Top 10 Takeover: Tickets on sale Friday for Midnight Temple dinner event
Susan Selasky
An Indian restaurant in the Eastern Market district is the next stop in the Detroit Free Press and Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers popular Top 10 Takeover dining series.
Last month, the Detroit Free Press and Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers unveiled the 2024 Restaurant of the Year, Restaurant of the Year Classic and 10 Best New Restaurants and Experiences in metro Detroit.
With the unveiling complete, the popular Top 10 Takeover dining series is on. The series is celebrating its 10th anniversary of delighting diners with food and drink experiences.
On April 24, diners will enjoy a four-course meal plus dessert at Midnight Temple, a new Indian restaurant in the Eastern Market district on Riopelle. Midnight Temple, owned by Akash Sudhakara, was No. 10 in our list of the best new dining experiences in metro Detroit.
"Sudhakara has opened a restaurant that embodies his experience as an Indian American," wrote Lyndsay C. Green, in naming Midnight Temple to the list.
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In opening Midnight Temple, Sudhakara, who was raised Downriver, wanted to bring experiences he had growing up during visits to India and his parents’ coffee farm in Chikkamagaluru.
“I wanted to bring the full experience of that back here,” he said, acknowledging a lack of representation for Indian cuisine within city limits.
Chicory coffee sourced from his parents’ farm is served at Midnight Temple.
“When you step into Midnight Temple, I want it to be an experience like you're not in Detroit anymore, you really are in India,” Sudhakara told the Free Press, detailing each element of the space culled from his South Asian homeland: Saris and other fabrics in the decor are borrowed from the arsenal of his interior designer mother, who was once sought after for elaborate Indian weddings; two provocative Ravi Varma paintings of a nearly nude Indian princess were recovered from a shuttered temple in Bangalore, India.
How to get tickets
Tickets for the Top 10 Takeover dining series go on sale every other Thursday when Free Press subscribers have first access to tickets for each event.
Subscribers should check their email at noon Thursday for a link to ticket sales. Following subscriber sales, tickets for the general public go on sale at noon Friday at freep.com/top10, where you will also find a schedule of upcoming dining events.
Communal seating for the four-course plus dessert meal with a vegetarian option begins at 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. April 24.
Midnight Temple Takeover tickets are $38 per person and include the meal, gratuity and tax. Each ticket price also includes a $3 donation to Forgotten Harvest. The Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers also offer a contest for a chance for one diner to win two complimentary tickets to each dinner of the series. You can enter the contest at chevydetroit.com.
Midnight Temple Top 10 Takeover menu
First course: Samosa Chaat
- Spiced potato pastries smashed and drizzled with tamarind and mint chutneys
Second course: Gobi Manchurian
- Cauliflower and baby corn fried in a tangy Indo-Chinese sauce
Third course: Tikka Masala
- Choice of Paneer ( vegetarian) or chicken in a creamy roasted tomato sauce
Fourth course: Okra Pulya
- Grilled okra in a south Indian curry with cashews and a sidedish of garlic naan and jasmine rice
Dessert:
- Gulab Jamun fried dough ball soaked in saffron syrup
Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter. Subscribe to the Free Press.