No. 1: Elevated dishes, desserts without pretense make Ferndale's Coeur top new restaurant

Topping the Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers Top 10 New Restaurants & Dining Experiences list at No. 1 is Coeur, the New American restaurant with heart.

Few courses embody the essence of Coeur quite like dessert.

Tucked away in a corner of the New American restaurant kitchen, pastry chef Carla Spicuzzi reimagines casual, everyday snacks and nostalgic treats into elegant confections that fit within the context of a fine-dining experience.

On a summer menu, two thin, crisp, buttery waffles were folded into the shape of small tacos, dipped in chocolate and crushed pistachios, filled with a honey-infused parfait and punctured with a gold leaf for an upscale take on a Choco Taco.

In the fall, a bar of dense almond pound cake was coated in a chocolate shell and topped with sparkly almond slivers, candied cacao nibs, dollops of chocolate mousse and salted caramel crémeux. The dessert was a fanciful interpretation of a Snickers bar.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

And for Halloween, a white chocolate-coated ball of spice cake filled with orange mousse and plated on a puddle of cranberry sauce, was a chilling interpretation of a blue eye sitting in a pool of thick blood.

“The joke is that we make four pre-dessert courses and dessert is the main event,” said Coeur’s chef-owner Jordan Smith. Spicuzzi’s ability to create artisanal pastries without pretense is the overall ethos of the restaurant that Smith set out to open.

Smith’s ambition to present a no-frills establishment is no indication of a bashful pedigree. The Culinary Institute of America alum has cooked in America’s biggest food cities, including Boston, New York City and San Francisco, and worked in Michelin-starred kitchens, such as Daniel Boulud’s Daniel and the three-starred California darling Quince. Having spent his adolescence in the Detroit area, Smith sought to bring his skills back to a place that felt like home.

At Coeur, the Ferndale restaurant that moved into the former Assaggi Bistro, Smith’s west coast sensibility manifests as a menu anchored in farm-fresh, seasonal produce and an air of ease.

“The restaurant definitely has a California, New American identity, but it also runs home to France every once in a while,” Smith said of the restaurant’s disposition.

On the à la carte menu, a trio of seared scallops flaunt browned tops alongside shiitake mushrooms pooled with puddles of chili oil and sweet heads of baby bok choy in a bowl of frothy miso.

Croquettes the size of golf balls are golden and crispy on the outside with a creamy blend of potatoes and Comté. You’ll douse the fritters with a whipped, burnt leek dip the color and flavor of ash.  

On the five-course tasting menu, you might have a whole lobster claw nestled inside of a pain de mie-style squid-ink bun baked in-house or a slice of venison so tender and full of flavor you’ll look for venison on every menu after it.

Though dishes at Coeur are about as refined as it gets in the Detroit area, the soul of the restaurant is relaxed.

The dining room, with its Scandi design, is a minimalist’s dream. Clean wooden tables are decorated with little more than the varied shades of brown of their own wood grain and delicate arrangements of wildflowers. There are glossy concrete floors that give the space the feel of a polished warehouse and servers deliver plates in a comfortable uniform of plaid shirts and jeans.

“I knew that I wanted Coeur to be elevated in terms of the food and the execution of service, but approachable at the same time,” Smith said. “There's a preconceived notion about food in general, that it's got to be this big, formal event and it doesn't need to be. It can just be a really good meal and you can let your hair down elsewhere, like no tablecloths and no suit and tie in the dining room.”

Wine here is as much a focal point as Smith’s culinary program.

“You want everything to match intensity, so the beverage focus should be at the same level of everything we do with that same ethos of approachability,” Smith said. “It's about finding the weird, cool stuff to show to people because at the end of the day, we're all food nerds and we just want to do fun things for people.”

Smith tapped fellow Culinary Institute of America alum and sommelier Sean Crenny as beverage director to oversee the wine and cocktails program. Crenny started his career as a sommelier within the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group at three-Michelin-star restaurant Per Se in NYC and, more recently, served as director of food and beverage at Frame in Hazel Park.

“The fun thing about Detroit is that certainly, there's a fun underground wine scene here, but a lot of it leans toward more funky, esoteric wines, like the more natural wines,” Crenny said. “But there’s a real gap in understanding and showcasing the classic wines of the world. It doesn't need to be a $500 bottle of Burgundy, but just understanding that these are some of the wines that have opened the door for those fun and funky weird ones. These are the wines that have been made for hundreds of years. Let's show some appreciation for those, too.”

The wine list at Coeur leans heavily on classics like Bordeauxs and others featuring grapes that would be entirely new to most diners, like a Le Faîte Tannat blend. “It’s about being able to have, a real understanding of what American wine and French wine — when paired with the right food in a fun space — can do for a dining experience,” Crenny said.

Smith’s culinary experience spans beyond the kitchen. During his time at the Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale, he took on a front-of-house role, seeing the restaurant from a new vantage point.

“If you're going into management, you should have to work both sides to understand that there are pinch points on both sides, and there's ways that each side can help each other out,” he said. “You also get a general understanding of hospitality and everything that goes into that complete dining experience.”

This knowledge has helped Smith build an establishment that keeps the needs of both front-of-house and back-of-house staff in mind. The name of the restaurant, Coeur, or “heart” in French, was inspired by the restaurant’s location in the Midwest, also known as the heartland of America. I’d argue that it speaks to the heart that is poured into the restaurant, from the dining experience to the healthy work environment Smith aims to forge through manageable work hours and livable wages for all staff at either end of the kitchen brigade.

What’s not to love about that?

Coeur

330 W. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale. 248-466-3010; coeurferndale.com

Ticket sales for the upcoming Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers Top 10 Takeover dinner series benefit Forgotten Harvest, an Oak Park-based nonprofit committed to fighting food insecurity in the Detroit area. Dates for the 2024 dinner series will be announced later this month. Visit freep.com/top10 for updates on the events. For a chance to win $500 to dine at five restaurants on the 2024 Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers Restaurant of the Year and Top 10 New Restaurants & Dining Experiences list, visit freep.com/roycontest24. Contest ends March 11 at 11:59 p.m.