Ann Delisi: Alpino named Detroit Free Press’ 2024 Restaurant of the Year
Detroit Free Press restaurant and dining critic Lindsay Green joined WDET to talk about why the unique European-inspired Corktown eatery was selected.
Alpino manager Thomas Chen, right, talks with Eddie Gillis, center, of Flat Rock, and Tom Duffy, left, of Milford as they dine with their wives Wendy Duffy, foreground left, and Angie Gillis at Alpino in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024.
The Detroit Free Press and the Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers on Thursday named Alpino in Detroit its 2024 Restaurant of the Year.
I sat down with Detroit Free Press restaurant and dining critic Lindsay Green to talk about why the unique European-inspired Corktown eatery was selected.
Located at 1426 Bagley, in the space that formerly housed award-winning chef Kate Williams’ highly acclaimed The Lady of the House restaurant, Alpino offers a communal atmosphere with a menu “inspired by ingredients sourced from hills, fields, rivers, and streams,” according to the restaurant’s website.
“The cuisine at Alpino is based on food from the Alps, Alpine cuisine. And I think initially people sort of looked at it like, what does that mean?” Green said. “But I think what Alpino does really well, is that they take a cuisine that might feel foreign, and they kind of familiarize it.”
For Green, she says, the biggest standout is there are actually a lot of similarities between Alpine cuisine and our cuisine here in Michigan.
“We have the ability to source you, know, fresh fish, and we can forage in woodlands and get really beautiful produce and berries and nuts,” she said. “And obviously, we know we have a huge morel industry here, so mushrooms and things like that. And that’s what you see a lot in Alpine cuisine.”
Use the media player above to hear my full interview with Lyndsay Green.
Read more:
- Detroit Free Press reveals its top 10 new restaurants of 2024
- Free Press food critic Lyndsay Green unveils Restaurant of the Year Classic
- Alpino brings a foreign, yet familiar cuisine to Detroit
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