Last week we met the owner of the Ima Restaurant Group, Mike Ransom, a recent James Beard nominee who has three Ima restaurants, located in Corktown, Midtown, and Madison Heights. Ransom also owns SuperCrisp and Summertown Fresh Bar. We visited Chef Ransom at his most popular spot, Ima Izakaya in Corktown. He explained his journey starting out in restaurants for the first 12 years of his career learning through experience until attending Kendall College in Chicago where he obtained a culinary arts degree in classic French cuisine. He mentioned looking into Schoolcraft College, but at the time, the college had a two and half year waitlist.
Chef Ransom went on to work in San Francisco and Baltimore where he managed prize restaurants for an international hospitality group. After returning to Corktown in 2006, he opened the casual Japanese comfort fare where he uses local Midwestern ingredients. Growing up, his family enjoyed Asian cuisine as being one of the few vegetarian options at the time. Ransom calls this his comfort food over the things most people associate as comfort food, like bread, potatoes, mac n cheese, etc.
The word “Ima” means "now," which reflects being in the moment and being present. Chef Ransom explained, while you're eating, having a great meal with friends and family, it's all about the moment, and can even be an escape from the reality of the day or the challenges we may be facing. “Ima” also means "mother" in a lot of different languages, which traditionally reflects something that’s nourishing, nurturing and brings comfort. So these Japanese flavors and traditional ingredients are paired with European, French and Midwestern ingredients to create his own style of comfort food.
His style of cooking can be described in one word: healing. It’s hard not to leave this dining mecca without feeling fully nourished from the rich broths and noodles that are an important part of the menu offerings. Like all chefs at his level, Chef Ransom fully understands that people eat with their eyes making for some spectacular dish presentations.
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We then headed over to Gratiot to visit another James Beard nominated restaurant, Saffron De Twah, a Moroccan inspired bistro on the eastside of Detroit, owned by Chef Omar Anani. While the neighborhood may seem questionable to some, it is the main reason Chef Omar chose this location. People often refer to the area as a food desert, but Chef Anani calls this spot his oasis, featuring various plants and Moroccan decor that transport you from the Detroit cityscape. Chef Anani presents authentic intensely flavored dishes that are affordable by all.
Chef Anani is a Palestinian-Egyptian American with a large part of his knowledge and love for food coming from his roots and his mother who works in the kitchen with him. Chef Anani also has a degree in culinary arts and experience in fine dining establishments across the globe.
Of course, as the restaurant name would have it, Saffron is featured in several dishes. Saffron is one of the most expensive spices in the world due to its extensive labor process of harvesting each stigma by hand, with only about three per flower. It takes 75,000 flowers yielding 225,000 stigmas to create a single pound of saffron.
During our visit, he showed us a tagine cooking pot, a type of earthenware native to North African culture that has a unique cone shape creating a hot, moist environment to which he referred to as the original pressure cooker. He explained the differences between dishes that don’t just make something “Middle Eastern” but specific to the country or region it is from and how useful it is to expand this knowledge as Americans so we can enjoy different flavors and properly appreciate where they are from.
If you venture there to dine, get the chicken sandwich and be prepared to have your taste buds screaming for more!