Ann Delisi: Free Press food critic Lyndsay Green unveils Restaurant of the Year Classic
The Free Press best new restaurants list and 2024 Restaurant of the Year will be unveiled later this week.
Chef and owner Paul Grosz dresses lamb chops with spinach custard and vegetables at Cuisine.
Every year, in addition to highlighting Detroit’s best new restaurants and Restaurant of the Year, the Detroit Free Press and the Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers honor long-time Detroit staples with its Restaurant of the Year Classic category.
Detroit Free Press restaurant and dining critic Lindsay Green revealed Tuesday that Cuisine has been named the 2024 Restaurant of the Year Classic.
Green sat down with me to talk about the contemporary French-American eatery and why it was selected, as well as to share her observations about Detroit’s culinary landscape in 2023.
Located in Detroit’s New Center neighborhood on Lothrop Street across from the Fisher Building, Cuisine opened in 2001 and was named Restaurant of the Year by the Free Press in 2002, Green says.
“They were our third Restaurant of the Year ever at the Free Press,” she said. “And what’s interesting is that they’re the longest standing restaurant of our restaurants of the year. So our first two restaurants have since closed.”
Green attributes Cuisine’s longevity to the restaurant’s co-owner and chef, Paul Grosz.
“What Paul Grosz has done at Cuisine, really it’s a testament to what he’s doing because they have had the most staying power in our history of Restaurant of the Year,” Green said. “So it’s really cool to have him back and honor him.”
Green also shared some major restaurant trends she noticed in 2023, including the boom of hotel restaurants popping up throughout the city last year.
“As Detroit grows, as we saw such an exciting sports year in 2023, we’re bringing people into Detroit from out of town, from out of state, you know, and it’s exciting for them to have these places that they can go to when they’re staying in town,” she said, noting that at first she was a little skeptical.
She says many of the new restaurants that opened last year had a flashier, sexier tone.
“I wrote a piece about that last year, just about the sex factor in restaurants. And I think that it maybe speaks to the times,” Green said. “We’re still kind of on the fringe of the pandemic. And I think that people are still excited about hanging out and having fun and listening to music, and even in some cases dancing.”
The Free Press best new restaurants list and 2024 Restaurant of the Year will be unveiled later this week.
Use the media player above to hear my full interview with Lyndsay Green.
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