Get ready for Detroit’s biggest Fall restaurant week yet, held September 18-27. We’re here to tell you how to rock it like a champ. This year is going to be a little different with most restaurants offering a three-course meal for $35 and select restaurants offering their own set-up for $25. The $25 deals are unique for each restaurant, so call them individually for more details.
The DRW Facebook has already posted their menus for Wolfgang Puck Pizzeria & Cucina, The Whitney, Prism, Mario’s, Gold Cash Gold, Detroit Seafood Market, Cliff Bell’s, and Da Edoardo Foxtown Grille.
You can win five $50 gift certificates to participating restaurants when you go on Detroit Restaurant Week’s Facebook page and “like” and share this image by Tuesday, September 8 at 5 p.m.
There are a lot of great restaurants to choose from this fall, but if we had to pick five, this is what we recommend.
1. Chartruese Kitchen and Cocktails
15 E Kirby St, Detroit, MI 48202
(313) 818-3915
Chartreuse takes the freshest local ingredients and makes them uniquely their own. It is fine dining with a rustic twist served small-plates style. The food is cooked so well and presented so memorably that diners constantly take pictures of their meal. Let’s hope their signature twice-cooked egg, a perfectly deep-fried egg bread in Panko crumbs on a bed of seasoned greens, makes it on their DRW menu. Learn more about Chartreuse from a write-up we did a few months back.
2. Traffic Jam and Snug
15 E Kirby St, Detroit, MI 48202
(313) 818-3915
Traffic Jam and Snug is known by locals as the Detroit Zingermann’s. They make as much as possible in-house, including their own Asiago cheese. They even have their own brewery and bakery, where all of their sandwich bread is sourced. The restaurant has enough going for it to earn a profile on Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. That can be seen as the cherry on top or as a warning sign, depending on the cultural demographic you identify with.
3. Cliff Bell’s
2030 Park Ave, Detroit, MI 48226
(313) 961-2543
You need to come to Cliff Bell’s for the amazing live music. Dining at Cliff Bell’s is like stepping into another time when jazz was just dazzling the nation and people could smoke inside. The food is as solid as the music, with standard American classics like their famous Shrimp and Grits.
4. Roma Cafe
3401 Riopelle St, Detroit, MI 48207
(313) 831-5940
You can’t say you’ve dined well in Detroit without making a stop at Roma Cafe. It is the place The Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra’s Ocean’s Eleven Gang) drank too much and ate too much, so you should too. It is old-style Italian food, like Chicken Parmesan, done really well. And they practically fork over a side of spaghetti with just about everything.
5. Townhouse Detroit
500 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48226
(313) 723-1000
Townhouse Detroit has its own sushi and dim sum menu. Everybody goes to Townhouse for the burgers and Townhouse is self-aware enough to accommodate accordingly. To quote the write-up we did a few months back, the scene is so well-designed that “you could almost forget you were in Detroit.”
6. El Barzon
3710 Junction St, Detroit, MI 48210
(313) 894-2070
El Barzon is easily the nicest Mexican restaurant in Mexicantown. It is far from stuffy, though. They have this awesome flaming jalapeno tequila that gets lit on fire in front of you before it is served. And anything Mexican food you crave, enchiladas, tacos, mole, and stuffed peppers, they do really well. They even make their own guacamole and salsas. Their Italian menu is not bad, either.
Find out more about Detroit Restaurant Week on their website.