The Best Restaurants Around Detroit, According To Bon Appetit

DETROIT, MI — Looking to keep up with Detroit’s emerging food scene or just get some of the most reputable cuisines around town? Look no further than Bon Appetit’s new roundup of must-try restaurants around the region.

Many of the restaurants are in Detroit, from swanky downtown spots to humble bakeries and cafes. The recommended restaurants cover an array of cuisines and include classics and ethnic dishes.

The food magazine also says there’s three must-eat foods to try in Detroit: its pizza, its chili and its toum (garlic paste).

Here’s some of the recommended places and what they had to say about them:

Standby

Enter through an alley for this boozehound’s cocktail bar, where Joe Robinson, co-owner and bartender of Standby, turns sherbets, house bitters, tonics, and a wide variety of labels into 42 winning combos. The up-tempo bar food menu is plenty good, and the banquettes are comfy, but this a place to sit at the bar and drink. The staff is pro but also welcoming and nonjudgy, as evidenced by the diversity of customers sidling up. Farther down the alley, Robinson has a slushie bar called The Skip.

Yemen Cafe

The town of Hamtramck is said to be home to Michigan’s most diverse population and its best immigrant-made food. Yemeni food is the star, and of the four Yemeni restaurants here, Yemen Cafe is the best. Order the lamb fahsah, a lava-hot pot of bone-in lamb, onions, and peppers topped with whipped fenugreek and served with flatbread.

Hamido

Just blocks away from James Beard Award–winner Al-Ameer (that moujadara!) and a favorite spot of the late artist Mike Kelley, Cedarland (that lentil soup!), Hamido (the Dearborn location) is the zenith of Detroit-metro Lebanese food. Expect long lines for carryout; orders written, unaccountably, on cigarette cartons; and a family-style dining room that’s at capacity every sundown of Ramadan. The chicken shawarma, layered with bits of lemon zest, is part dark meat and becomes al-pastor-level crispy; the foul (a fava bean breakfast bowl) is bathed in olive oil and comes with tomato, onion, and bright pink pickled turnips.

Good Cakes and Bakes

Good Cakes and Bakes, was one of the very first businesses to reemerge on this once super-busy stretch of Livernois Avenue, just south of 8 Mile and Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, a great historical Detroit stop. Pastry chef April presents a slew of all-organic sugar bombs, including a St. Louis–style Lemon Gooey Butter Cake. The OMG bar—ganache, homemade (and perfect) marshmallow, graham- cracker bottom—is a s’more in a tuxedo. The shop has become a neighborhood hangout, with pop-ups from the local food-business incubator FoodLab Detroit and open mics—it even doubles as a UPS access point.

Folk - Corktown

While only a few months old, Folk seems once and always Detroit. Kiki Louya and Rohani Foulkes, who also own The Farmer’s Hand (the boutique-but-down-home greengrocer next door), anchor a building filled with women-owned businesses and are across the street from chef Kate Williams’ smash-hit Lady of the House. They’ve created 24 seats of communal warmth in a bright, airy space. And they’ve found an enthusiastic audience for an L.A.-feel brunch—bowls with hummus and greens, cold soba, toast with pimiento cheese—in Rust Belt portions.

Read the full article here.

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