Friday was a historic day for us. We had the opportunity to sit down with one of Detroit's most well-known legendary restaurateurs Mr. Joe Muer.
Joe Muer and his wife, Jane, made the trek from their home in Dexter to the Joe Muer Seafood in Bloomfield Hills. Besides being one of the most respected restaurateurs of all time, Muer is also an incredible historian. Through his interview, we will be able take our audience on a journey back through Detroit's culinary heritage starting in the 1800's with the birth of the Eastern Market. Joe helps us understand how the diverse immigrants coming to Detroit helped shape our food distribution scene as well as the birth of many restaurants.
Of course, Muer shared the rich story of his grandfather’s first Muer restaurant and how the Great Depression and prohibition affected the Detroit restaurant community.
After our sit down with Joe Muer, we interviewed Joe Vicari, who now owns the Joe Muer brand, as well as several other restaurants with Andiamo Italia restaurants being his flagship eatery.
Vicari served up a discussion about how the Italians and other ethnic groups brought their own style of cooking and recipes, many of which traveled with them from their homelands right out of their mothers’ kitchens. As Michigan's number one restaurateur, Vicari shared how Lester Gruber from the The London Chop House impacted his desire to become a restaurant owner. Joe also told the story of Chef Aldo Ottaviani, an Italian immigrant chef from Rome who was the original chef and director of the menus at Andiamo for 22 years. Before that, Aldo owned and ran Aldo's restaurant for 40 years. Aldo found his way to Detroit after WWII where he was a prisoner of war.
Later that afternoon, we stopped by Bacco Ristorante in Southfield to sit and talk with Chef Luciano Del Signore. Luciano's path to the stove was paved well before he was born. Son of John and Lina Del Signore, two Italian immigrants who came from a small village in Abruzzo, Italy. When arriving in Detroit, John and Lina would open a small pizzeria and eventually, Fonte d’Amore in Livonia, named after the fountain in their village that they fell in love in front of when they were young teenagers. Luciano and his siblings grew up in the restaurant… literally. They would do their homework there, help where they could, and even sleep there if it was a late night for mom and dad. Luciano's work ethic and passion for cooking stems from his parent’s teachings. Besides the often seven days a week work in the restaurants, he shared stories of how his dad would take him and his brother at three in the morning to the produce terminal to select and negotiate for the best produce for the restaurant's menu.
These early stories of the immigrants who came to Detroit bringing with them their homeland recipes are an important part of the overall story we will be telling for our film, Detroit: The City of Chefs. In the coming weeks, we will be filming with many certified Master Chefs who have impacted thousands of culinary students from the Schoolcraft College Culinary Community.