Opinion
7 articles
Ann Arbor's Korean Food Scene Arrived, and It Came With a Point of View
Three restaurants, two chefs, and a cuisine that now has enough critical mass to actually argue with itself.
Miss Kim, Little Kim, and Bori Korean Kitchen & Bar have turned Ann Arbor into a city with a real Korean food conversation. That is a different thing from having one good Korean restaurant.
Two Blocks on South Main Are Having Ann Arbor's Best Year
From 200 to 320 S Main St, something real has happened to the city's most concentrated restaurant corridor.
Echelon has a James Beard semifinalist citation. Tabe Fusion opened across three floors in March. Bori Korean Kitchen occupies the floor above Jolly Pumpkin. A tiki bar runs under a fine dining restaurant. Ann Arbor's South Main Street is having a year.
Isalita Is Gone. Ann Arbor Is Worse For It.
The upscale Mexican restaurant on East Liberty closed sometime in 2025. It deserved better coverage when it was still here.
Isalita at 341 E Liberty St closed in 2025. The margaritas were some of the best in Ann Arbor. The chicken tinga tacos were the kind of dish you measured other chicken tacos against.
Vernor Highway Is the Best Food Street in the Region. Calamansi Just Made It More Interesting.
The Mexican-built corridor that already had no equal just gained its most unexpected addition. What happens to a food street's identity when it stops being about one cuisine?
West Vernor Highway has been the strongest single-street food corridor in the region for decades, built on Mexican cooking and deepened by Vietnamese and Middle Eastern restaurants. Calamansi's April opening added Filipino-inspired food to that mix. The question worth asking: what does a food corridor become when it outgrows its origin story?
The Cellar Is Gone
Grizzly Peak's basement bar was underutilized and a little eccentric. That was most of the point.
The basement bar under Grizzly Peak on Washington Street has been replaced by The Ranch Honky Tonk. The frosé is gone. The particular kind of afternoon it made possible is gone with it.
Dearborn Has the Best Arabic Food in North America. We Haven't Covered It Once.
An editorial blind spot that's hard to justify and past time to fix.
Dearborn is home to the largest concentration of Arabic-speaking residents in North America and some of the most important restaurants in the region. This publication has ignored it entirely. That ends here.
Ann Arbor Wasn't Invited to the Michelin Party. That's Not the Whole Story.
The guide went to Detroit, not here. The reason matters more than the outcome.
When Michelin announced its Great Lakes edition, Ann Arbor wasn't on the list. The reason is less about the food and more about what a Michelin guide actually requires.