Chefs Garrett Lipar, David Gilbert unite at Marais

In an unprecedented move, two of metro Detroit’s most accomplished chefs are joining forces at a single restaurant — one to be the chef, the other to run the house — with the goal of putting the restaurant and Michigan food on the culinary map.

The place: European-trained chef-owner David Gilbert’s formal, high-end French restaurant Marais in Grosse Pointe.

The man taking over the kitchen: young, award-winning chef Garrett Lipar, whose tiny Torino restaurant in Ferndale closed this year for lack of space and facilities to support his ambitious, Scandinavian-influenced prix fixe tasting menus.

In short, Gilbert has made Lipar executive chef of Marais with full control of the restaurant’s kitchen, cuisine, menus, ingredient sourcing and culinary direction, while Gilbert will continue to own and manage the facility and direct the front-of-the-house staff. Gilbert’s wife, Monica Gilbert, will continue to manage Marais’ wine program.

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The Gilberts announced the change in a news release Tuesday.

"Given Garrett's remarkable culinary career, we are excited for him to take over and continue our vision for excellence, while bringing his style and influence to the menu and dining experience," they said.

The restaurant will still be called Marais, but with a style of food and service that is like neither Torino’s nor Marais’, Lipar and Gilbert said in a joint interview last week before Gilbert cooked at Marais for the last time on Saturday.

“This is not a continuation of anything,” Lipar said. “It’s entirely new. You won’t see things that have been done before by either of us.”

Added Gilbert: “There’s no Torino. There’s no Marais. ... This is entirely different.”

Now closed for the transition, the restaurant will reopen Friday night with Lipar and his new menu in place. Marais’ elegantly timeless dining room will remain unchanged, but its 17 tables will be cleared of their linens, multiple glasses and gold-decorated china in favor of a more organic, natural, approachable look.

Dishes — hand-made with matte finishes and soft colors — will be reset for each course. The tablescapes will include items that are “hints about the menu” as well as “some awesome votive candles” Monica Gilbert is making, Lipar says.

The most obvious question — why Gilbert would invite Lipar to take over the kitchen just two years after Marais’ opening — has a layered answer that grows out of their friendship, common professional experiences and ambitions to create a world-class restaurant.

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Both share the belief that the way to achieve that is to take Michigan’s excellent and widely diverse food products to a new level of culinary sophistication and serve them in a warm, Midwest-friendly style.

But more important, both have come to believe that they are most likely to reach their common goal by merging their skills and resources — by combining Lipar’s nationally heralded culinary talents with Gilbert’s experience, management skills and impressive restaurant facilities.

“I really feel that together, we all contain the pieces to make a great restaurant,” said Lipar, 28. “We all bring so many different things to the table here. ... We all want the same goals, but none of us could get here on our own. How much humility that takes, for all of us to realize we need each other to get to the next level. ... Not a lot of chefs will do that. Could you imagine another chef like David asking another chef like me to take over his baby and take it to the next level with him? That’s a big deal.”

Both men have impressive résumés, have cooked at multiple Michelin-starred restaurants, and lived and traveled abroad. Both have helmed Free Press Restaurants of the Year — Gilbert at Forest Grill and Lipar at Torino.

Gilbert, 40, says he built Marais to last generations, and he isn’t tired of cooking, but he never intended to be its chef forever. He is happy doing what he is doing, he says, "but what makes me happier is to bring one of the top chefs in the country into a space where he can practice his craft and just cook” without the daily distractions of running a restaurant — tasks that Gilbert will handle.

Because of their shared culinary backgrounds, they have a bond and have developed a strong friendship over time, Gilbert said. “I would be an idiot not to look at somebody like that, who I honestly believe is going to be on that national superstar level, and not give him a place to practice and refine his cuisine,” he emphasized.

With their friendship cemented and Torino closed, Lipar said, the arrangement seemed ideal, despite his opportunities to leave Michigan. “Why would I not take the opportunity to just cook and do my thing, and work with someone I love and respect and who has my back and our best interests at heart?” he said.

The goal of their partnership is for Marais to give Michigan food the national identity and profile they feel it deserves but has never had.

From the ingredients the chef uses to the way servers interact with guests, “we are trying to convey the story of what it’s like to be here in Michigan. That is our whole mission,” Lipar said.

“What is Michigan food? It’s a feeling and an experience. ... It’s the service, and being warm. It’s a whole package that can create something that shows what it means to be from this part of the country,” Lipar said.

He has spent the past three months traveling to discover outstanding Michigan farmers, growers and producers who are selling to few, if any, other restaurants, and he will make their products central to his menu. Servers will share the producers’ stories tableside with guests, so diners will know who grew the berries, raised the trout or ground the organic grain into flour to make the bread.

"We want people to feel loved, warm and welcome," Lipar said. "We want them to understand that David I have made the decision that we want to dive as deep as possible into what (Michigan's) food is. What we both have tried to do in the past is carve out an identity for Michigan food but ... there is no identity. Nobody has gone as far as we have, but we are nowhere near where we want to be."

Marais will go far beyond the too-common, sometimes-exaggerated claim of farm-to-table cooking, both chefs say. Other restaurants “have taken it on a very casual, cool, fun, hip level," said Gilbert. "Now it’s time to see those ingredients and even better ones and hand-foraged ingredients presented on a very refined level and see their real potential."

As Lipar explains it, “Where we see our potential is truly making a mark on the world. ... If we can refine our food to a certain level with the best product humanly possible from our backyard, then we can truly make an impact — have our part of the country have something that can truly compete with the big boys. Michigan has a place for all different levels of cuisine ... but it’s our job to bring it to the next level.”

Starting Friday when the restaurant reopens, guests will be able to order from an a la carte menu, even in the dining room; the bar will offer only the a la carte sheet. “Price points will not be out of reach of the average person,” Lipar says.

The main attraction, though, will be the 9- to 15-item prix-fixe chefs’ tasting menu. The price for it has not been set. The menu won’t have descriptions of each dish; rather, it will list the 30 key ingredients the chef is using at the time.

Marais will accept reservations in the dining room, where “the table is yours for the night; we won’t have seatings or try to turn the tables,” Gilbert said.

Lipar will be ready.

“David said we’re giving it every single thing we have. If people aren’t ready for it, then it’s not going to be on us. It’s not going to be because we didn’t try hard enough, or because we didn’t go deep enough, or we didn’t go the extra mile. No, it's every single thing on the line. If people aren’t ready for it, then OK. But we are all in."

Marais is at 17051 Kercheval in Grosse Pointe; 313-343-8800 and http://maraisrestaurant.com.

Contact writer Sylvia Rector at 313-222-5026 and srector@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @SylviaRector.











