY GALA

Saturday, May 6, 4:30 p.m - 8 p.m.

Indianwood Golf & Country Club

1081 Indianwood Road, Lake Orion hopeagainsttrafficking.org/event/ 2023-kentucky-derby-gala

With both VIP and general admission tickets, our Kentucky Derby Gala has something for everyone!

This will be a memorable event that will support both the survivors of human trafficking in our program and our community outreach and education.

Join us on Saturday, May 6, at Indianwood Country Club in Lake Orion.

2023 DETROIT HORSE POWER GALA

Saturday, May 13, 5 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Marygrove Conservancy

8425 McNichols Road, Detroit detroithorsepower.org

Join us for Detroit Horse Power’s annual gala to support our summer camps and after-school programs that teach Detroit youth how to ride and care for horses! This year’s gala will be hosted at the beautiful Marygrove Conservancy with cocktails, dinner, raffles, and an awards ceremony to honor Detroit Horse Power’s champion students. You’ll hear firsthand how Detroit Horse Power has opened new opportunities for them, and you’ll meet with all the amazing and unique partners of Detroit Horse Power!

HILLEL DAY SCHOOL ANNUAL GALA

Sunday, May 21, 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Hillel Day School

32200 Middlebelt Road, Farmington Hills llelday.org/hdsgala23

Hillel Day School’s Annual Gala, its most important fundraiser, attracts more than 500 guests and generates essential funds for the school’s tuition assistance program. This celebratory event will take place on Sunday, May 21, at 5 p.m. on Hillel’s beautiful campus and includes an extensive silent auction, a strolling dinner, and dessert. Paula and Louis Glazier will be honored as this year’s Dream Makers, Todd Fink will receive the Rabbi Jacob E. Segal Award, and Greg Kaplan will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award. RSVP at hillelday.org/hdsgala23.

YELLOW ROSE WOMEN’S CHARITY FOR SANCTUM HOUSE

Thursday, May 11, 5:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Niki’s Nightlife

743 Beaubien Blvd., Detroit sanctumhouse.networkforgood.com/ events/49418-exclusive-women-s-socialfundraiser

The annual Yellow Rose Charity For Women's event moves to Niki's Nightlife, a larger venue with more food, fun, music and a bigger fundraising goal for the renowned Sanctum House, a sanctuary for survivors of human trafficking. Sanctum House is a home where women can reimagine their lives with newly taught life skills, education, career training, job placement and improved physical and mental health.

You may not know that Michigan ranks 5th in the USA in reports to the National Human Trafficking hotline. Of the victims reported, 90% are female. (Source: 2021)

Each year, Yellow Rose identifies one charity dedicated to helping girls and women whose lives have been impacted by crime and circumstance. This year, Yellow Rose is proud to support and continue to build on the Community Project Funding that Representative Brenda L. Lawrence (MI-14) has so successfully secured for Sanctum House.

PROM REMODELED

Saturday, May 13, 7 p.m. - 11 p.m.

Durfee Innovation Society

2470 Collingwood St., Detroit promremodeled.org

THE HATS OFF LUNCHEON BENEFITING THE SUITE DREAMS PROJECT

Friday, May 12, 11 a.m - 2 p.m.

The Townsend Hotel

100 Townsend St., Birmingham

suitedreamsproject.org

The Hats Off Luncheon is a yearly fundraising event benefiting the Suite Dreams Project. Suite Dreams is in its 23rd year of creating dream bedrooms for chronically ill children throughout the state of Michigan. This year's luncheon will be held at The Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, followed by an after-party at 220 Merrill. Those attending are encouraged to wear a beautiful hat complementing their attire for the afternoon. The Hats Off Luncheon is the organization’s one major fundraiser supporting a year’s worth of bedrooms for the foundation’s recipients.

HAVEN RESILIENCE GALA

Thursday, May 18, 5:30 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Shepherd’s Hollow Golf Club

9085 Big Lake Road, Clarkston haven-oakland.org

get your Detroit's Detroit Life your up of Innovation

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Have you ever wished you could get a do-over for certain major life events? Prom Remodeled will be a chance to redo or relive your prom experience as we bring together the who's who of Detroit's philanthropy community and the influencers of Detroit neighborhoods for an incredible evening benefiting Life Remodeled and its neighborhood revitalization work. Experience the debut of what will be one of Detroit’s most iconic, must-attend annual events, featuring two national headlining entertainers and a “Taste of Detroit” showcase highlighting some of Detroit's premier restaurants. Get your prom dresses and tuxedos ready for when you roll up in a limo, walk the red carpet, and enjoy a variety of strolling hors d’oeuvres and cocktails at the Durfee Innovation Society. Will you go to the prom with us? This is an invite-only event, but sponsorships are still available. Please contact Omari Taylor at omari@liferemodeled.org or 313-744-3052, ext. 1001.

Join HAVEN of Oakland County on May 18 at Shepherd’s Hollow Golf Club as we celebrate and honor survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. The evening will feature survivors’ stories of hope and resilience while guests enjoy live music and entertainment, a silent auction, and a seated gourmet dinner. HAVEN is Oakland County’s only agency offering comprehensive services for survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual assault. The annual Resilience Gala is HAVEN’s largest fundraiser, bringing in more than $300,000 for critical and necessary services. Each dollar raised allows HAVEN to accomplish its mission to empower survivors and their families.

Tickets to the event are $200 per person and include reserved seating. HAVEN offers a $75 young professional ticket option for those 35 and under. Purchase a VIP table by April 17 for $2,000, which includes program and digital recognition, six VIP gala tickets, and reserved seating. Sponsorships are available. Purchase tickets at haven-oakland.org. For more information about sponsorships, email development@haven-oakland.org.

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOUR MEDIA'S SPONSORED EVENTS AND SEE PHOTOS FROM THOSE EVENTS, VISIT HOURDETROIT.COM

2023 Metro Detroit Go Red for Women

THE 2023 METRO DETROIT Go Red for Women featured a silent auction, an expo, and mingling along with lunch and speakers at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi. Proceeds from the 19th annual luncheon went to support the American Heart Association and its fight against heart disease and stroke among women.

1. Katherine Alarcon, Anne Marie Kaminski

2. Sylvia Kim, Diane Nylander, Faith Ureal

3. Jessica Pfeifer 4. Shatica McDonald family

5. Al Bologna, Linda Briggs, Mike McCoy

6. Megan Gregory

7. Vaneitta Goines, Samah Hamam, Rhonda Walker, Veronica BeasleyRobinson

8. Carmen Dotch, Sharon Gipson, Kimberly Heard 9. Ronia Kruse, Kortney Wallace, Kristy Sidlar

10. Jeremy Davis, Marilyn McDonald

11. Victoria Bair, Liz Maier, Ayren Hurst, Mellissa Zuzga

12. Rhonda Walker, Shatica McDonald

03.10.2023

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTINE M.J. HATHAWAY

03.11.2023

Motor City Gala

PHOTOS BY KEVIN BEAN

THE 2023 MOTOR CITY Gala at St. John’s Resort in Plymouth kicked off with a cocktail hour and welcome ceremony. After, guests were treated to dinner, a live auction, a live performance by the George Brothers, and a guest speaker. Proceeds from the event went to support Folds of Honor Motor City, which provides educational scholarships to the spouses and children of America’s fallen and disabled service members.

1. Jim and Sarah Harrison 2. John and Jenna Kostrzewa, Rob and Sarah Vella

3. Josh and Cortnie Parish 4. Roy and Trudy Anderson, Dan and Tara Mahoney, Erin and Steve Jameson

5. Pat Davidson, Scott Holka, Russ Bruner

6. Jennifer Panning, Brian and Jennifer Horton 7. Mark Parrinello, McKenzie Modigell, Joe Parrinello

8. Casey Wheeler, Allison Johnston, Kim Barnes, Thomas David 9. Kyle and Diana Swider, Ryan and Shannon Silva, Dara Rodriguez 10. Brian and Dawn Switzer

11. Bryan and Jennifer Buckley, Rachel and Andrew Dreikosen Jr. 12. Ashley Bruner, Shannon Hemmelgarn, Elise Simpson

03.10.2023

Motu Viget Spirits & Ty Mopkins: Center of Attraction Gala

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEVIN BEAN

THE BLACK-TIE Motu Viget Spirits & Ty Mopkins: Center of Attraction Gala at the MOCAD Café brought together community entrepreneurs, creatives, activists, and other “doers” for a celebration and networking event that raised funds for The Jalen Rose Leadership Academy of Detroit and the Universal Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx, New York. Guests were treated to “Golden Age” hip-hop and R&B music spun by DJ Steady Rock, a world-class arts exhibition curated by MOCAD, complimentary Motu Viget spirits, and a strolling dinner.

Horton, George Mckenney

3. Jamie Robinson, Ty Mopkins, Jonathan Jelks, Screal Eberheart Jr., Willie The Kid 4. Dr. Kairi Horsley, Rich Thompson 5. Lakisha Tanner, Tomeika Mopkins 6. Shakeem

Covington, Cameron Mains 7. Jamarr Donald, Breelan Davis, Ajene Evans, Gary Hunter 8. Noelle Childress, Baron and Dionne Kennedy 9. Sheree Calhoun, Antone Amye, Sheila White

10. Paris Blessman, Raymond Simpson, Mary Sheffield

11. Amanda Robinson, Linda D. Allen, Dashonn McLaurin

The Way It Was

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, General Motors Co. completed construction on its massive 15-story headquarters on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. It soon became an iconic symbol of the Motor City and the world-leading U.S. auto industry. By the end of the Roaring Twenties, GM was the nation’s largest single employer.

This photo — taken on Dec. 8, 1945, from the Fisher Building — reveals the busy intersection of West Grand Boulevard and Second Avenue surrounding the headquarters.

William Durant founded the company in 1908 before consolidating a number of auto manufacturers, including Buick, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, and Oakland (Pontiac), and 10 years later, GM’s board of directors directed him to build permanent headquarters in Detroit.

Nearly 50 structures were demolished on 3.7 acres of land on West Grand Boulevard between Cass and Second before ground was broken in 1919. Built at a cost of $18 million, with 1.4 million square feet of floor space, 4 miles of corridors, 31 elevators, 1,650 offices, an exposition hall, auto showrooms, and capacity for 6,000 employees, it was touted by the company as “the largest office building of its kind in the world.”

The neoclassical office building designed by architect Albert Kahn features four parallel 15-story wings clad in limestone and crowned by a Corinthian colonnade. Standing above the main entrance is a clock with two female figures representing knowledge and commerce designed by noted architectural sculptor Ulysses Ricci.

Originally, the building was to be named in honor of Durant, but subsequent to his ouster in 1920, the structure was renamed the General Motors Building before it was completed in 1923. The initial “D” for Durant still appears carved into stone above the main entrance and other areas.

In 1996, GM purchased the Renaissance Center, where it moved its headquarters, while the General Motors Building was transferred to New Center Development, which oversaw the structure’s renovation. Renamed Cadillac Place in honor of Detroit’s founder, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, today it houses state of Michigan offices. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978. —Bill Dow