The best things we ate in Detroit in 2017

By Metro Times Staff on Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 7:35 pm

As in the past several years, metro Detroit's restaurant community grew exponentially in 2017. A crop of young, talented chefs launched their rookie efforts around the region. Several established and decorated chefs and restaurateurs returned to Detroit to ply their trade in their suddenly hot hometown. Some of the area's biggest names opened or announced new projects, while a few underrated cooks did their thing at pop-ups or in food carts. We not only saw all that in greater downtown and the burbs, but also in the city's outer neighborhoods, where minority and immigrant chefs started getting some deserved attention.

Here are the best dishes we found along the way while traveling through metro Detroit bite by bite over the last 12 months.

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Chicken yassa at Maty's African Cuisine: Chef Amady Gueye opened Detroit's only Senegalese restaurant in March and immediately dazzled us with his salty and garlicky chicken yassa. He makes it by deep-frying a whole bird to a crisp, dipping it in a bright vinegar-mustard marinade, then charring it above an open-flame. The chicken is stuffed with minced garlic, parsley, and onion that permeates the moist meat, and the package arrives next to a vibrant, thick vinegar-mustard and sautéed onion sauce. — Tom Perkins
21611 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313-472-5885

The Brussels sprouts at River Bistro: Chef Maxcel Hardy, who opened his "Low Country and Caribbean" restaurant this summer, first sautéed the sprouts with bacon, then tossed them with garlic and Parmesan, producing a smoky richness. The sprouts are so popular with customers he goes through a case in a day. — Jane Slaughter
18456 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313-953-2225; riverbistrodetroit.com

The Boombap at Ima: The dish is Chef Mike Ransom's take on the Korean bi bim bap. I added ginger beef for an extra $3, then tasted each element separately first, arrayed in their pretty bowl, before swirling them into the mix. Each was flawless on its own — musky shiitakes, fluffy rice, a medium chili sauce — and even better with its friends. Pickle slices were ultra-thin, made in-house by quickly processing cucumber in rice vinegar and mirin in a vacuum seal machine. A crisp-edged fried egg helped them all to play nicely together. — Jane Slaughter
2015 Michigan Ave., Corktown, Detroit 313-502-5959

And the house-smoked salmon with roe at Ima: Close your eyes and throw a dart at Ima's menu and you'll hit something worth considering for Detroit's best dish of the year, but the bright house-smoked salmon with roe over rice stands apart. Chef Mike Ransom's dry-brined, applewood-smoked salmon fillet is cooked sous vide, which he explains is what leaves it with a silky texture. Mix up fish with avocado, cucumber, cabbage-wakame slaw, pickled ginger, micro shiso, sesame-yuzu sauce, salmon roe, and house furikake seasoning and you have what are some of Detroit's best bites. — Tom Perkins
2015 Michigan Ave., Corktown, Detroit 313-502-5959

Brown stew chicken at Jamaican Pot: Detroit's small Jamaican food community doesn't get quite the attention that it should. If you've never sampled curry goat or jerk chicken, a good place to start is the Jamaican Pot, a small carryout spot on Eight Mile Road near Greenfield. But chef Mama Rose's best plate is her brown stew chicken, which is a full and flavorful mix of tender chicken, garlic, scallion, thyme, onion, browning, and other seasonings. — Tom Perkins
14615 W. 8 Mile Rd., Detroit; 313-659-6033

Perfume Fish at Trizest: It's a rarity to find the mouth-numbing dried berries called Sichuan peppercorns in metro Detroit's "Szechuan" restaurants. That's partly because cooks here bent Sichuan dishes to suit American tastes for so many years, and the berries were illegal until 2005. Trizest uses them liberally, and to great effect in plates like Perfume Fish. A fork full of it ignites shifting oral sensations that are to varying degrees warm, tingly, and refreshing — the result of the peppercorns working with three varieties of fermented hot peppers. Trizest's Perfume Fish looks threatening when it arrives in a pool of scarlet oil with bean sprouts, mushrooms, and all those peppers, but it won't singe your mouth. I'd say it offers metro Detroit's most pleasant burn. — Tom Perkins
33170 Dequindre Rd., Sterling Heights; 586-268-1450

Caldo de res at Antonio's Coney Island: It may call itself a coney island, but the Honduran menu is what pulls in customers in this tiny Ypsilanti restaurant. Caldo de res, or beef soup, is a central American standard, but Antonio's does it best with big hunks of super tender beef, vegetables, and starchy yucca in a complex broth. — Tom Perkins
2896 Washtenaw Ave., Ypsilanti; 734-905-7321

Mohammara at Al Chabab: The umami-rich, deep red Aleppian paste could be mistaken for a form of hummus, but is actually a mix of Aleppo peppers, pomegranate, walnuts, Aleppo pistachios, olive oil, and spices. The Syrian city's cuisine benefits from its unique-for-the-Middle East climate and soil, as well as its position along the former Silk Road, which means centuries of civilizations left their prints on its recipes. It's an altogether singular cuisine, and chef Chamo Barakat's mohammara puts that display. — Tom Perkins
12930 W. Warren Ave., Dearborn; 313-582-2927

The shredded pork tamal at El Catracho: It was made by hand by Honduras native Sandra Padilla: moist, square, substantial, cooked in a plantain leaf, the masa imbued with pork juice, and barely a distant relative to the dry tubes with little stuffing that pass for tamales in Mexican places here. It makes sense that a place where the cook hand-pats corn tortillas — they're thicker, softer, cornier — and grinds her own morro seeds for horchata would put this much care into a $2.25 tamale. — Jane Slaughter
4627 Vernor Hwy., Detroit; 313-784-9361

Jerk chocolate ice cream at River Bistro: Chef-owner Maxcel Hardy said he wanted to marry his Bahamian background to his love of ice cream, so he designed this flavor and got Detroit Ice Cream Co. to whip it up. The big bowl was filled with rich chocolate that holds a hint of caramel — and then a nip of heat at the end of each spoonful. How do master chefs manage to make their flavors reveal themselves one at a time like that? — Jane Slaughter
18456 Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313-953-2225; riverbistrodetroit.com