Professional critics are paid to say what they think, which is what Free Press restaurant critic Mark Kurlyandchik did in his review of Empire Kitchen & Cocktails last week.
He didn't like it at all, an opinion that has now been read, discussed, second-guessed and aggregated by sites like this nearly as much as that press conference in Helsinki Monday. But the story goes on.
Corned beef hash is served at weekend brunch. (Facebook photo)
On Tuesday the Freep posts a response from the owners of Empire Kitchen & Cocktails, which is good and fine, because you know what they say about opinions, and airing those that disagree with a newspaper's is part of what good publishers do.
The three partners -- Brian Adelman, Michael Abrams and David Pittaway -- lay it on as thick as ranch-- er, buttermilk dressing:
[The review], in our opinion, read more like a tear-down of Detroit and its budding renewal than about hamburgers and macaroni and cheese. The author seems to have an agenda of using his journalistic platform to judge what types of businesses or menus should be deemed acceptable in the scheme of Detroit's renewal.
What's more,
Empire Kitchen and Cocktails is everything we dreamed it would be. Garage doors opening onto a nice-sized patio on the corner of Woodward and Erskine; a long white marble bar with plenty of black leather stools to make enjoying pizza and a beer that much more comfortable; and lastly, we hired a seasoned Culinary Institute of America trained chef, Aaron Lowen, who makes a mean mac and cheese, a mouth-watering burger and some of the best chicken wings in Detroit.
Plenty of black leather stools! OK, whatever. We await the next course of this apparently endless meal. What's for dessert?
