When guests arrive at the new Marais restaurant on Kercheval in Grosse Pointe, maitre d’ Matthew Bricker wheels his champagne cart to their table and offers palate-awakening flutes of bubbly, at $11-$19 per glass, from bottles set on ice in a silver bowl.
So writes Sylvia Rector in her review of Marais, which she calls "the kind of restaurant diners haven’t seen open in metro Detroit in years."
It’s a style and level of service rare anywhere and all but nonexistent in metro Detroit — which is much of the reason Gilbert created Marais. His goal, he says, is to raise the region’s bar for fine dining.
The restaurant is named after an old -- like 13th Century old -- neighborhood in Paris and pronounced "ma-RAY." The word also means "swamp," which is appropriate, because much of Grosse Pointe was once a swamp, and a street named Grand Marais -- Great Swamp -- is nearby.
But there is nothing marshy about the menu, Rector writes.
Plates arrive on silver trays carried by a cadre of food runners; another group of back-waiters serves the dishes to guests, and the table’s head waiter — or captain — observes and describes each dish to diners.
Gourmet ingredients such as sweetbreads, foie gras, quail, fennel pollen and truffles appear throughout the menu.
Gilbert uses them in detailed, technically complex dishes based on classic French cooking techniques — ones he practiced in kitchens that range from the French Laundry in Napa Valley to Michelin-starred restaurants in France and Spain, where he worked for six years.
Guests can order individual appetizers ($17-$21) and entrées ($32-$38) or choose the degustation menu of six courses for $115 per person.
Appetizers include a classic tourchon of foie gras, presented as a disc of creamy foie encased in a thin, perfect layer of blackberry gelée, served with black peppercorn gastrique and tiny brioche rolls. The scallops and cauliflower starter — two jumbo seared scallops with tiny florets of roasted cauliflower, golden raisins, toasted almonds, crispy capers, brown butter and the finest imported balsamic — was a straightforward but sophisticated collection of flavors and textures.
