The Best Places in Downtown & around
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The awards
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Rank 2. Chenin
Wine Bar
Chenin is a tiny wine bar tucked inside The Siren Hotel, pouring natural and biodynamic bottles to a room lit softly enough to forgive anyone's skin-contact experiments. Salty snacks and a mortadella sandwich piled onto focaccia keep the evening going longer than planned. Seats are scarce, so arrive when the doors open. It was a James Beard Award nominee for Best New Bar.
The awards
- James Beard Awards James Beard Awards: 2026 · Nominee · Best New Bar
- The Infatuation The Infatuation: The Best Restaurants In Detroit
- Spirited Awards Spirited Awards: 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best New Bar
- The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Detroit
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. Central
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The awards
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Rank 4. Prime + Proper
Modern American Steakhouse
Glass, marble, and open-flame grills fill a room that makes clear this is a steakhouse with architectural ambitions. Downtown Detroit's Prime + Proper dry-ages its USDA Prime and Japanese Miyazaki cuts in-house before the fire gets anywhere near them, which is either discipline or showmanship, and possibly both. The wine list swings between Napa and the Old World. It ranked 65th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list, for what that's worth on a Tuesday night in Michigan.
The awards
- World's 101 Best World's 101 Best: #65 · World's Best Steak Restaurants
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The awards
- Midwest Living Midwest Living: 2023 · Best of the Midwest
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The awards
- James Beard Awards James Beard Awards: 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar Program
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The awards
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Rank 8. Leila
Middle Eastern Dessert
A Lebanese restaurant on Capitol Park named for the family matriarch, Leila leans into home-cooking warmth rather than white-tablecloth formality. The New York Times called out the Lebanese Sundae among the best dishes eaten across the country in 2024: rose ice cream with orange blossom water hidden under a cloud of fairy floss, the whole thing buried in pistachios, arriving at the table looking like it has somewhere to be.
The awards