La Serre Is a Hotel Restaurant That Actually Earns the Reservation

Hotel restaurants are where ambition goes to die. That is the rule, and it holds so reliably that most of us stopped checking years ago. The lobby steakhouse with the laminated wine list. The breakfast buffet with scrambled eggs that have been sitting under heat lamps since dawn. The dinner menu that exists because the building needs a restaurant and someone has to staff it. We've all eaten these meals. We've all regretted them.

La Serre, which opened May 6 inside The Vanguard Hotel on Glen Avenue, is asking you to set that baggage down. It is a real French brasserie, not a hotel dining room in a brasserie costume, and after several visits, we think it has earned the right to make that request.

The Room

The Vanguard is a Marriott Autograph Collection property, which means it's a Marriott that doesn't want you to know it's a Marriott. The hotel is owned by Robert Finvarb Companies and Milford Singer & Company, managed by Greenwood Hospitality Group. None of that matters to someone walking in for dinner, but it explains the investment behind the space. This restaurant was not built on a budget.

The name means "greenhouse" in French, and the design leans into that idea. Bleached oak floors run the length of the dining room. Parisian blue on the banquettes, in the trim work, across the bar gives the room a warmth that most hotel interiors struggle to achieve. The space seats roughly 125, plus 30 at the bar and two private dining rooms for larger parties.

The showcase display kitchen is the centerpiece. It's open to the dining room, visible from most seats, and it does what the best open kitchens do: it makes the cooking part of the experience without turning it into performance. You can watch the line work if you want. You can also ignore it and focus on your dinner. Either way, the kitchen's presence tells you something about the restaurant's priorities.

The Food

Executive Chef Michael Polsinelli is building his menu around French technique and Michigan sourcing. That sounds like marketing copy until you taste the results. The brasserie tradition has always been about good ingredients and disciplined technique without unnecessary fuss. Polsinelli seems to understand that.

The moules-frites are a clean execution of a dish that tolerates no shortcuts. Plump mussels in a broth that's been properly built, with frites that are crisp and salted correctly. The braised beef short ribs have the kind of falling-apart tenderness that only comes from time and attention. The lobster spaghetti is rich without being heavy, the pasta cooked properly, the lobster not overworked.

The moules-frites are a clean execution of a dish that tolerates no shortcuts. The short ribs have the kind of tenderness that only comes from time.

The raw bar and seafood plateaux are worth noting. A proper raw bar has been conspicuously absent from Ann Arbor's dining scene, and La Serre's version is well-sourced and carefully presented. The seafood Louie salad, a classic that most restaurants don't bother with anymore, is a smart inclusion. Generous, well-composed, and a good entry point for anyone wary of the higher-end offerings.

For lunch, the croque monsieur does its job with Gruyere and bechamel that suggest someone in the kitchen actually cares about a sandwich that many restaurants treat as an afterthought. The housemade breads and pastries, available at breakfast and throughout the day, indicate a bakery program that's been given real resources.

Dinner entrees run from $47 for the Angus Filet Tournedos to $59 for the Prime NY Strip Au Poivre. There is a prix fixe option at $100 per person. These are not casual prices, and they shouldn't be. The question with any restaurant at this price point is whether the cooking justifies the spend. At La Serre, it does. Not lavishly, not every single dish, but consistently enough to warrant return visits.

The Wine

The wine list is extensive and leans French, which is the correct call for a brasserie. There are Michigan bottles as well, and the list has enough range that you can drink well at different price points. The bar, open daily from 3 to 11 p.m., functions as its own destination. You can sit with a glass of Burgundy and a plate from the raw bar without committing to a full dinner.

The Larger Point

Ann Arbor has not had a proper French brasserie. We've had French-inspired dishes on various menus around town, and we've had restaurants that nod in the general direction of France. But nobody has committed to the format at this scale. A 125-seat brasserie with a full bar, a display kitchen, and a chef building relationships with Michigan farms is a different proposition than a bistro special on a Tuesday.

The hotel context will make some people skeptical, and that skepticism is reasonable. Hotel restaurants have earned their reputation. But the sourcing, the technique, and the room itself suggest the people behind La Serre understand the difference between a restaurant that happens to be in a hotel and a hotel that happens to have a restaurant. This is the former.

We will be back. The menu has the kind of depth that rewards multiple visits, and Polsinelli is still in the early months of building his kitchen. If the consistency holds as the operation matures, La Serre could become a significant addition to Ann Arbor's dining landscape.

La Serre is at 213 Glen Ave, Ann Arbor, inside The Vanguard Hotel. Breakfast 7-11 a.m. daily; brunch 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; lunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Friday; dinner 5-10 p.m. daily; bar 3-11 p.m. daily. Reservations via OpenTable.