nsxtasy

I'd like to add a couple of comments to what everyone else has already posted so eloquently. First, I would like to thank everyone who worked so hard to make the 2007 gathering so much fun! This was a wonderful event in every way, and all the arrangements went off without a hitch. I'm sorry I wasn't able to do more myself, particularly for the feast (since my other commitment that day prevented me from assisting with the preparations). I'll be able to do and/or bring more at next year's gathering, especially since it will be close to home. Second, looking back at the event, what was most striking to me wasn't the FOOD. It was the FRIENDS. It's amazing to be able to go to an event in which everyone there was so welcoming! I felt like I was getting together with a group of my best friends from college whom I hadn't seen in a while - even though I had never previously met the people there, with only a handful of exceptions. That's the atmosphere of the event. So I thank all of you for your work AND for your friendship. I look forward to seeing all of you (I hope) at next year's gathering, as well as meeting many others who couldn't make it this year - in other words, to seeing old friends and making new ones.

Oh yeah, I'm in. There are many, many great restaurants here. Choosing from among them will be difficult, just because there are so many possibilities. But I can assure you that we will include several great restaurants as well as the now-traditional feast. And if there's a restaurant you've been wanting to try, if it doesn't show up on the schedule, you can always spend an extra day or two here. When it comes time to choosing where to eat, that needs to be decided not only based on great restaurants but also with an eye to the entire event, including transportation logistics, where out-of-towners are staying, ability of the restaurants to accommodate our large group, etc. Just to cite one example of how these factors come into play, a couple of people have already mentioned Vie for Friday dinner. It is likely (but by no means certain) that out-of-towners will be staying somewhere in the downtown Chicago area. Friday evening rush hour, roughly from 3 to 7 pm, has the absolute worst traffic of the entire week. Vie is in the suburbs, and while it might take 30-40 minutes to drive there from downtown Chicago in the off hours, in the Friday rush it can easily take 90 minutes or more, which may not be the best use of the limited time that our out-of-town visitors will be spending here. So please, give us Chicagoans a chance to decide on a mix of restaurants for our event, and which times during the event will make the most sense for each venue. Just as at previous Heartland gatherings, we will try our best to show off our city's restaurant scene at its finest and most impressive.

To me, what defines a metropolitan area, in terms of food, is where people go to eat. In the SF Bay Area, plenty of people who live in the East Bay or on the peninsula go into the city to eat, and San Franciscans eat at Chez Panisse, etc. That's why I think it makes sense to discuss a contiguous populated area as one area. I don't buy into the concept that people and restaurants don't matter if they're outside the city's boundaries.

I've corrected the San Francisco numbers above to include the restaurants in wine country that I had previously excluded (even though I think they are a much further stretch than, say, including Ann Arbor in a discussion of Detroit). Manresa was already included in the numbers I originally posted.

It lets you compare cities against others of approximately the same size. As I mentioned, using that as a criterion is just as good as any other. And not deserving of your derision and unrelenting cynicism.

FWIW, here (in parentheses) are the number of 5 and 4 star restaurants in the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the country, according to the 2007 Mobil Guide (ref), along with their population: 1 New York (4/17) 22,747,604 2 Los Angeles (0/8) 17,989,605 3 Chicago (2/9) 9,510,060 4 Washington-Baltimore (0/4) 8,197,384 5 San Francisco-San Jose-Yountville (2/11) 7,719,730 6 Philadelphia (1/2) 6,268,176 7 Dallas (0/5) 6,175,243 8 Boston (0/6) 6,167,292 9 Detroit-Windsor (0/1 - The Lark) 5,925,157 10 Houston (0/1) 5,406,390 11 Atlanta (2/2) 4,973,243 12 San Diego-Tijuana (0/1) 4,922,723 13 Miami (0/8) 4,825,569 14 Phoenix (0/3) 4,026,207 15 Seattle (0/4) 3,852,705 16 Minneapolis-Saint Paul (0/0) 3,237,960 17 Cleveland (0/0) 2,954,420 18 Denver (0/1) 2,722,428 19 Tampa (0/0) 2,653,869 20 Saint Louis (0/1) 2,632,992 So by this criterion - admittedly arbitrary, but no more so than any other - Detroit has fewer such restaurants than the eight cities that are larger, but the same number as two of the next three on the list, and more than three of the five largest cities in the Midwest. So based on these numbers, you can start asking the question, "Why isn't Houston a restaurant city?" And San Diego. And Minneapolis. And Cleveland, home of the Heartland gathering (see you in a few days!). For that matter, you can ask why Los Angeles has fewer such restaurants than Chicago, with half as many people, etc.

Here are some places recommended for various restaurant categories by readers of the Detroit News. Here are a few lists of best restaurants published by the media for several other Midwestern cities: Chicago (best new restaurants) Columbus Milwaukee

Huh? By the definition you're stating here, if a city has great restaurants in the suburbs, then it automatically is NOT a "great restaurant city". And I couldn't disagree more. People in many suburbs of Chicago can find great restaurant experiences in the suburbs, where there are quite a few R4 good restaurants. (Sure, many go into the city too, but many others don't.) We have some world-class restaurants in our suburbs, and have for a long time, going back at least to when Jean Banchet first opened Le Francais in Wheeling in the early 1970s.

I don't think it's a linear relationship. IOW, just because a city is twice or half as big doesn't necessarily mean that it has twice or half as many really, really, really, really good restaurants. Hey, can we call them "R4" instead of really, really, really, really? That's ridiculous; of course it is! Heck, Stamford and Greenwich and much of Fairfield County are suburbs of New York, towns in which large numbers of commuters drive or take the train into the city every day. And correct me if I'm wrong, but outside of prime commuting times, my recollection is that it's more like 35-40 minutes between AA and the RenCen, not an hour. As to what is, and isn't, part of a metropolitan area, what is a reasonable time someone would be expected to travel to an R4 good restaurant? Because, when you live in a city of 6 million people, it's not unusual for someone to need to travel 35-40 minutes if they want to try an R4 restaurant, whether that means a Southgate resident driving to Pontiac, or a Grosse Pointer going to Novi, or a U of M professor going downtown. Heck, when you ask people from Indianapolis to name the best place in town, many will name Tallent, which is in Bloomington, home of IU, 50 miles away (and a lot further from the built-up areas of Indy than AA is from the built-up areas of Detroit). (Even though I disagree with the recommendation, that's what they'll tell you.) Chicago, of course, is a much bigger city (although only half as big as New York), stretching over 100 miles north to south. So if you live in Gurnee and you want to go to the exquisite Tallgrass in Lockport, you will be driving a good hour and a half each way, NOT in rush hour.

This discussion is quite entertaining. I think whether Detroit is a "restaurant city" or a "national restaurant city" or a "destination restaurant city" may be more a matter of semantics than anything else. Obviously there are some excellent restaurants (of all kinds) in the Detroit area. And just as obviously, there are only a handful of cities in the country with a national reputation for their restaurants. So it's all a matter of what you compare it to, and how you describe that. Here's some food for the discussion (so to speak), following up on some of the points made above. I'll note once again that I'm not familiar with the restaurants in Detroit, but I am familiar with those of some other cities around the Midwest (including Chicago, where I live, with which most of you are undoubtedly familiar). Maybe this can help put Detroit into some perspective. My expectations for restaurants in a city are formed, in part, based on the size of the city. I expect a lot of choices, including some excellent ones, in a major metropolitan area. I don't expect as much from a smaller city, let alone a small town. I am a frequent traveler to Toledo, just down the road from Detroit. It has about a tenth the number of people as the Detroit area (600,000 vs 6 million). They don't have a lot of outstanding restaurants, but they have (and have had) a few. Erika Rapp is turning out some excellent food at Diva, downtown. I haven't been to Fifi's, as I don't usually have the attire they require. They had another excellent contemporary restaurant called Matthew's Creative Cuisine, but it closed. They have a very good, longtime steakhouse, Mancy's, which has spawned offshoots, mostly Italian. There are a lot more places I haven't tried. The sheer quantity and quality are not overwhelming, probably due to a lackluster local economy, but they're okay. What helps is the newspaper, the Toledo Blade, has restaurant reviews and searchable restaurant listings and ratings, which gives them big props in my eyes (even if their five-star rating might be the equivalent of two or three elsewhere). I would rate Toledo as "okay" in terms of being a restaurant city, not overwhelming, not a destination, but with enough choices to make life interesting for the 600,000 people who live there. I am also a frequent traveler to Indianapolis (1.7 million people, about three times the size of Toledo). You would expect more places from a city that size, and indeed that's true. However, you would also expect a higher level of quality, and by the definition of having "really really really really good restaurants", I've been disappointed there more often than not. I've tried most of the places acclaimed as the best in town, and I've just been disappointed way more often than I would expect from such a large city. Lately I've found a couple of places I like a whole lot (The Oceanaire and 14 West), some that are reasonably good (L'Explorateur), and some that I found really disappointing (Tallent, in Bloomington, as well as several other highly-touted places over the years). Also, the Indianapolis Star may have reviews, but they don't link to them or have any subjective information in their web listings, which to me is a big disappointment. I would rate Indy as "below average" in terms of being a restaurant city, with some decent places but less than I would expect in a city that size, and not a whole lot of apparent appreciation of really, really, really good food. (Maybe this is what some of you are saying about Detroit...?) Then, there's Louisville (1.1 million). Here, they seem to have more than you would expect. I've had some excellent meals there, at Lilly's and at Le Relais, just to name a couple of the top places. They also have excellent online reviews on Robin Garr's website (I don't know whether or not this is affiliated with the local media, but it serves the same purpose). I consider Louisville to have more than I would expect in a city that size. Similarly, Grand Rapids (1.2 million) has more than you would expect, including the top places in the Amway downtown, Leo's, a local seafood place that I adore, Bistro Bella Vita, a great Italian place downtown, and a chain called the Gilmore Collection which has a dozen different places (different names and menus), and the three I've tried are all very good indeed. I'm not aware of a review website in their media. But I am always impressed when I visit Grand Rapids, and I look forward to going to the restaurants there. So again, I consider Grand Rapids to have more than I would expect in a city that size. There are also certain small towns that just seem to attract a local restaurant industry out of all proportion to their size. Ellsworth MI (Tapawingo, Rowe Inn) is probably the most familiar of these to Michiganders, but Sheboygan WI is another small town with absolutely amazing food (Margaux, Biro, and lots more). I don't know how many of you are familiar with these other cities and towns, but maybe all of this helps put things into perspective regarding Detroit.

Milwaukee Public Market There's no ranking error. I had clicked on the column for 2007 population calculations, so as shown in the link, the cities are sorted on that basis, which puts Detroit ninth, as stated. You can click on any column heading to re-sort and re-rank, for example if you are more interested in 2000 figures (when Dallas was ninth) than for 2007.

I doubt it. Convention-goers rarely use public transportation, even in cities (e.g. Chicago) with excellent public transit options. They walk to what's close by, and they take cabs to what isn't. They're usually on expense accounts.

I don't think the availability of public transportation is a big factor in explaining restaurant offerings. Most people - locals and visitors alike - don't take the bus or subway when going to the more upscale restaurants. However, public transportation availability is a big factor in the livability and vitality of a city, particularly in neighborhoods within the limits of a central city. So, to the extent that it helps attract more affluent folks to live in the city, rather than the suburbs, it may be a factor that way. Comparing Detroit against Chicago, one of the country's premier "restaurant cities", the factors thus far mentioned that seem to distinguish between the two and are most likely to have a role in restaurant offerings (particularly upscale restaurants) are: 1. the level of convention and tourism business 2. the presence of affluent residents in city neighborhoods 3. the health of the overall economy in pretty much that order. Regarding #2, it's worth noting that Chicago has affluence in the city as well as the suburbs. The restaurant offerings in the Chicago suburbs, while extensive, have less diversity (by far) than within the city, in terms of types of cuisine, independents vs franchises, etc. It's also worth noting that Detroit isn't that much smaller than Chicago (6.0 million vs 9.5 million souls in the metro areas, ranking ninth and third nationwide, ref). While I am not familiar with the restaurant offerings in Detroit, I suspect that they are far better and more diverse than those who denigrate them are claiming. I've found excellent restaurant offerings in far smaller cities, and I would be shocked if that weren't the case in Detroit.

I have been to Chez Francois for dinner twice in the past couple of years. On both occasions it was excellent, with wonderful French food and excellent service. I really enjoyed it. If you like real French food, you will, too. They change their menu with the seasons (see their website) and they run an extensive program of wine dinners and other special events. They do an excellent job of communicating these offerings on their website and in their electronic newsletter. It's worth noting that, in their main dining room, jackets are required for gentlemen and just about all wear ties as well. (You'll see more about this on their website; I would imagine they get a lot of flak about this policy, in this day and age of casual fine dining.) Attire is more casual for dining on the deck outdoors, and their website refers to the recent addition of their "casual Café". I think it's a good move on their part; I know I would have been back more often, but for their dress code. Chez Francois is about 30 miles west of Cleveland; their website notes that it's 45 minutes from downtown Cleveland and 90 minutes from downtown Toledo. Those passing through on the Ohio Turnpike can get to it easily by taking a jog over to OH-2, without going all that far out of their way. Chez Francois 555 Main Street Vermilion, Ohio 44089 440.967.0630

Cuatro is a good place to consider for your late-night requirement on Saturday. We'll get to that. But first, let's talk about a few places closer to your hotel, okay? (Scroll down if you can't wait for some late-night recommendations!) Places close to your hotel If budget is no longer important, then go to Custom House. It's just a couple of blocks from your hotel, and it's outstanding. New American cuisine from Shawn McClain, who was nominated for the James Beard Award. They have a 3-course pre-theater dinner for $46. You can see the menu (and prices) on their website. Their last seating is 10 pm weekends. Custom House 500 S. Dearborn St. (312) 523-0200 Also just a short walk from your hotel, at the other end of the price spectrum, you can get stuffed (double-crust) Chicago-style deep-dish pizza at: Edwardo's 521 S. Dearborn Street Chicago, IL 60605 (312) 939-3366 Check the menu on their website and order ahead of time if you want to avoid waiting 30-40 minutes for your pizza to cook. Last seating is 11 pm weekends. For breakfast/brunch, and again, just a few blocks' walk: Orange on Harrison 75 W. Harrison St. 312-447-1000 They serve pancake "flights" (four different kinds of mini-pancakes on a plate), egg dishes, custom-blended juices, etc. And, for Thai food: Amarit 600 S. Dearborn St. 312-939-1179 Places open late on Saturday night For a late-night place, you might not be able to eat too close to your hotel, but let's talk about places which seat people after 11 pm. As recommended above, Cuatro is very good and stays open late. They serve Latin Fusion and it's very lively, has music, etc. The only downside is that there's really very little around there at night, so it kind of sits on its own on a commercial strip in the middle of the rapidly-gentrifying South Loop neighborhood. The four restaurants in the KDK group are all open late. Two are about a mile east of Union Park: Red Light (Asian Fusion, and my favorite of this group), and Marche (French Bistro). Closer to your hotel (about 3/4 mile south of it) are the other two, Opera (Chinese) and Gioco (Italian). To throw a few more options out there, other places seating past 11 pm include Aigre Doux for contemporary new American (read my eGullet review here), Hugo's for seafood, Smith and Wollensky for steak, The Gage for a gastropub-type place, and Venus for Greek, in Greek Town. All of these places are a short cab ride from Union Park and from your hotel (the Gage is only 3/4 mile from the hotel, which is walkable). As you can see, Opera, Gioco, and the Gage are all about 3/4 mile from your hotel. Those are the closest places I can think of that are open late. Maybe one of those works for you; otherwise, cabs are plentiful. As for availability, I think every restaurant I am mentioning in this post accepts reservations on opentable.com, so with a few clicks of your keyboard, you can make a reservation. Don't worry about availability till you do that, as you'll probably find that finding availability is not a problem at all.

You know, I think that's a great idea - try a whole bunch of Chicago-area pizza places! Thin crust at Spacca Napoli, a stuffed pizza place, a pan pizza place... It could be over a period of time - say, every other week for a couple of months - or, if out-of-towners want to join in, then maybe do a big pizza weekend, maybe 3 pizza meals over a 3-day weekend, along with some other non-pizza place or two. Oh wait, I think they're doing that right now, downtown...

Sweets and Savories is a very good place. It is three miles due north of Union Park. The previously-mentioned bus up Ashland Avenue will take you right there. The price at S&S can vary wildly. You can get their $10 wagyu burger on Monday nights (normally $17), or you can get order the $60 tasting menu ($50 on Wednesday, I think), or a la carte. And, of course, alcohol is... what it is. I recently ate there and the bottom line was $90 per person, including moderate alcohol, tax, and tip. I thought it was very good, but not as good as any of the dinners I've had at one sixtyblue. Incidentally, if you're considering a nice dinner on the west side, two other places to consider are Blackbird and Avec, which are co-owned and next door to each other, about a mile east of Union Park on Randolph. Blackbird is in the same genre as one sixtyblue and Sweets and Savories, casual and moderately expensive with fabulous food. Avec differs in several ways: they don't accept reservations, they have communal seating (you may or may not enjoy this), and their prices are significantly less, with entrees around $18 rather than $30. With its lower prices, it may be exactly what you're looking for. You'll find prices shown on the menus on the websites of all of these restaurants. I'm not very familiar with the area around one sixtyblue and Union Park, but I suspect there are not any decent hotels in the neighborhood. Most of the hotels in Chicago are in the overall downtown area (South Loop, Loop, River North, Gold Coast) and, as you might imagine, tend to be rather expensive, although you can get some details through the usual websites (e.g. Hotwire). I've heard that the Lincoln Park Days Inn is moderately-priced and reasonably nice.

That's the total opposite of the several dinners I've had there, but I haven't been lately. I hope it hasn't gone downhill; it was always superb. Now I've got to go back and make sure it's still as good as ever. I sure hope so; it's been my favorite "go to" place in the city when I want a meal that blows me away. (It's also worth noting that it's only about a block from Union Park.)

I don't know. It probably doesn't matter. One thing that I've found very surprising about eGullet is that some cities get posted about far more frequently than others, and it's not always related to their size. For example, in the Heartland forum, you would expect the Chicago area to be posted about a lot more frequently than anywhere else, just because it has a lot more people than any other Heartland city (about 9.5 million). But there seem to be a whole lot more posts about Kansas City (1.9 million) than about similar sized Midwestern cities (e.g. Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Indianapolis). It's possible that reflects a more active restaurant community there than other cities; it's also possible that reflects a handful of posters that know each other and encourage each other to post on eGullet. I don't know, as I'm not at all familiar with the restaurant scene in Kansas City. But I'm very familiar with some other cities, and I can tell you that some cities do indeed have more going on restaurant-wise than others of the same size or even bigger. (I can cite examples if anyone is interested.)

That's a good suggestion too. Pilsen's about 2.5 miles south on Ashland, a straight shot by bus. Just like Greek Town is about a mile east of where you'll be. And the price is right in either case. For public transit information within the city, here's a link to the CTA website. Incidentally, it's worth pointing out that one of the city's very best restaurants is right near Union Park - one sixtyblue. Absolutely fantastic food, in a casual, very hip setting. If you can get rid of your friend - it's way above his budget, since you can expect to pay $80-110 per person, including moderate alcohol, tax, and tip - it's really one of our culinary treasures.

Dump the cheapskate friend. Seriously, though, if you must eat for under $35 per person, you're not all that far from Greek Town, and at any of the Greek places there, you can eat within that amount, assuming you're not getting much alcohol too. Another option would be Chicago-style pizza. Giordano's - my absolute favorite of all the Chicago-style pizza places - has a location in Greek Town. You'd be way under your $35 limit. (Rogers Park and Lincoln Square are pretty far from the near west side, and not that convenient to get to.)

I find it interesting because I have no idea how to identify the hottest topics on a forum. Or, by "Heartland site", are you referring to some website other than this forum (the one we're posting in now)?

As someone with little specific knowledge about Detroit (but a lot about many other Midwestern cities), I think a lot of the factors mentioned thus far reinforce each other. For example: - Tourism and convention business can be huge factors in the restaurant industry. Such out-of-town visitors aren't eating at home (obviously) and substantial numbers seek out the highest quality and/or most unusual, unique restaurants when visiting. - Tourism tends to be concentrated in central cities (rather than the suburbs), and convention centers are often located there as well. The higher quality restaurants often locate in the cities because of this market. (There are exceptions, of course. In fact, many years ago, Jean Banchet intentionally opened Le Francais, at the time considered by many to be the best restaurant in the United States, 45 minutes from downtown Chicago to avoid serving the casual, non-foodie convention trade.) - A proliferation of quality restaurants in a given neighborhood is a big attraction for local area residents deciding where to live, and even more so for those with the highest interest in eating out, who tend to be more affluent, as well. Fine restaurants attract housing renewal/gentrification, and housing renewal/gentrification attracts restaurants. - Affluence, housing renewal/gentrification and restaurants also attract tourism. Visitors enjoy spending time in trendy neighborhoods with boutiques and outdoor cafes. Some of these factors are present or absent on a historical basis (e.g. Philadelphia's revolutionary historical sites as tourist attractions). Some cities have built attractions that have generated tourism (the St. Louis Arch, Chicago's new Millennium Park). Convention business is trickier; every city wants more convention business, and most have built and expanded convention centers, but that business is very competitive and it's hard to expand it unless you have an attractive city and area (nice weather in winter helps, but it's not something a city can do anything about). If you have a city with a general level of affluence, lots of convention business and tourists, and trendy neighborhoods, all of those factors reinforce each other. They result in (and are reinforced by) the presence of a bustling restaurant community. In the absence of all of those factors, it's very tough on the development of a thriving local restaurant industry.

Because it's a list of the twenty most populous metropolitan areas in the United States - those with 2.6 million people or more - and Austin, with 1.6 million, is ranked 35th.

I'm not sure how relevant a university is. If anything, its impact is felt in the affluence university communities generally have, with faculty, rather than students, being the target market for eating out at all but the least expensive restaurants. But there are plenty of sizable, affluent university communities (e.g. East Lansing) whose restaurant offerings are relatively slim. It's also worth noting that, depending on your definition of "metro Detroit", Ann Arbor may be included, and the U of M is certainly a major residential university. As for the question about other cities with or without major residential universities, here are the twenty largest metro areas in the U.S. (ref) with a few major universities shown for each (I'm sure I missed plenty): 1 New York (Columbia, NYU) 2 Los Angeles (USC, UCLA) 3 Chicago (UChicago, Northwestern) 4 Washington-Baltimore (GWU, Johns Hopkins) 5 San Francisco (UCBerkeley, Stanford) 6 Philadelphia (Penn) 7 Dallas (???) 8 Boston (Harvard, MIT, BU, a bazillion others) 9 Detroit-Windsor 10 Houston (Rice) 11 Atlanta (Emory) 12 San Diego-Tijuana (UCSD) 13 Miami (UMiami) 14 Phoenix (Arizona State) 15 Seattle (U dub) 16 Minneapolis-Saint Paul (UM, Macalaster) 17 Cleveland (Case Western Reserve) 18 Denver (UC Boulder is about the same distance away as Ann Arbor from Detroit) 19 Tampa (???) 20 Saint Louis (Wash U) As you can see, I'm not sure whether Dallas or Tampa have major residential universities. All in all, I would say that the presence or absence of a major residential university is probably not a substantial factor in the vitality of a city's restaurant community. $.02