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A Tasting Menu Restaurant and Cocktail Bar Are Coming to Milwaukee Junction in 2020

The owners of Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails are plotting a new project in Detroit

A man wearing glasses and a white chef’s coat uses tweezers to lift pickled onions onto a plate from a small metal bowl inside Chartreuse’s bright green restaurant space.
Chef Doug Hewitt at Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails.
Michelle and Chris Gerard
Brenna Houck is a Cities Manager for the Eater network. She previously edited Eater Detroit and reported for Eater. You can follow her on the internet at @brennahouck.

The partners behind one of Detroit’s best restaurants are branching out with a new project in Milwaukee Junction. Restaurateur Sandy Levine and chef Doug Hewitt of award-winning restaurant Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails in Art Center have purchased a property on East Grand Blvd. with plans to open a tasting menu restaurant and cocktail bar called Freya & Dragonfly next year, Crain’s first reports.

Freya, which shares a name with the Norse god of love, will seat between 40 and 50 patrons and feature an open kitchen producing a tasting menu. Hewitt and pastry chef Ben Robison will be running the kitchen, which will be roomier than the shoebox-sized workspace at Chartreuse. Levine, who also owns the Oakland cocktail bar in Ferndale, tells the Detroit Free Press he wants the restaurant to be high-end, but affordable. A prices for the menu haven’t been set.

The more casual Dragonfly will seat roughly 60 people and serve cocktails, wine, and sherry priced around $6 to $15. A small amount of bar snacks will also be available on the menu. Work on the 5,400-square-foot building is expected to get underway within the next few weeks.

A light colored, one-story, brick building with glass block windows and a slightly curved corner.
The exterior of the 2929 East Grand Boulevard building that will house Freya & Dragonfly.
Google Streetview

The Milwaukee Junction neighborhood, located east of New Center and south of the North End, has grown steadily over the past few years. Bucharest Grill opened its third restaurant in the neighborhood in 2015. Eater Award-winning bar Kiesling, debuted in 2018 and the owners are in the process of opening a new cafe on the block. A new food hall is also in the works next to Freya & Dragonfly on East Grand Boulevard.

Owners of Detroit’s Chartreuse Peg Milwaukee Junction for New Fine Dining Restaurant, Bar [Crain’s]
Team Behind Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails plots New Restaurant in Detroit [Freep]
All Coming Attractions Coverage [ED]

Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails

15 East Kirby Street, , MI 48202 (313) 818-3915 Visit Website

The Oakland

201 West Nine Mile Road, , MI 48220 (248) 291-5295 Visit Website

Bucharest Grill

436 West Columbia Street, , MI 48201 (313) 965-3111 Visit Website

Kiesling

449 East Milwaukee Avenue, , MI 48202 (313) 638-2169 Visit Website

Freya & Dragonfly

2929 East Grand Boulevard, Detroit, MI