Cool is a quality difficult to define. There’s a feel to it, hard to put a finger on. If Cadieux Café is anything, it’s kinda cool, and my job here is to do that description justice. In response to one of our readers who recently took me to task over my love for the alliterative (sorry, still struggling, sir) and a penchant for “clunky,” run-on sentences (again, my apologies here), I’m resolved to write this review as clearly and concisely as I can.
Bear with me. I’ll get better.
Cool’s unknown quantity aside, Cadieux Café boasts one quality all bars and restaurants work hard hoping to emulate: it’s busy as can be. Walking in for dinner without a reservation on a recent Saturday evening, we were nearly turned away at the door.
“Sorry, every table’s already taken,” a server let us know as though we should have known better than to just pop-in. Who knew? This place looks corner bar casual, inside and out. Being told Cadieux’s quaint and still mostly empty space was booked solid surprised me. Suddenly stopped in our tracks, sure enough, we noticed “reserved” signage atop every table, and felt instantly excluded. “You might find seats at the bar,” the server offered what consolation he could. Luckily, we did.
Squeezing ourselves in, we sat down and ordered mussels, Belgium’s signature seafood and something Cadieux serves a la “Citroen” (bathed in lemon and fresh dill), “Forte Di Marmi” (garlic-white wine fume), and “Spicy” (subtly so, in Provencal-style tomato-basil broth). Like pros, we polished off impressively generous half-orders of all three ($15.95-$16.95, full orders $21.95); probably four dozen fresh, plump, moules served in big, steaming bowls with a choice of sides. Of those, crispy, longer-cooked fries paired classically well with our shellfish medley. Almost burnt to a crisp brussels sprouts ($2.00 upcharge) and mashed potatoes — made no better than average for their folding-in with wilted spinach — didn’t make as good an impression.
As we segued into soups, Cadieux started filling up fast. Turned around in my barstool by all the buzz and bustle behind us, I took in the café’s vintage beer garden vibe: a close-quartered communal space framed with Old World and industrial Detroit-era photography of former Tour de France cyclists, Belgian street scenes, Great Lakes industry, iconic Detroit architecture, and such. With quirky-cool feather bowling happening in an adjacent space (think Italian bocce meets Scottish-Canadian curling with a curvy twist), and a live band booked to entertain a big following, we started feeling lively and lucky in our catbird seats at the bar. Before we’d finished good-as-gold onion soup (sherry-kissed? $7.25) and fewer spoonfuls of tapioca-thick and floury clam chowder ($4.95), we’d chatted up everyone around us. Bartender Brian (also a chef around town) was good enough to pen me a short list of his personal restaurant recommendations. A guy from North Carolina and I struck up conversation over the Duke baseball jersey I was wearing, and a woman to my left allowed harmless me some fairly innocent flirtations over the elbows we kept literally rubbing as she tipped hers with a friend.
“Keep drinking till you find me attractive,” I teased her. “But I’m 61, so from small talk to foreplay and beyond, we’ll need to be finished by 9:30.”
By the time our main courses arrived, people were lined-up three-deep behind us to order drinks. Hands waving credit cards came between us. Loud voices barking beer, wine, and cocktail orders started ringing in our ears. Some helped drown out thoughts of buyer’s remorse over my Belgian Beer Stew ($16.95). Though its brothy, Belgian Ale-laced sauce (not nearly a gravy) packed plenty of beefy punch, it offered precious little substance besides; three or four bites of meat, maybe as many cut carrots, a single forkful of potato, and a preponderance of peas. Friend’s fish and chips ($15.95) proved a far better choice, with crispy, beer-battered cod fried just right and sided with crunchy-creamy slaw and another pile of pommes frites we appreciated as much as the first. And a plate of Belgian sausage ($12.95) brought mixed reviews. I liked the simple salt-and-pepper-seasoned links for their leanness and the snap of nicely browned and crisped skins, while friend who ordered them found them “dry and dull.” To each, his and her own. As to the braised red cabbage and mashed taters (hold the spinach by request), I failed to even try the former but rather liked the latter for both their buttery flavor and a slightly browned quality that reminded me of homemade mashed potatoes reheated in a frying pan. One wonders if that’s part of the process at Cadieux. If so, I’ve no complaint whatsoever.
After bar staff informed us that Cadieux’s desserts were limited to Sander’s hot fudge Sundaes with or without cream puff ($6.95 and $4.95 respectively), we declined, deciding instead to surrender our seats to those who, by then, were pressing in to the point of breathing on our necks. With a friend feeling a bit claustrophobic and me hearing the siren song of a just-reopened Froyo shop back in Dearborn, we settled-up and said goodnight. I thanked Brian for the restaurant suggestions he’d jotted down (get ready, Mr. Paul’s, we’re coming in for Chateaubriand soon) and said goodnight to the strangers we’d had such fun making friends with at cool, convivial Cadieux. Then I left thinking I’d be back again for sure. For more mussels. For another seat at the bar and the service. For conversations with a crowd that seems to enjoy shooting the shit with strangers as much as I do, and for another taste of a watering hole space that satisfies the social animal in me to no end.
This is that kind of place. So, go have some mussels. Broaden your horizons with feather bowling. Mix it up with an eclectic crowd. And stay for the show. I will next time. Cadieux’s just too cool.
