Craig Lieckfelt is dubbed "Motor City's fine-dining ambassador" by the Wall Street Journal atop a weekend magazine report on his plans for "a high-end restaurant in downtown Detroit that's good enough to rival the best in the world — but with a cuisine that's entirely of the city itself."
Craig Lieckfelt is preparing to open Guns & Butter this summer at .Broadway and Gratiot.
The 29-year-old chef, a native Detroiter who returned in April 2013 after training at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and working in Manhattan, has earned attention earlier for his Guns & Butter pop-up dinner series of sold-out meals at unconventional spaces here and in other cities. This latest profile, a long appreciation by contributing editor Howie Kahn, is pegged to preparations for a 16-seat restaurant downtown that'll soon serve "an unprecedented product in an unprecedented time in his city."
If you read the headlines, you get bankruptcy and blight. But the city is also establishing its coordinates around the axes of art and commerce in increasingly prominent ways.
"Hipsters with ideas . . . have been successful in carrying out a kind of long-overdue branding exercise that casts Detroit in a more positive light. There's international fascination with the city's well-being — its historical contributions, sad trajectory and future potential. . . .
Until Lieckfelt, the dining component of this inner-city resurgence had largely been missing. . . . Later this summer, the permanent location of Guns & Butter will open on the corner of Broadway and Gratiot.
Kahn name-checks Slows, Supino and even American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island ("neighboring greasy spoons") as a setup for describing how Leickfelt orbits in a universe far, far away:
But pizza, ribs and hot dogs . . . aren't what Lieckfelt has in mind. "I'm obsessed with Michelin-level dining," he says. "Three stars. I'm obsessed with bringing that to Detroit."
The reference is to the Guide Michelin, a gourmet bible that defines the pinnacle of haute cuisine. The Southeast Michigan list is shown at right.
If it takes two decades to break in, Lieckfelt is cool with that.
"This restaurant isn't just another project for me. It's my life's work. . . .
"I'm cooking for my city. My city should have national and global respect."
He tells Kahn why he'll keep the Guns & Butter name, though it was an offhand, whimsical choice:
"I remember having had this high school teacher who would mutter those words all the time: 'Guns and butter, guns and butter.' I liked the way it sounded, but I mainly chose it to make my friends laugh."
The writer saves some of the best news for local diners until near the tail of his tale:
After much deliberation, [Lieckfelt decided] he'd be charging what he felt was a fair price of $50 for a dinner that would cost at least four times that in Chicago, Los Angeles or New York.
Anthony Bourdain (right) was at one of the chef's pop-ups last summer for his "Parts Unknown" show on CNN.
Readers who like the article include its subject, who thanks the writer Sunday on Facebook: "It is without doubt the best piece to be written about myself and guns + butter."
Earlier at Deadline Detroit:
