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Roast: 2009 Detroit Free Press Restaurant of the Year

Michael Symon's Roast heats up Detroit

By Sylvia Rector | Free Press Restaurant Critic | February 8, 2009

When you visit Michael Symon's Roast at the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit, order the ethereal beef cheek pierogi. The luscious, ivory-colored pillows are stuffed with rich, dark brown beef so intensely delicious and tender, you may well crave them days later.

It's one of Symon's signature dishes. And as much as anything on Roast's menu, it tells you about his Midwestern roots, his deceptively sophisticated cuisine and the accessible but upscale attitude that makes his restaurant so appealing.

The Cleveland-born chef and Food Network star describes the restaurant as "a meat house -- a steak house plus."

That's enough to entice most diners. But it's the combination of excellence, atmosphere, attitude and price that sets it apart.

It's a kitchen where only the best ingredients -- from the right firewood to the perfect suckling pigs -- will do. It's a white-tablecloth dining room where jean-clad guests are welcome. Where the intriguing chef-driven menu is so approachable, anyone will feel comfortable ordering. And where budget-conscious food-lovers can still afford to dine.

Roast wasn't meant to appeal only to connoisseurs or the wealthy. It's a destination dining spot designed to include the proverbial Everyman. In these times, that alone might earn it honors as Restaurant of the Year.

But what seals the deal is behind the scenes: the underlying quality of its kitchen, the values it brings to Detroit and the aspirations it shares for the city.

Twenty people, from dishwashers to sous chefs, work with executive chef Jeff Rose in Roast's open kitchen, where mankind's first cooking tool -- fire -- still commands center stage.

Fire licks the back of the wood-burning oven. Fire glows in the mesquite and hardwood charcoal that fuels the custom-built, 6-foot-long grill where steaks are cooked. And fire slowly roasts the Beast of the Day -- a whole suckling pig, young goat or baby lamb that will cook for 6 to 10 hours in the open stainless steel rotisserie beside the dining room.

It's an unexpected focal point. But everyone at least steals a glance at it from across the room, and many order the beast as an entrée or shared starter.

"Guests love it. ... During the weekends, we'll do two a day," says Rose, 35, of Royal Oak as he checks the 20-pound suckling pig roasting on a Thursday for Friday's menu. Pig is the most popular, followed by goat.

Rose buys the animals, and virtually everything else, from sources he knows -- the closer to home, the better. After years as a chef at top area restaurants including Tribute, Iridescence and Big Rock Chophouse, he knows "just about everybody," he says.

"We try to do as much farm-to-table as we possibly can. Being in the middle of the city makes it tough, but we're involved with the Greening of Detroit project" to encourage farming on vacant land within the city. "Hopefully, we'll be one of the first ones to get produce from that," Rose says.

In Cleveland, Symon is widely credited as the catalyst for the city's lively, chef-driven restaurant scene, and he is an active supporter of the local foods movement through his restaurants Lola and Lolita.

"We have a guy who raises all our chickens," Symon said. "We have a guy who raises all our pork. Somebody forages for all our mushrooms."

He plans to do likewise in Michigan.

Many of metro Detroit's most influential chefs buy from local growers and producers, helping build a stronger agricultural network and create local jobs.

But it takes time, especially when a chef needs something unusual or difficult to grow.

Not enough Michigan farms can produce the animals Roast needs now, so Rose's whole pigs, lambs and goats come from Illinois -- but he's looking for new sources in the Thumb.

Nearly every part of the animal is used in what Symon calls "nose to tail" cooking. Even the pig ears are simmered and softened in fat for 20 hours before being julienned and fried into crispy garnishes for an egg-topped warm spinach salad.

Limiting waste keeps costs down, and savings are passed on to diners. In the end, it helps Roast's dinner menu feature at least 10 entrées for $25 or less, including a beautiful 6-ounce filet for $21 and a 12-ounce hanger steak for $23.

Symon is no stranger to Detroit. He comes into town weekly for at least a day or two, spending time with the Roast staff, including sous chefs Randy Weed and Andy Hollyday, and coming out into the dining room several times a night.

Warm, unassuming and immediately recognizable with his bald head and broad smile, the star of Food Network's "Iron Chef: America" meets guests and poses for pictures.

"We weren't going to come here and put our name on a restaurant and walk away from it," he said as he and his wife, Liz, and partner Doug Petkovic prepared to open Roast last fall. "We're very hands-on owners."

One of Symon's top employees, Lola general manager Frank Ritz, has moved to Detroit to be Roast's general manager and build relationships with downtown workers, residents and businesses.

"We're not just a restaurant in a building," Ritz said, "but one trying to embrace a city. ... I'm here to be part of revitalizing the city. I see it happening."

Contact SYLVIA RECTOR at 313-222-5026 or srector@freepress.com.