Selden Standard Built Midtown's Dining Scene, Then Kept Cooking

The bread arrives warm. Not lukewarm, not room temperature, not "it was warm twenty minutes ago." Warm. Baked in the wood-fired oven that occupies the back wall of the kitchen at Selden Standard, pulled out recently enough that the crust still has give, served with cultured butter that melts on contact. Most restaurants treat bread as a holding pattern. Selden Standard treats it as an argument for what comes next.

Chef Andy Hollyday opened Selden Standard in 2014 at 3921 Second Avenue in Midtown, a block and a half from the Detroit Institute of Arts.^{1Selden Standard's website and local media report a 2014 opening at 3921 Second Ave in Midtown.} The restaurant has since become a multiple-time James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Great Lakes, a distinction that tracks with what Hollyday has built.^{2Andy Hollyday has been named a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: Great Lakes multiple times, as reported in local and national media coverage of the awards.} But the Beard recognition arrived after the restaurant had already become something harder to achieve: the place where Detroit's food community meets, argues, celebrates, and eats on a Tuesday because Tuesday felt like it needed a good meal.

I wrote about Selden Standard in our Midtown Detroit guide and kept the entry short. This restaurant deserves more room.

The Food

Selden Standard's menu is organized around a wood-fired oven and a philosophy that gives vegetables and grains equal billing with proteins. The menu changes seasonally, which means returning a month later can feel like visiting a different restaurant built on the same foundation.

Roasted carrots with yogurt and dukkah is the dish I mention when people ask why they should drive 45 minutes for vegetables. The carrots are cooked in the wood oven until they concentrate and sweeten, then dressed with a thick yogurt and a dukkah blend (ground nuts, seeds, spices) that adds crunch and warmth. The combination is not complicated. It works because the carrots are good, the technique is patient, and nobody in the kitchen decided the dish needed a protein to justify its place on the menu. At $14, it is one of the better arguments for vegetable cooking in the state.

Wood-fired bread with cultured butter sounds like a starter. It functions as one. But the bread itself, with a dark, blistered crust and an open, chewy crumb, belongs in a conversation with the best bread programs in metro Detroit. The butter is made in-house and arrives at that soft, spreadable stage where it actually cooperates with bread. Hollyday's wood oven handles the bread and most of the proteins, and you can taste the difference. There is a smokiness in the crust that a conventional oven cannot produce.

Roasted chicken ($32) is the entree that anchors the menu's protein side. Half a bird, cooked in the wood oven until the skin is rendered and crisp, served with seasonal sides that on my visit included a farro salad and braised greens. The chicken is sourced from Michigan farms, and the flavor reflects that sourcing. Dark meat with depth. White meat that stayed moist. The jus on the plate was built from drippings, not from a packet. This is not a revolutionary dish. It is a competent one, executed by a kitchen that respects the ingredient enough to let it carry the plate.

Beet hummus keeps appearing on the menu in various forms, and regulars order it as a main course. Roasted beets blended smooth with tahini and lemon, served with flatbread. The color is dramatic (a deep, saturated purple-red), but what matters is the texture: silky, with just enough grain to remind you it is made from actual beets. The flatbread, baked in the oven, is sturdy enough to scoop without breaking. Three plates of it went to the table next to me. The empty dishes came back scraped clean.

Most entrees land between $24 and $38. Two people sharing a few small plates, an entree each, and a glass of wine will spend $100 to $140 before tip.

The Room

High ceilings. An open kitchen visible from most seats. Natural light during brunch and lunch, warm pendant lighting at dinner. The room at Selden Standard is one long rectangle with the bar running along one side and tables filling the rest, and the proportions make it feel bigger than it is. The wood oven at the back of the kitchen is visible from the dining room, and on a busy night the sight of flames flickering behind the cooks adds something that a closed kitchen cannot offer.

Noise on a Saturday night runs to conversational-plus. You can talk without shouting, but you will lean in. That seems deliberate. The room rewards proximity.

Brunch on weekends draws a crowd, particularly among the Wayne State and DIA-adjacent regulars who have made Selden Standard part of their Saturday routine. Dinner reservations are worth making Thursday through Saturday. Weeknight dinners are easier to walk into and sometimes better for it. A Tuesday at 7 p.m., with the restaurant two-thirds full and the kitchen cooking at its own pace, is the version of Selden Standard I like best.

What It Means in Midtown

Midtown's restaurant density has grown in the decade since Selden Standard opened. Chartreuse is a block away, doing strong work with small plates and cocktails. Jolly Pumpkin handles the casual crowd. Republic feeds the neighborhood on weeknights. Selden Standard is the one that set the standard for what a Midtown restaurant could be, and the fact that newer restaurants have met that standard is a credit to what Hollyday built.^{3See our Midtown guide for a fuller picture of the neighborhood's dining options.}

From Ann Arbor, it is 45 minutes east on I-94 to the Lodge Freeway. Park on Second Avenue or in the surface lots near the DIA. If you are combining a museum visit with dinner, Selden Standard is close enough to walk and good enough to plan the trip around.

The bread, pulled from the oven, crust dark and splitting, butter already softening on the plate. That is where Selden Standard starts, and it is the thing I remember on the drive home.

Selden Standard is at 3921 Second Ave, Midtown, Detroit. Brunch, lunch, and dinner. Reservations recommended for dinner.