Where to Eat in Birmingham, Michigan
The most upscale suburb in metro Detroit has a concentrated Main Street dining scene. A practical guide to what's worth the drive.
Be honest about what Birmingham is before you go. It is the wealthiest suburb in metro Detroit, a city of $600 Aesop candles and valets and restaurants where the room sometimes costs more than the food. A lot of what gets called a great restaurant in Birmingham is actually a great room with serviceable cooking. The two things are worth separating.
The good news is that the dining scene has real anchors. Restaurants that have run for decades. A Lebanese institution that pre-dates the suburb's current golden age by forty years. A wine bar that takes the list seriously enough that people plan visits around it. An Italian trattoria run by one of the best chefs in metro Detroit. These places succeed despite the demographic, not because of it.
From Ann Arbor, the drive is around 50 to 55 minutes via I-94 East to I-275 North, or via M-14 East depending on your starting point. The core of Birmingham's restaurant district runs along Old Woodward Avenue and E Maple Road, with a few key spots on the side streets. Parking is generally available in city structures and on street. This is not downtown Detroit.
The Anchors
Phoenicia (588 S Old Woodward Ave)
Phoenicia has been operating for more than fifty years, first in Highland Park, then in Birmingham since the early 1980s. Sameer Eid runs the room as its principal host, which is part of what makes it work: he was there before Birmingham became expensive and has outlasted every trend the neighborhood has cycled through.
The menu is Lebanese-American with a few departures that work better than they should. The mezze are the entry point: hummus made in-house, pickled baby eggplant stuffed with walnuts, and lamb sausages scented with pomegranate molasses and pine nuts. The main event for regulars tends to be the dry-aged veal chop or the rack of baby-back ribs in a proprietary spice blend, which remains the restaurant's best seller by most accounts. The kitchen also does a grape-leaf-wrapped salmon topped with lime, coriander, and tomato that turns up in every serious review of the place. The wine list is substantial.
This is a white-tablecloth restaurant with white-tablecloth prices. But unlike much of what surrounds it in Birmingham, the cooking justifies the room. It has earned its reputation across five decades rather than borrowing one from its zip code. Hour Detroit reviewed it as among metro Detroit's finest Lebanese-American restaurants.
Open Monday through Thursday for lunch and dinner, Friday through Saturday extended hours, Sunday dinner only.
Casa Pernoi (310 E Maple Rd)
Luciano DelSignore built Bacco Ristorante in Southfield into the standard for Italian cooking in metro Detroit over more than two decades before it closed in 2024. Casa Pernoi, his Birmingham restaurant, is where the work continues. It opened as the upscale Pernoi (with chef Takashi Yagihashi) before pivoting to an Italian trattoria during COVID, and the pivot turned out to be the restaurant's actual identity.
The bread program is the immediate tell: everything baked in-house, including a heritage sourdough that arrives complimentary and represents the kitchen's priorities more clearly than any line on the menu. From there: house-made pastas, including a spicy rigatoni that has become a regular order for anyone who's eaten there more than once, and a shrimp fettuccine that reviewers consistently describe as one of the better pasta dishes in the metro. The kitchen makes its own sauces and shapes its own pasta daily.
This is not a loud, trendy spot. It's a serious Italian trattoria in a suburb that doesn't always reward seriousness. For readers who drove forty minutes to Southfield for Bacco and considered it worth the trip, Casa Pernoi is the continuation of that story.
Tallulah Wine Bar & Bistro (155 S Bates St)
Tallulah is the wine bar Birmingham has always needed and a format that suits the neighborhood without pandering to it. The list runs to around fifty options by the glass, organized to be navigable rather than impressive. Wednesday is half-price wine night, which drives traffic from across Oakland County. The kitchen's job is to support the wine rather than compete with it, and it does that well.
The menu is seasonal and tight: shrimp saganaki, grilled octopus, cacio e pepe, orecchiette with scallops, duck breast. The food is pitched at the kind of share-and-graze style that benefits from ordering a bottle and staying through three courses. The dessert list includes a lemon cake that people mention specifically.
The room is small, which is why it gets loud when full. Dinner only, Monday through Saturday, Sunday closed. Make a reservation. This is the bar worth going to in Birmingham if you're approaching it as a single destination rather than part of a longer evening.
The Reliable One
Social Kitchen & Bar (225 E Maple Rd)
Social Kitchen has been serving the Maple Road crowd long enough that it functions as the neighborhood's connective tissue: the place people bring out-of-town visitors, celebrate moderately sized milestones, and default to when the reservation at somewhere more ambitious didn't come through. None of that is a criticism. The reliable neighborhood restaurant is what makes a neighborhood work.
The burger is the most discussed thing on the menu, and it's worth the discussion: house-ground short rib and pork belly, American cheese, dill pickle, red onion, grilled onion, and garlic aioli. The truffle fries are the automatic add-on. The weekend brunch menu includes a build-your-own skillet that regulars treat as a personal canvas. The room has a rooftop component that works in warm weather.
No one is coming from Ann Arbor specifically for Social Kitchen. But if you're already in Birmingham, it's the kind of place that doesn't require planning and doesn't disappoint.
The Special Occasion
220 Merrill (220 E Merrill St)
220 Merrill sits in what was historically the Old Detroit Edison building on Merrill Street. It runs a wood-fired grill program anchored around prime beef and seafood, which is the formula that has kept it in business and earned it a consistent reservation list for years. The miso-roasted sea bass gets mentioned in nearly every account of what to order. The shellfish plateau is available in formats appropriate for either a celebration or an occasion that got slightly out of hand. Entrees run on the higher side; this is not a value proposition, and it doesn't try to be.
The room is modern, visible, and loud on busy nights. The service is attentive in the way that comes with the price point. There are people who will tell you it's overpriced and people who will tell you it's worth every dollar; the truth is that it depends heavily on what you order and whether you came in wanting to be impressed or wanting to eat well. For Ann Arbor readers, the comparison point is The Chop House: similar category, similar price range, different room.
Open for lunch Monday through Friday, dinner Monday through Saturday, brunch Saturday and Sunday.
A New Entry
Big Rock Italian Chophouse (245 S Eton St)
Big Rock Italian Chophouse opened in July 2025 in the restored Grand Trunk Western Railroad Depot, a building that previously housed the original Big Rock Chop House for nearly four decades before it closed in 2021. The new restaurant is a Cameron Mitchell Restaurants operation, which means it comes with professional execution and the kind of $12.5 million restoration that produces a space people describe primarily as a room. 280 seats, a cigar lounge upstairs, private dining spaces.
The menu covers handmade pastas alongside prime steaks and chops. A 2025 Detroit News review specifically called out the braised veal meatball on fettuccine with marinara and Alfredo as a standout. Order the pasta if you go; the braised veal meatball in particular. The steakhouse side is capable but faces real competition in a category that Birmingham has covered well for years.
It's too early to call this a classic, but the kitchen has the skills and the room has the scale for it to develop into one. Return in a year and ask again.
What to Skip (For Now)
Forest (735 Forest Ave) was one of Birmingham's most serious restaurants: contemporary Continental with Italian leanings, a glass-walled dining room, and a kitchen that did pasta and filet mignon with real attention. It closed in early April 2026 for renovations, with owner Samy Eid indicating a May reopening. As of this writing, no confirmed date. Check their Instagram before making plans around it.
Rugby Grille at The Townsend Hotel (100 Townsend St) is a Forbes-recommended hotel restaurant that has operated since 1988 and draws the old-money Birmingham crowd for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The room is well-appointed and the service is polished. The cooking is competent without being notable. If you're staying at The Townsend or need somewhere that won't surprise anyone at your table in the wrong direction, it serves that function well. It is not a reason to drive from Ann Arbor.
Madam at the Daxton Hotel (298 S Old Woodward Ave) is the newer boutique-hotel restaurant in Birmingham, opened with design-forward ambitions and a global menu. The room got strong press when it opened. Reviews since have noted high prices, small portions, and noise from the adjacent bar. It's the kind of restaurant where the concept photograph is better than the execution. Not worth the drive from Ann Arbor specifically, though perfectly adequate if you're already at the Daxton.
What to Know for the Drive
From Ann Arbor: take I-94 East to I-275 North, or M-14 East to I-275 North. Exit at Maple Road and head east into downtown Birmingham. Alternatively, take I-96 East to Lahser Road North; either path gets you there in 50 to 55 minutes depending on traffic.
Old Woodward Avenue and E Maple Road are the two primary corridors. Most of the restaurants in this guide are within three blocks of each other or of that intersection. Parking structures on Bates Street and Pierce Street are free or validated by most restaurants. You will not hunt for a spot.
Birmingham rewards a focused approach. Pick one serious dinner (Phoenicia, Casa Pernoi, Tallulah) and a low-stakes stop (Social Kitchen for lunch, one of the many decent coffee shops on Old Woodward before or after). The drive is worth it for the right meal. The city's best restaurants have made it through decades of Oakland County conventionality by being better than their surroundings required them to be.
Phoenicia: 588 S Old Woodward Ave, Birmingham. Casa Pernoi: 310 E Maple Rd, Birmingham. Tallulah Wine Bar & Bistro: 155 S Bates St, Birmingham. Social Kitchen & Bar: 225 E Maple Rd, Birmingham. 220 Merrill: 220 E Merrill St, Birmingham. Big Rock Italian Chophouse: 245 S Eton St, Birmingham.