Photo Credit: Mark Kurlyandchik - Detroit Free Press
Metro Detroit is known for its resilience, something the local restaurant industry has had to call upon frequently during the coronavirus pandemic. Every day, this industry has faced financial challenges, operational roadblocks and a quickly changing customer base.
Finding ways to feed not only first responders but the population as a whole with safety in mind has been the main concern of restaurant owners, managers, chefs and staff. Now, a new event that partners the Detroit Free Press with the Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers for the sixth year will bring another layer to that effort: Food-loving customers looking for takeout experiences that also bolster the restaurants and staff that they love.
The Top 10 Takeout brings an appetite for good food combined with good deeds, joining 10 of Metro Detroit’s award-winning restaurants with the public in a series of takeout events. These ticketed events will not only feed their generous participants, but they will allow these hard-working food-focused companies to stay in business at a time when they are struggling the most.
Participating restaurants include Karls, Magnet, Taqueria y Cenaduria Triangulo Dorado, Yum Village, Mink, Casa Pernoi, Cloverleaf, Balkan House, Warda Patisserie, Saffron De Twah and Leila. Cloverleaf will serve as the classic restaurant, giving takeout patrons a taste of its traditionally delicious pizza pies. Leila, the Detroit Free Press’s Restaurant of the Year, will serve as the final takeout offering.
Each restaurant will have its own Takeout date, and tickets for their event will go on sale two weeks in advance. That eatery’s chef will design a specialty menu for the event that only ticketholders will have access to through their order. The food will be grab-and-go, organizers said, allowing people to enjoy restaurant-quality food at home. “We’ve partnered with the restaurants on our Best New Restaurants list as well as the Chef of the Year, Restaurant of the Year and Restaurant of the Year Classic to provide a specially curated multi-course meal designed to be taken and heated at home,” Mark Kurlyandchik, the Detroit Free Press’s restaurant critic, wrote for the newspaper’s introduction to the new dining series. A special contest also will offer a one-of-a-kind prize: A private cooking lesson with Chef Nick Jonutol of this year’s Restaurant of the Year, Leila, as well as three $100 gift cards to the winner’s three favorite restaurants from the Top 10 Takeout list. The annual Top 10 Takeover dining series has been a popular event since 2015, when it first launched as a way to bring food fans together with chefs to talk about recipes, culinary creations and the creativity that has put Metro Detroit on a map as a food destination. Each year, the Detroit Free Press’ food critic puts together a Top 10 Best New Restaurants list, highlighting the talent found inside and outside of the kitchen. Chefs took the spotlight, allowing them to show off their best meals and their hospitality. This year, everything about the events and its participants changed in mid-March when the coronavirus created quarantines and changes in the way people go to restaurants. Takeout became the norm – but it also served as a way to keep these restaurants going in a time when they saw their business drop and staff layoffs became the norm. In an effort to boost restaurant revenue and serve the community, the Top 10 Takeover dining series converted in April to a new event: Top 10 Cares – Rescue Detroit Restaurants/Feed Healthcare Heroes. This initiative raised more than $165,000 and provided healthy meals for more than 5,000 doctors, nurses and health-care staffers over a month-long period. This Top 10 Takeout event supports the community, its appetite for great restaurant experiences and the restaurants themselves, Kurlyandchik noted. “Every business is extremely vulnerable in its first year, but it’s doubly true for the low-margin, high-risk hospitality industry. The Top 10 Takeout is one way to show your support for these nascent businesses until we can all raise our glasses and toast safely to excellence in person again,” Kurlyandchik wrote.
