Detroit's most eagerly awaited restaurant openings of 2018

There was no shortage of big-name restaurant openings in 2017, but 2018 has the potential to be a watershed year for Detroit’s dining scene thanks to more bespoke hotels, new projects from hometown heroes and rumored big names coming in from out of town to claim a stake of the Motor City’s growing culinary cachet.

Here’s the rundown on a handful of potentially game-changing food and beverage outposts scheduled to debut in Detroit this year.

The Siren Hotel and the return of Garrett Lipar

The old Wurlitzer Building is slated to launch a new chapter in its life when it debuts as the Siren Hotel in January. Though there’s plenty of interest from historic preservationists and fans of Renaissance Revival architecture, dining enthusiasts also have a lot to look forward to at the new boutique hotel, which promises seven food and beverage concepts.

The most eagerly awaited of the bunch is Albena, an eight-seat tasting-menu restaurant that marks a return to the kitchen by former Torino chef and James Beard Award nominee Garrett Lipar. At Albena, named for Lipar’s grandmother, the young chef aims to define contemporary Great Lakes cuisine and reignite the national buzz he earned in his previous post.

In addition to Albena, the Siren will also have an outpost of the Bay City-based Populace Coffee, a cocktail lounge called Candy Bar and a hopping second-floor diner helmed by a prominent Detroit chef. (Mum’s the word on who that might be for now.) The Siren also promises a piano karaoke bar, another bar on the roof of the historically significant downtown building and another as-yet-unannounced concept on the main floor.

The Shinola Hotel and the influx of national players

Few details are available about the dining and drinking options the new Shinola Hotel will offer when it opens in late 2018, but we know that Andrew Carmellini’s NoHo Hospitality Group will be running the food and beverage show. Carmellini might not be a Michael Symon-style celebrity chef or a household name for folks who don’t closely follow the restaurant industry, but inside its circles, the Ohio-born chef is a culinary star.

Carmellini made a name for himself in some of New York’s finest restaurants before opening Daniel Boulud’s Cafe Boulud as its chef de cuisine in 1998. In his six years running Cafe Boulud, Carmellini won two James Beard Awards and was crowned Best New Chef by Food & Wine magazine. Next came a coveted Michelin star at A Voce.

Beginning with the opening of Locanda Verde in Robert De Niro’s Greenwich Hotel in 2009, Carmellini has been growing his culinary empire with the NoHo Hospitality Group, which now claims more than a dozen restaurants in New York, Miami and Baltimore. Lately, the group has been focusing on hotel-based concepts and, notably, one of the NoHo partners grew up in metro Detroit. With that in mind, Shinola makes a lot of sense.

In addition to Carmellini, there’s still hope that Marcus Samuelsson will finally announce his Detroit plans. The New York City-based Sussman brothers are teaming up with ex-Rose’s Fine Foods partner Lucy Carnaghi to open Wilda’s in New Center. Rumors abound about an out-of-town chef coming to set up shop in the old Zenith space in the Fisher Building. Additionally, multiple sources with knowledge of what’s going on atop the RenCen say a big name in Las Vegas dining is close to signing a deal for the former Coach Insignia space.

But even if only a few of these players ultimately set up shop here, the groundswell of interest means Detroit is truly becoming a hot restaurant market on the national level — and not just in fawning travel listicles.

Anthony Lombardo’s SheWolf

It’s a bit ironic that former Bacco chef and Sterling Heights native Anthony Lombardo is better known in the culinary circles of Washington, D.C., than in his hometown. After a five-year stint at Southfield’s Bacco, the Italian-American chef made a name for himself in the nation’s capital successfully running the Hamilton, one of the largest and highest-grossing restaurants in the country. This after succeeding his friend Daniel Giusti at the helm of the prestigious 1789 Restaurant. (Giusti is best known as the former chef of Noma in Copenhagen, widely acclaimed as one of the world’s best restaurants.)

Lombardo came back home in 2016 and took the reins at Bacco once again, but only for a short while. In October, Lombardo announced he would be striking out on his own with SheWolf Pastificio & Bar, a modern Italian restaurant in Midtown that will be milling its own grain for flour.

Detroit has no shortage of classic Italian-American red sauce joints, but contemporary takes on true Italian cuisine are less common. With SheWolf — named after the Roman origin myth — Lombardo is primed to fill that gap while also proving his mettle in the town of his own origin.

Takoi team’s Magnet

Last year was a roller coaster of highs and lows for the folks at Corktown’s Takoi (formerly Katoi). Instead of slowing down in 2018, the team is moving full speed ahead on its next concept and development.

For starters, formerly New York City-based partner Philip Kafka has moved to Detroit full time and is doubling down on his investment in the city. (In addition to Takoi, Kafka is also the developer behind the award-winning Quonset hut village True North.) The next phase of his plan will transform the corner of Grand River and Warren, where he has bought a chunk of land and buildings that will house a commissary kitchen, Astro Coffee’s new roasting facility and a new restaurant helmed by Greenhill inside the old Magnet Radiator Works building.

Dubbed Magnet, the new restaurant is aiming for a late-spring or early-summer debut, though Greenhill is keeping his options open for what kind of cuisine will be served. A wood-fired grill will be at kitchen’s core and diners can expect a globe-trotting menu that will likely incorporate the chef’s love of Southeast Asian ingredients and techniques but with more of the Italian influences of his early cooking career coming through. With the same team and architect behind the project as Takoi, you can bet it will be both imaginatively irreverent and unlike anything else in the city.

Flowers of Vietnam 2.0

A lot has happened since the weekends-only supper club inside Vernor Coney Island closed for renovations last March. Chef George Azar spent six weeks in Mexico cooking with the prestigious Noma pop-up in Tulum. Then came the anointment from GQ Magazine, which named Flowers of Vietnam one of the best new restaurants in America. A Zagat “30 Under 30” award for the chef followed, along with a new Flowers food stall at Ford Field. In October, Azar took his core crew on a research trip to Vietnam. The fruits of that trip should be on display soon, as the long-delayed renovation nears completion and the restaurant aims to reintroduce itself to the community any day now.

Marrow and Gratiot Avenue Provisions test the restaurant/meat counter hybrid

While the newly opened Prime + Proper plans to eventually sell its butchered steaks and chops for those who want to cook them at home, two new restaurants will make the retail component central to their concepts.

The Detroit Optimist Society’s new charcuterie brand, Gratiot Avenue Provisions, will launch a flagship restaurant and wine bar of the same name in Eastern Market this summer. The butchery is headed up by recently departed Roast chef Aramis Jones and the restaurant will offer charcuterie and take-away snacks from a display case during the day. Production for the whole-muscle-focused charcuterie brand is already under way and should be available at the DOS-run Sugar House and Buhl Bar by the end of the month.

Over in the West Village, former Republic chef Sarah Welch is launching another butcher-restaurant hybrid with Ping Ho, proprietor of the Royce wine bar, and Cafe Muse owner Greg Reyner. Marrow, as the forthcoming restaurant is called, will focus on sustainably raised local meats and takes its inspiration from April Bloomfield’s White Gold Butchers in New York City.

Afro-Caribbean cuisine makes a splash

Last year Detroiters were introduced to Senegalese fare at Maty’s African Cuisine, Nigerian food from the roving YumVillage food truck and Chef Max Hardy’s Caribbean-inflected Lowcountry comfort food at River Bistro.

You can expect an even wider diversity of Afro-Caribbean flavors in 2018 with the introduction of Baobab Fare, an East African restaurant from a Burundian couple who came to the United States as refugees. The Freedom House alums took the grand prize at last year’s Hatch competition and plan to staff their new restaurant with other refugees who reside at Freedom House.

In the up-and-coming Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood, Lester Gouvia is set to debut the brick-and-mortar version of his Norma G’s Caribbean food truck any day now. And Hardy, too, will diversify his growing hospitality group with Coop, a fast-casual fried chicken stall at the Detroit Shipping Co. food hall that draws on Caribbean and Asian flavors. There’s also the possibility that Hardy’s third concept, the West African-influenced Honey, may make its debut in the District Detroit this year.

Contact Mark Kurlyandchik: 313-222-5026 or mkurlyandc@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mkurlyandchik and Instagram: curlyhandshake.