In the two short years since Vecino opened in Midtown Detroit, the restaurant has been inundated with both public and critical acclaim. The contemporary Mexican restaurant landed on Esquire magazine’s Best New Restaurants in America list, was named Restaurant of the Year by the Detroit Free Press and recently found its name on a roundup of the Greatest Mexican Restaurants Across the United States by the New York Times.
While a trip to the Motor City should be on every food lover’s agenda, it won’t soon be necessary to traverse those three hours or so up the turnpike to savor the cuisine of Vecino restaurant. Owners Adriana Jimenez and Lukasz Wietrzynski are well into the buildout process on a second location of the award-winning eatery, which is expected to open in November in Tremont in the Driftwood building from J Roc Development.
Jimenez was born in Mexico City, but she grew up in Detroit, where her mother operated a pair of Mexican eateries. In fact, she hadn’t returned to her native country until she was an adult, she says.
“I wasn’t able to go to Mexico because I was a DACA,” Jimenez explains. “I feel like I missed out on my whole life of being there because I couldn’t.”
She rectified that a few years ago, when a short trip turned into an extended stay.
“I went to Mexico City for the first time with my husband and when I was there I was like, Oh my god, the food is so different from the Mexican food I grew up with,” she adds. “We lived there for a year and a half and pretty early on into that trip we were like, let’s do a restaurant.”
Vecino took shape in a long-vacant building in the Cass Corridor neighborhood of Midtown Detroit. Vecino means neighborhood and from the start, the restaurant imbued that strip with the aromas of fresh corn and the flavors of Mexico City. With high-power chefs from Michelin-starred Pujol in Mexico City and Alinea group’s Aviary in Chicago, Vecino opened with a bang. Their version of “modern Mexican” blends local, seasonal foodstuffs with Mexican flavors and Mexican cooking techniques. The kitchen employs live-fire cooking and makes their tortillas the old-fashioned way. And by old-fashioned, I mean 3,000 years old.
“I didn’t even know what nixtamalization was growing up because I had never been exposed to it,” Jimenez says of the ancient process that transforms dried corn into masa. “When I was in Mexico City, I discovered it.”
Even in Mexico City, the majority of restaurants and homes buy or prepare tortillas made from instant corn masa. At Vecino, the chefs bring in heirloom corn from Oaxaca, Hidalgo, Sinaloa and elsewhere in Mexico and soak, drain, dry and grind the grain with volcanic stone for the masa used to make tortillas, tostadas, tlyudas and other corn-based foods.
“I would describe it like sourdough versus refined-flour bread. It tastes different. The smell is different. Your body feels different. It’s how our bodies are set up to eat.”
When Jimenez and her husband were approached by J Roc, they were hesitant to even consider expansion.
“The reason that Vecino has gone the way it has is because my husband and I are there all the time,” says Jimenez. “I didn’t think this early on we would have the staff that we have and have been lucky to retain, so when this opportunity came up we felt like we were in a good place to go down there.”
For J Roc Development, the residents of Driftwood and the diners of Cleveland, the get was a major coup.
“When we are developing a project, a big part of it is figuring out what are the pieces that can make it feel special, make it part of the community and make it part of the neighborhood,” says Adam Comer, Senior Manager, Development with J Roc. “We’re obviously very focused on the residential portion of that, but also the commercial component. Our goal isn’t just to build a space and get it rented. We wanted it to be someone of a certain caliber, someone who has a similar approach to hospitality and design and food. Vecino very much checks all of those boxes.”
Vecino in Detroit is as much beloved for its chic décor as its compelling cuisine. The Tremont location will be equally dramatic, with 17-foot ceilings, exposed concrete and a stately corner entrance. That entrance is expected to open the first week of November.
The owners plan on splitting their time between Detroit and Tremont, a neighborhood that Jimenez has already grown to love.
“I’m really impressed by Tremont,” she says. “I’ve been trying a lot of the restaurants and trying to connect with people in the hospitality industry there. They have been very welcoming.”
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