A long-abandoned building in the Cass Corridor is now a high-end Modern Mexican eatery serving the traditional flavors of Mexico City and Oaxaca.
Vecino, which means “neighbor” in Spanish, opened on April 19 and is unlike anything in metro Detroit.
Using organic, heirloom corn from Mexico, Vecino makes tortillas, quesadillas, tostadas, sope, and tlayuda through a centuries-old process known as nixtamalization. The result is soft, warm, tender, and flavorful dough.
The menu focuses on seasonal, Michigan ingredients, sourced from local farmers, with the spices and flavors of Mexico. It features bone-in ribeye steak, red snapper, chicken, and vegetables cooked in the kitchen’s wood-fire hearth. Guests also can share carefully prepared plates that include seafood options, mesquite beets, duck confit, and fresh fruit.
The bar features an eclectic collection of agave-based spirits, including small-batch and artisanal tequilas, wine from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, and plenty of non-alcoholic options.
The kitchen is led by executive chef Ricardo Mojica, a Michigan native who previously worked at Sava’s in Ann Arbor and was the youngest head chef in the history of the nationwide chain P.F. Chang’s when he was 19.
He’s joined by head chef Stephanie Duran, a Culinary Institute of America alum who hails from Texas and cooked at several renowned restaurants in Mexico City and Chicago.
Co-owners Adriana Jimenez and her husband Lukasz Wietrzynski dreamed up the restaurant in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic put their plans on hold. They had grown bored with their jobs — Wietrzynski was an attorney and Jimenez worked at Industrial Automation — and wanted to do something new and exciting while they’re still young.
Jimenez, a Mexico City native, grew up around restaurants. Her parents owned two Mexican eateries in Waterford and Highland.
“My parents would pick us up from school and we’d go straight to the restaurant, do our homework there and fall asleep there and wake up at home,” Jimenez tells Metro Times. “It was pretty tough on us, but if my parents didn’t have the restaurants, they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do well in life.”
When the couple was searching for a location for their restaurant, they were enamored with their current spot — a corner building on Third and Alexandrine that was built in 1926 and once served as a grocery store and later a pharmacy. The building was missing windows and a roof, but they could see the potential.
“We fell in love with the building,” Jimenez says. “We wanted a corner building. We picked the most difficult building, but we were in love with it.”
They teamed up with Detroit-based designer Colin Tury, who also has a stake in the restaurant.
Inspired by the ambience of restaurants in Mexico City, the minimalist interior is warm and inviting, with earthy tones, terracotta, ceramic tiles, and hand-blown glass light fixtures hanging from the high, angled ceiling. They used local companies, including Donut Shop for the bar stools and custom hooks, and GANAS Manufacturing for the custom millwork and fixtures.
The restaurant seats 66 people and includes a bar with space for an additional 16 people.
Vecino is the fifth fine-dining restaurant to open in a section of the Cass Corridor that had long been vacant and blighted. The others are Selden Standard, SheWolf, Mad Nice, and Vigilante Kitchen and Bar, which is being reimagined.
On a recent weekend, a several-hundred-thousand-dollar McLaren was parked outside Vecino.
“Never thought I’d see that here,” a man said as he walked by.
Vecino
4100 Third St., Detroit, MI
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This article appears in May 1-7, 2024.