One-of-a-kind Townhouse Detroit nears opening this month

With training for his 154 employees beginning Monday, restaurateur Jeremy Sasson is set to open his new Townhouse Detroit later this month, bringing downtown a dining destination unlike any other place in metro Detroit.

With a glass-enclosed, four-season outdoor "house" as its main dining room, the 314-seat restaurant includes two bars, a whiskey lounge, a seafood raw bar, a huge open kitchen, a fire pit with lounge seating and numerous 14-foot-tall trees in planters on the surrounding patio, among other amenities.

"We wanted to create a really awesome urban landscape," Sasson said this week as he conducted an impromptu tour of the almost-completed project at One Detroit Center, on the southeast corner of Woodward and Congress.

The graceful, pear-shaped European Hornbeam trees will grow in 4-foot-tall planters made of military-grade steel set around the patio's perimeter, to act as both a visual boundary and protective barrier for the space. Like everything else on the patio, including the upholstered booths and banquette seating, the planters and trees will remain in place year-round.

"It's all designed so we don't have to dismantle it at the end of the season . . . and it won't look unfinished in the middle of January," Sasson said. With the trees draped in strands of lights and unobtrusive light and sound systems built into the planters, he's envisioning "some fun winter wonderland experiences out here, maybe a pop-up bar serving hot chocolate. … We want to keep this active," he said.

The patio surrounds Townhouse's centerpiece: the 3,000-square-foot glass house with a pitched, retractable roof and side walls. The structure is attached to — and extends inside — One Detroit Center on the Congress Street side of the building.

It takes only 75 seconds, Sasson says, for the glass roof panels to slide sideways and stack over the ends of the space, opening the room to the sky. The side walls are also made in sliding sections and stack at the corners.

"The main idea was to design the space so that it was more than an outdoor space," Sasson says. Rather than wicker tables and aluminum chairs, he chose furnishings and finishes appropriate for an indoor space.

"Everything in here (will be) leather," he said. "It's a very cool vibe." Natural preserved plant materials including moss, ferns and branches will completely cover the outside of the wall between the glass dining room and the restaurant's interior.

Most of the wall, however, is taken up by wide glass doors designed to remain open and connect the spaces.

Guests entering the restaurant's interior from the glassed-in dining room will find a six-seat raw bar to their left and, just ahead, an extravagant open kitchen with glossy white subway-tiled walls. It's connected to a prep kitchen, also mostly open, which prepares food for catering and the dim sum carts that arrive at guests' tables soon after they're seated.

The carts, carrying dishes ranging from raw bar items to eclectic small-plate noshes, are designed to give guests something to nibble on right away. "You're basically getting what you've enjoyed as a bread basket, but far more interesting," Sasson says.

At the other end of the room — just inside the restaurant's front door — is what Sasson calls "our bistro … our little tavern," a narrow but long U-shaped bar seating about 25, with more seating at nearby high tops and a banquette.

It's designed for socializing, allowing people to strike up conversations not only with the person sitting beside them but with people across the way. "It's a classic diner-style setup … for people who want to eat at the bar but also mingle with other people," he says.

One striking feature of the bar is a wide, black metal dome with a gold-colored interior suspended like a giant bell overhead.

A "whiskey wall" where rare whiskeys and other liquors are displayed stands at the end of the bar; behind it is the whiskey lounge, with soft, plush seating and a quieter atmosphere.

Sasson, whose original Townhouse restaurant in Birmingham is tiny and often packed, wouldn't say how much the Detroit project has cost. "A lot," he says, "but not much more than I thought it would."

He also noted that the restaurant will open essentially when he projected it would — a feat he attributed to exhaustive planning and the efficiency of his general contractor, Milad Zoorob of Sterling Heights-based Milo Building Co. McIntosh Poris Associates of BirmIngham did the architectural work, executing Sasson's ideas for the restaurant's various spaces.

General manager Brady Pankow, formerly of Cameron's Steakhouse, and other managers will have seven full days for employee training, as will executive chef Brendan Calnin, formerly of Imperial and Public House in Ferndale, Sasson said. "I think his food will rival the best that's down here," Sasson said.

With a full week for staff preparation, Sasson said he plans to open the restaurant for lunch, dinner and brunch from the start, rather than in phases.

"We're going for it," he says.

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