Traverse City’s Greatest Tables
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The Top 5 Traverse City Restaurants
The Cooks' House
The Cooks' House occupies a small intimate dining room at 115 Wellington Street in downtown Traverse City — a quiet side street one block off the working Front Street walking grid, three minutes from the Grand Traverse Bay waterfront and the Clinch Park beach corridor — and has held the seat as Northern Michigan's reference farm-to-table tasting destination since chefs Eric Patterson and Jennifer Blakeslee opened the kitchen in 2008. The dining room runs about thirty covers across a single warm parlor — twelve of those at a chef's counter looking directly into the working open kitchen — with whitewashed walls, working hardwood floors, exposed-timber beams overhead, careful low-light candle scheme through dinner service and a deliberate intimate-bistro palette that reads as a working chef-driven kitchen rather than a Front Street tourist operation. The restaurant exemplifies the best of Northern Michigan's culinary scene and is consistently named among the region's top dining destinations.
Trattoria Stella
Trattoria Stella occupies the reclaimed Building 50 of the former Northern Michigan Asylum at 800 Cottageview Drive, Suite 100 — the working centerpiece of the Village at Grand Traverse Commons mixed-use redevelopment in Traverse City's west-side cottageview district, six minutes' drive from the working Front Street downtown corridor — and has held the seat as Northern Michigan's reference wine-driven Italian destination since the kitchen's establishment. The dining room runs about a hundred and twenty covers across a series of historic brick-vaulted parlors — the original boiler room of the asylum has been preserved and serves as the dining space — with rustic Italian style, warm low light through dinner service, working leather banquettes, period brass fixtures and a deliberate vaulted-brick palette that reads as a working historic-architecture dining room rather than a strip-mall trattoria. The James Beard Foundation has named the room a semifinalist for Outstanding Wine Programme.
Amical
Amical occupies a converted brick storefront at 229 East Front Street in downtown Traverse City — directly on the working Front Street walking grid, the working downtown commercial corridor with sightlines to the West Grand Traverse Bay shoreline four blocks north — and has held the seat as the city's reference European brasserie since opening in the early 1990s. The dining room runs about a hundred and ten covers across two distinct rooms — a cozy main dining room with original brick walls, black-and-white checked tablecloths, modern art rotation along the walls, working hardwood floors and warm low light through dinner service, plus the street-side patio that adds about forty covers in the warmer months with sightlines along East Front Street's working downtown walking corridor. The European brasserie palette reads as a working European-style brasserie rather than a tourist-strip-mall operation.
Aerie Restaurant & Lounge
Aerie Restaurant and Lounge occupies the sixteenth floor of the Tower at Grand Traverse Resort and Spa — the resort sits at 100 Grand Traverse Village Boulevard in Acme, ten minutes northeast of downtown Traverse City along the working East Bay shoreline, and the Tower elevator climbs sixteen stories to the dining-room level — and has held the seat as Northern Michigan's reference sunset-and-special-occasion resort dining room for more than a decade. The dining room runs about a hundred and ten covers across a single high-ceilinged glass-walled parlor with panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows on every side — a deliberate design move that brings the working East Bay shoreline, the West Grand Traverse Bay and the resort's working golf-course-and-vineyard valley into the dinner programme as a working second course. The vibrant, contemporary palette reads as a working modern Northern Michigan resort dining room rather than a chain-hotel ballroom.
Red Ginger
Red Ginger occupies a converted brick storefront at 237 East Front Street in downtown Traverse City — directly on the working Front Street walking grid, next door to Amical and across from the working downtown shopping corridor, four blocks south of the West Grand Traverse Bay waterfront — and has held the seat as the city's reference modern-Asian-and-sushi destination since opening. The dining room runs about a hundred covers across two distinct levels — a main ground-floor dining room with modern Asian-influenced decor, working sushi bar at the back of the house with seven counter seats, contemporary lighting through dinner service, careful brass fixtures and a deliberate modern-Asian palette that reads as a working chef-driven Asian kitchen rather than a strip-mall takeout operation. The second-floor private Lotus Room with large windows that overlook Front Street's working downtown corridor adds about thirty covers for group bookings.