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

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.

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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]