Takoi Does Thai Food the Way Detroit Does Everything: On Its Own Terms

Update: Lady of the House, mentioned in this article, closed in September 2025.

I mentioned Takoi briefly in our Detroit dining guide and said the concept sounds like it should fall apart. Thai-inspired cooking with Michigan ingredients is a hard thing to pull off without losing what makes either half interesting. I've been back to Takoi since writing that guide, and I'm ready to say something stronger: Brad Greenhill is one of the more interesting chefs cooking in Detroit right now, and his restaurant is a reason to drive to Corktown even if you've already been to Lady of the House.

Takoi sits at 2520 Michigan Avenue in Corktown, on a stretch of Michigan Ave that has become one of Detroit's better restaurant corridors. Greenhill built the menu around Thai flavors and techniques, using local sourcing where the season allows and importing what he has to. That distinction matters. He's not pretending Michigan can produce lemongrass in January. He's finding the places where Southeast Asian cooking and Great Lakes agriculture overlap, and leaning into those intersections hard.

The Food

The khao soi is the dish that keeps pulling me back. A bowl of egg noodles in a coconut curry broth, rich enough to coat a spoon, with enough turmeric to turn it golden and enough chili to remind you this isn't comfort food. Crispy fried noodles on top for texture. Pickled mustard greens on the side for acid. It's a composed dish that reads as simple and eats as complex. On a cold night in February, I finished the bowl and seriously considered ordering a second one.

The papaya salad uses green papaya when it's available and pivots to local greens when it isn't. The dressing hits every note in sequence: sour, sweet, salty, then heat at the back. Peanuts for crunch. Dried shrimp for funk. I've had papaya salads at Thai restaurants across metro Detroit, and Greenhill's version is less traditional and more deliberate. He's not reproducing a template. He's building a salad that makes sense in the room he's created.

The whole grilled fish is the entree I'd order if I were bringing someone for the first time. Scored, marinated, grilled over high heat until the skin crisps and the flesh stays moist. Served with a chili-lime dipping sauce that has real bite. The fish changes depending on what's available. I've had it with branzino and with trout. Both were good. The trout, a Great Lakes fish cooked with Thai technique, felt like the dish that most clearly represents what Greenhill is doing at Takoi.

The crispy rice salad rounds out the menu's range. Fried rice clusters tossed with herbs, lime, chili flakes, and what I think was a fermented sausage. It's crunchy, bright, and disappears from the table fast. Order it early.

The Cocktails

The bar program at Takoi deserves its own conversation. Greenhill's cocktail team (I don't know how many bartenders he has, but the two I've dealt with knew what they were doing) builds drinks around the same flavor logic as the food. Lemongrass, ginger, makrut lime, Thai basil. Spirits I recognized in combinations I hadn't seen before. One drink, something with bourbon and coconut and a chili tincture, was good enough that I kept thinking about it.

The cocktails are not decorative. They're built to complement the food without competing with it. If you're the kind of person who orders one drink and nurses it through dinner, order at the bar first and let it inform your meal. If you're the kind of person who stays for a second round after dessert, Takoi will let you do that without making you feel like you're holding up a table.

The Room, The Drive

The space is smaller than you'd expect from the outside. Bar seating along one side, tables filling the rest. The noise level on a Friday night is high enough that you lean in to talk but not so loud that you give up trying. The lighting is low, warm, the kind that makes food look good and people look better.

Dinner for two with cocktails runs somewhere around $90 to $120 before tip. For what you get, that's fair.

I keep writing about Corktown restaurants, and I keep meaning to branch out to other Detroit neighborhoods. But when a chef is doing work this interesting forty-five minutes from my front door, it's hard to drive past Michigan Avenue. The trout, scored and charred, sitting in chili-lime sauce — that's the dish that explains what Greenhill is doing better than I can. I'll order it again next time.

Takoi is at 2520 Michigan Ave, Corktown, Detroit. Open for dinner. Reservations recommended.