No. 6: Veteran restaurateurs bring Vietnamese to downtown Ann Arbor with Peridot

Landing at No. 6 on the 2024 Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers Top 10 New Restaurants & Dining Experiences list is Peridot for its modern Vietnamese cuisine and tropical craft cocktails.

It’s become ubiquitous for restaurants to find a likeness in gemstones.

At every turn, eateries are dubbed the crown jewel or the hidden gem of a city. Few restaurants, though, embody the essence of a precious stone quite like Peridot.

Ann Arbor’s new cocktail bar and restaurant draws inspiration from its gemstone namesake whose green hue lies somewhere between an emerald and a yellow diamond. Like the stone, Peridot is sleek and captivating with its modern design, and nods to Vietnam, the place where the gem is mined.

Vietnamese influence runs through the food and beverage menus at Peridot. A textural papaya salad is tart, sweet and a mildly spicy. A mound of shredded cucumber, carrots and pickled daikon is topped with slivers of not-too-salty housemade beef jerky, roasted peanuts and crispy fried shallots.

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The Stoney Creek Mushrooms plate serves up locally sourced fungi prepared three ways — some grilled, some pickled, some chicken-fried so well, you’d confuse them for wings. All of the ’shrooms rest in a basin of sweet caramelized onion soubise.  

Actual fried chicken wings are drenched in a sweet-spicy caramelized fish sauce glaze and garnished with floss-like strands of pickled Fresnos that look like a pile of green ribbons.

Cocktails wink at the tropics of Vietnam with spirits made from sugar cane and agave, like rums and tequilas, blended with tropical fruits, such as hibiscus, pineapple and tamarind.

Though an entirely new concept, Peridot is the brainchild of Watershed Hospitality Group and Duc Tang, longtime Ann Arbor restaurateurs. Watershed is the group behind the cult-favorite downtown Ann Arbor cocktail and whiskey bar The Last Word, while Tang has operated the Pan-Asian restaurant Pacific Rim by Kana for more than two decades. The team banded together to develop a new establishment that would meet a demand for an eatery that puts equal emphasis on its food and beverages.

“We're trying to do something different, but using the same formulas and blueprints that made us successful in the first place,” said Giancarlo Aversa, managing partner at The Last Word and Peridot.

The team set out to use their individual strengths to create a cohesive attraction that paired food and drinks in a fresh way.

“We didn’t want to take business away from either The Last Word or Pacific Rim, so there’s a balance between being different but being familiar,” Tang said. “There’s definitely overlap in terms of the clientele, but it's unique enough that I don't feel like it takes away from our other places.”

On the dessert menu, sweet, sticky rice is fried into a crunchy patty the size of a burger. A mango puree sprinkled with a chili pepper spice blend is smoothed on top of the disc for a complex juxtaposition of textures and flavors and becomes the most mesmerizing dessert of my recent memory.

What a gem.

Peridot

118 W. Liberty St., Ann Arbor. 734-773-3097; peridota2.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.