As we head into the dog days of summer, many of us are succumbing to Webber-fatigue, that domestic malaise that makes us yearn to leave the barbeque tongs, beer cozies and citronella torches in the yard and head to town for a meal requiring no exertion. But we're not just looking to have someone else do the cooking: we want an entire "experience" — to lose ourselves for an hour or two where the food and surrounding décor collaborate to tell a story, to take us someplace else. We've found three places — one on the East side, one on the West, and one right in Detroit — where you can get away without leaving the city.
RONIN
A sushi den in the heart of Royal Oak, Ronin is a study in rustic serenity, creating a sophisticated yet placid environment for diners. The shaded, cool-toned palette of the restaurant is largely to thank for this, with its dark wooden chairs and tables, chunky wooden surfaces and gunmetal gray. The dining area and lounge are separated by low walls of thick, rough wood, reminiscent of the wide planks that line a sauna. The décor's more clever components include towering shoots of fresh green bamboo from built-in planters and wooden frames, filled in loosely with long, thin twigs, suspended horizontally from the ceiling by featherweight wire. The effect is a virtual second ceiling, which creates a more intimate dining space below while maintaining the airy, spacious feeling imparted by the high ceilings.
Owner Jim Hayosh, a Grosse Pointe native who returned to Southeast Michigan after ten years as a restaurant entrepreneur in Arizona, recalls facing three major design challenges after taking on the space over a year ago: the slant of the floor (a difference of roughly five steps from one end of the restaurant to the other); large, load-bearing pillars; and sheer size. Hayosh worried the 7,000 square-foot space wouldn’t have the "energy" of smaller spaces, so he installed the ceiling panels to “cut” the size, used cedar to absorb sound and ornament the pillars, and used ramps to create fluid passageways between the dining area, adjacent lounge, and other areas of the restaurants such as the bathrooms, bar and kitchen.
The long sushi bar near the kitchen provides a visual feast for those in the dining area, with its long trays of whitefish, salmon, bonito, shrimp, eel and myriad other sea life angled away from the chefs and toward the tables. Those facing the bar can watch the sushi experts working nimbly behind the glass screen, flicking together rice balls, slicing fish or cutting an entire cucumber lengthwise, its flesh spiraling down like a large sheet of shelving paper.
More informal dining is available in the lounge, located in a large rectangular depression off the bar. Populated with dozens of square tables and ottomans that can be moved around to accommodate parties of various sizes, the lounge boasts a long wall of windows facing the sidewalk that can be opened to let in breeze and the sounds of the city outside.
Want to see more? Watch Metromode's video about Ronin here.
IRIDESCENCE
Undisputedly one of the most opulent spaces in Detroit, Iridescence sits 17 stories above downtown atop the Motor City Casino. Thanks to its 40-foot ceilings, dappled white walls and tall stretches of colorful, pearly glass, Iridescence achieves a cavernous but utterly glamorous effect suggestive of an underwater palace.
Designed by a California-based firm and casino-hotel management, including Motor City’s Food & Beverage Vice President Lucio Arancibia, Iridescence’s crowning jewel is its south wall: a 40-foot high, 180-foot wide stretch of glass that gives diners a sweeping vista of the Detroit River, the Ambassador Bridge, Tiger Stadium, and other city treasures. The seating in Iridescence — two tops along the glass wall, larger tables near the opposite wall by the open (or "action" kitchen), and horseshoe-shaped booths in between — is a design tour de force, executed to provide every diner with a view.
Jennifer Kulczycki, Motor City’s manager of media and community relations, believes the height of the restaurant — perhaps counterintuitively — creates a feeling of intimacy when paired with the room’s other predominant elements: the tall panels of pearly, lustrous glass surrounding the open kitchen and the subtle light from hundreds of round glass pendant lights that dangle from the ceiling like bulbous stalactite. Visual delights were a key element of the design concept, Kulczycki notes, and include a glass-encased, 40-foot “wine wall” within which an electric pulley system rotates 300 bottles of wine that Iridescence’s sommelier can search by name, grape, or bin number. The system was the brainchild of Arancibia, conceived while he observed the automated racks at his drycleaners, and takes the mechanical viscera typically hidden in machines and makes of them a work of art.
Artfully sequestered from the dining area, immediately off the elevators, is Iridescence’s bar, a jewel box of glossy tiles, glass, and striated metallic surfaces. It’s here where the restaurant lives up to its name, with the lustrous, rainbowlike colors of checked tile walls, illuminated glass bar slab, rippled metallic walls and the glass pendants lamps shaped like Wentletrap shells.
THE HILL SEAFOOD AND CHOP HOUSE
We wouldn't be the first to make a Gatsbian East Egg-West Egg comparison between Grosse Pointe and…well…everything west of Grosse Pointe, but it's certainly tempting when one contemplates the concentration of Jazz Age architecture and décor in the famous lakeside suburb. Part of this legacy is the abundance of private clubs in town and the romantic scenes they evoke of high-ceilinged great rooms, stately fireplaces, and intimate, plush spaces. For those who either can't afford or aren't inclined to pay the hefty membership fees required by private membership clubs, The Hill Seafood and Chop House in Grosse Pointe Farms provides the perfect surrogate: a space to eat elegant, classic fare and kick back with a brandy amid an abundance of leather and nailhead trim.
Redesigned from stem to stern last year by Ron Rae of the Birmingham-based design firm Ron & Roman, The Hill's palette is predominantly burgundy and white, with lush, silky-napped fabrics and copious gold, silver and glass accents. The front section of the restaurant is for formal dining and boasts tables and cozy booths partitioned with pleated burgundy velvet hung with metallic gold braid. The burgundy on the largest wall give way about two-thirds up to white, which serves as the backdrop to a veritable gallery of dozens of nautical paintings, artists' sketches and black and white photos from a bygone era. Don't miss the opulent black crystal chandelier to the left of the entrance.
The Hill's bar, in contrast to most restaurant bars, is tucked behind the dining area, suggesting it's as much a place to retire after a meal as to gather beforehand. The bar and restaurant are separated by a $20,000 wine cellar and a faux fireplace topped by a giant, gold-paned glass window, allowing
"borrowed" light to pass from the restaurant to the bar behind. The recent renovation freed up space for about 20 more seats in the bar, which features a clever combination of tables and booths as well as heavy nautical-inspired metal light fixtures and airy, graceful chandeliers.
One noteworthy design element: a "private" booth in the main dining area decorated with black-and-white photos of icons throughout the ages, from 1920s silent film stars to modern day mogul Madonna.
Lucy Ament is a freelance writer living in Grosse Pointe. Her last article for Metromode was Design Democracy: The Next Evolution In Manufacturing?
Photos:
Ronin Sushi Bar - Royal Oak
Iridescence - Detroit
The Hill Seafood and Chop House - Grosse Pointe
Photographs by Marvin Shaouni
Marvin Shaouni is the managing photographer for Metromode & Model D.
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