Detroit – It’s a wrap

We got up early to make sure we got a seat at Ochre. Ochre just got the nod from Bon Appetit as number four of the top 10 places to go for food in the US. Sat inside a small yard with glass windows makes it so inviting. The place is modern and warm like you are in Copenhagen or Australia. The pastries are just off the charts.

We had more than our share of treats to share but the biggest stand out was the cinnamon bun. It was…well…it was perfect. Warm luscious layers of buttery bread mixed with sugar and cinnamon with a cardamon cream melting through the folds. Just melts in your mouth.

Anything there is good but especially the items made with bread or dough. Croissant breads, loaf breads, cinnamon buns….all of it. Someone knows what they are doing with yeast and flour. Even the savory roasted tomatoes with herbed ricotta stuffed inside flaky puffed pastry is divine.

We made our way over to the Motown Museum for our tour. You can not get into the museum without a ticket for the tour. Randomly this is the 60th year of Motown and they were breaking ground today for a larger museum having closed a $50m capital campaign. Barry Gordy, Jesse Jackson, Smokey Robinson and others were there. Barry Gordy is 90!

As much as I am not the biggest fan of tours, this one is absolutely worth it. Barry Gordy is an incredible entrepreneur. His concept of taking the best musicians, putting them together to create songs for a new generation and then putting the musicians to essentially finishing school before going on the road was genius. This put Detroit on the map in a completely different way. This is the old recording studio.

One more stop before of course another meal. The Ford Piquette Plant which is the birthplace of the Model T. It is pretty epic to see these old beautiful cars, how many were made of each of them and the price. Most of them went for roughly $700-1200. It is a serious piece of history.

Em and I took a seat in the only car that they let you sit in. Have to say, pretty damn comfortable.

On to our last meal at Buddy’s Pizza, the king of Detroit pizza. Last time I was here I heard that it was not worth the journey even from people that lived there. Have to say, they were right. Just not that great. A tomato sauce that is filled with garlic, thick not great crust with mid-level cheese but good pepperonis. My feeling is if you are going to eat pizza, it better be damn good and unfortunately this is not that.

Back in NYC and thinking about stopping the eating and drinking for a few days at least.