Recently, I tagged along with my wife Lindsey to Detroit for a Southern Smoke industry lunch. I don’t work for the foundation, but I love any opportunity as a co-founder to meet with industry folks and share our resources (emergency relief funding and no-cost mental health care for people in the food and beverage industry) with them.
What we found in the Motor City, though, was so much more than we ever imagined. Detroit absolutely blew us away.
From the moment we arrived, we knew this place was special. We checked into the Detroit Foundation Hotel, housed inside the city’s landmark Fire Department headquarters built in 1929. The building served as headquarters until 2013 before being beautifully transformed into a hotel in 2017, and they preserved so much of its history.
Our room had originally been the office of the Fire Commissioner’s secretary with soaring ceilings, dark wood walls, and details that made you feel connected to the building’s past. Downstairs, The Apparatus Room buzzes from morning until night. The original white tile walls remain, the massive windows where fire trucks once rolled out flood the room with light, and the bar pulls you in the second you walk through the door.
The wine list is thoughtful with producers like Matthiasson, Ashes & Diamonds, and Lingua Franca, while the cocktail program is outstanding. More importantly, the bartenders were some of the best I’ve been around in a long time. Knowledgeable, welcoming, and genuinely excited about what they do. That’s something we kept finding everywhere we went.
Dinner that first night was at Ladder 4 wine bar, another beautifully restored firehouse built in 1910. They took their time bringing the building back to life, and we could feel it. The wine program is incredibly well thought out, and the food celebrates the farms surrounding Detroit with dishes that are seasonal, fun, and full of personality.
We ate tomatoes with stone fruit and ricotta salata; chicken Milanese parm with tomato, fior di latte, and pickled chilies; and then a dish that completely stole my heart: drive-thru hash browns topped with caviar and sour cream. We paired it with a bottle of Hubert Lignier Morey-Saint-Denis, and the evening just kept getting better.
The biggest surprise was learning that the person guiding us through the wine list was actually the executive chef. His understanding of how food and wine belong together came through in every recommendation. You could feel the soul of the restaurant inside those old white tile walls and next to the original brass fire pole. Call it a wine bar, call it a restaurant — I just call it awesome.
The next afternoon we headed over to Dearborn, because we absolutely had to visit Al Ameer. Home to one of the largest Muslim communities in America, Dearborn has an incredible food culture, and Al Ameer has been at the center of it since 1989. After earning the James Beard America’s Classic Award in 2016, it has become one of those places everyone should experience.
Fresh pita hit the table nonstop alongside hummus, baba ghanoush, kibbeh, fattoush, and a spread of salads before we dug into mixed grills loaded with chicken and beef shawarma, kabobs, and kofta. We finished everything with fresh juices, sat back in our chairs, and just smiled. What a lunch.
That night friends took us to Alpino, a restaurant inspired by the Alpine regions of France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. Tell me the last time you started dinner with bubbling cheese fondue, bread, apples, potatoes and pickles alongside a bottle of Austrian Riesling…yeah, I thought so. It’s been too long. We followed that with strangolapreti tossed in spring herb butter, ricotta agnolotti with English peas, Wiener schnitzel with morels, house-made sausages and German Pinot Noir. That’s my kind of dinner.
The following day we gathered at Leña for our Southern Smoke event, sharing a beautiful lunch and talking about taking care of the people who take care of all of us every day. Afterward, we walked over to Lafayette Coney Island, because you can’t come to Detroit without eating one of the city’s iconic hot dogs. Sitting next to its longtime rival American Coney Island, the story of the Keros brothers and their neighboring restaurants is as much a part of Detroit history as the hot dogs themselves. Sometimes you just have to eat a little history.
Our final dinner was at SheWolf Pastificio & Bar. If you love pasta, this place belongs on your list immediately. They mill their own flour, make every pasta fresh daily, and devote an entire room to nothing but pasta production. It’s obsessive in the best possible way.
Photo by Chris Shepherd
Ladder 4 wine bar is located in a restored firehouse.
We started with an incredible panzanella of local tomatoes, charred focaccia, fermented corn and sheep’s milk ricotta before diving into a beautiful rigatoni amatriciana, sweet corn and ricotta-filled francobolli with pesto Genovese and popcorn, plus an off-menu duck confit pasta finished with Calabrian chile crunch. A bottle of 2017 Cascina Luisin Barbaresco tied everything together and reminded me once again why great food and great wine will always make each other better.
What I’ll remember most isn’t just the food. It’s the people. Detroit is filled with chefs, farmers, sommeliers, bartenders, and restaurateurs who genuinely believe that lifting each other up is better than competing against one another. Their wine lists are deep, the bars are full of incredible spirits and amari, local farms are celebrated everywhere, and everyone seems invested in making the city better together.
Sound familiar? It’s exactly what has made Houston one of the greatest food cities in America. Should Detroit be on your dining bucket list? Hell yes. It’s on mine now, and with a quick two-and-a-half-hour nonstop flight from Houston, I’ll happily be back.
----
Want Chris' recommendations for other cities? Ask him by emailing chris@chrisshepherd.is.
Chris Shepherd won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2014 and an Impact Award in 2026. The Southern Smoke Foundation, a nonprofit he co-founded with his wife Lindsey Brown, has distributed more than $16 million to hospitality workers in crisis through its Emergency Relief Fund.
