Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails Settles in As One of Detroit’s Most Beloved Farm to Table Restaurants
Jake Newby
| 5 min read
When Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails opened in 2015, “farm to table” was a nebulous buzzword – sometimes a hollow one – that restaurants used to market themselves. When Chartreuse opened with that concept, it was less interested in the perceived advertising appeal of the term and more concerned with providing fresh, locally sourced ingredients to downtown Detroit patrons.
“We want to make sure our guests have the best possible experience that we can provide, but we also don’t ever want anybody to ever think that we are style over substance or anything like that,” said Chartreuse Owner Sandy Levine. “There’s a lot of places that are technically farm to table, but they’re factory farms they source from.”
Levine says Chartreuse Executive Chef Doug Hewitt and Chef de Cuisine Brian Christie don’t make sacrifices and don’t take shortcuts when curating their menu, parts of which changes each night.
“They won’t just go and buy something from, maybe a more industrial kind of farm, since, you know, it’s cheaper and maybe no one will notice,” Levine said. “I don’t think they have it in them to do that. Even if there was a 100% guarantee that nobody would notice, they still wouldn’t do that.”
How the farm to table philosophy works for Chartreuse
Mutual friends connected Levine and Hewitt more than a decade ago. Levine recalls being blown away at Hewitt’s ability when sitting down to try items from his now-closed Dexter restaurant, Terry B’s, which was also farm-to-table. Refusing to settle for anything less than quality ingredients was a sentiment Levine shared even before his foray into restaurant ownership. As owner of Ferndale’s acclaimed craft cocktail bar, The Oakland, it’s a concept Levine subscribed to since day one.
“Even at our cocktail bar, the focus was on premium quality ingredients that are sort of left to speak for themselves,” Levine said. “Doug has that philosophy in a lot of ways with food as well. When we first started talking about stuff, we realized very quickly that purchasing prepared foods is not something he was ever willing to do.”
Chartreuse’s relationship with Michigan farms is reflected across the menu, from its proteins to its produce. It sources from Featherstone Garden in Detroit and Werp Farms in Buckley. Chartreuse offers a salad on its menu made strictly of vegetables sourced from Brother Nature’s organic Detroit Farm. The restaurant was also in on the ground floor at Motor City Seafood, which has exploded in popularity in recent years.
“I’m pretty sure we were their first customer,” Levine said, of Motor City Seafood. “There’s a million more that I’m not mentioning.”
Chartreuse menu highlights
There aren’t wholesale menu seasonal changes at Chartreuse, but some items with specific harvesting windows come and go. July through September marks tomato season in Michigan, so right now, Chartreuse’s heirloom tomato dish is the belle of its summer ball.
“People get really excited when the heirloom tomatoes come back around,” Levine said. “Also, this time of year, the Michigan stone fruit does well. Those dishes are just like pure Michigan summer.”
The ingredients included in Chartreuse’s heirloom tomato dish may vary, but a recent rendition is composed of tomato, lemon picked beet, horseradish, cornbread crumb, remoulade and fresh herbs. The Michigan stone fruit dish consists of red haven peaches, methley, shiro and santa rose plums, sugar rush melon, blueberry, chartreuse honey, lemon basil and chilis.
The bright and colorful visuals at Chartreuse are a hallmark of Hewitt and Christie’s culinary prowess, and that extends to the protein dishes. This summer’s Poussin entrée – also called the spring chicken – is served on a bed of green papaya salad and includes coconut, yuzu, spicy mustard, peanut and shisho.
Vegans and vegetarians are far from an afterthought at the critically acclaimed Detroit restaurant. There are always at least a handful of meat-free staples at Chartreuse and many other dishes can be amended to become vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free. One of the most popular dishes in restaurant history – the twice cooked egg dish – is vegetarian.
“Doug and Brian were putting the initial menu together and decided, ‘we need at least one more vegetarian dish,’” Levine said. “At their other restaurant they had like this pork belly dish that had egg that was poached and then fried, so that when you cut into it drizzles from the yolk. They said, ‘let’s just take the pork belly off of that and make it a salad.’ So, that was a last-minute addition on the last day before service, and now we sell like 10 or 12,000 of those a year.”
Reflecting on nearly 10 years in Detroit
The farm to table concept has transcended the trend stage. We’re not likely to go back to a climate in any major metropolitan city where it becomes in vogue to source exclusively from factory farms and wholesale food distributors. When you execute that business model as well as Chartreuse has – while also providing exquisite service and warm hospitality –you’re likely to find success. The multi-time “restaurant of the year” award winner and James Beard semifinalist has certainly found its fair share of it.
“We wanted to have a place that was worthy of being in the city,” Levine. “Just being able to have a restaurant in the city that we love is something we’ve always taken seriously and never took for granted. We just want to have a place where people can come and feel comfortable and well taken care of.”
“There’s thousands of restaurants in the city, right?” Levine added. “If we can honor the fact that someone chose to come here, that’s our goal.”
Chartreuse is located at 15 E. Kirby St. in Detroit. It’s open between Tuesdays and Sundays for dinner service and provides lunch service on Thursdays and Fridays, in addition to dinner service. The restaurant is closed on Mondays.
The Foodie Focus series spotlights Michigan restaurants dedicated to serving fresh, quality food. From sourcing chemical-free ingredients to emphasizing sustainability, these are the backstories of clean-eating options throughout the state.
More from the Foodie Focus series:
- Breadless in Detroit Turns the Afterthought into the Centerpiece with Healthy, Innovative Sandwich Concept
- Aster Farm to Table Restaurant in Midland Focuses on Seasonality, Sustainability and Community
- Cooking with Que: Detroit Restaurant Owner’s Cooking Classes Show You How to ‘Eat to Live’
Photo credit: Sandy Levine/Facebook
