The integration of art, including both visual and musical, has become an important part of the menu at some of Detroit’s best-known restaurants, as well as emerging, experimental pop-ups.
AT VINYL TASTING, a monthly pop-up dining event, music drives the entire experience.
Chef Jermond Booze, who has experience as a DJ, is one half of the Vinyl Tasting team along with Amber Beckem. Each month, the duo selects a musical artist and builds a menu around their sounds and lives.
“We approach it like artists, not chefs,” Booze said. “It’s a very organic process. We try to make it fluid.”
Interactive elements are also key to an evening with Vinyl Tasting. Beckem and Booze ensure each dish aligns with a different song on the album they’ve selected. A recent dinner focused on J Dilla’s Donuts album. To reflect Dilla’s technique of layering and combining various samples, the duo presented Brussels sprouts in three dishes. The sprouts themselves were cooked with a lemon pepper seasoning, while the leaves appeared in a salad and in a green goddess sauce.
Vinyl Tasting events also include trivia contests about the night’s artists with prizes for the winners. Other artists featured at these dinners include Tupac, Sade and Stevie Wonder. Sometimes Beckem and Booze select their artist of the month based on guests’ suggestions.
“I grew up with hip-hop culture,” Booze said. “The music of Black culture deserves to have a seat at the table. It’s some of the most influential music.”
Vinyl Tasting typically sells out with 100 guests. Booze credits Vinyl Tasting’s success to diners’ desire for entertainment experiences outside of the typical bars and clubs.
“We’re entertaining and educational,” he said. “We create experiences and we provide multisensory events.”
Vinyl Tasting is one of several dining experiences in Metro Detroit where chefs are redefining what diners have come to expect from restaurants by using food as a medium of artistic expression and enhancing the dining experience with other artistic elements.
The integration of art, including both visual and musical, has become an important part of the menu at some of Detroit’s best-known restaurants, as well as emerging, experimental pop-ups.
Setting a vibe
At Ima, which features Japanese- and pan-Asian–influenced dishes in Corktown, Midtown and Madison Heights, owner Mike Ransom has made music an essential, yet subtle, part of the dining experience.
With a decades-long background as a Detroit DJ, it’s clear why Ransom relies on curated playlists to define the Ima
experience.
“Music is a big part of my life; it’s part of my creative flow,” he said. “It motivates me to be creative when I’m developing new menu items. It tells a story and creates an environment.”
At Ima, the music ranges from jazz to hip-hop to R&B and soul. The team selects music based not on genre, but on ambience. To make Ima’s playlist, songs must be “groovy and smooth” and not “intrusive or abrasive.”
Although Ransom used to curate the Ima playlist himself, that has become a challenge with five different locations. Now curation is done by a variety of staff members. Ransom describes Ima’s music as unpredictable, fresh and organic.
“Music makes any environment more enjoyable,” he said. “It’s a familiar sound that anyone can relate to. It creates atmosphere and brings continuity to the room.”
Another Detroit musician-turned-chef is Mike Conrad of Leña, a restaurant that features dishes inspired by the Iberian peninsula. Music is a defining element of the day at Leña, from the time the first shift starts until the restaurant closes.
“Music is just something that has always been a necessity for every point of my day,” said Conrad, who played guitar in heavy metal and indie rock bands. “Morning, noon and night.”
Ambience is also a factor in the selection of Leña’s playlist, which often starts with ’70s Spanish jazz and radio hits from the ’80s. Guests might then hear ’50s country, ’80s synth wave or death metal. The night usually ends with Rosalia and Bad Bunny—two of Conrad’s favorite artists. DJ duties often fall to the first staff member who volunteers.
“Having a restaurant is so much like entertaining at home,” Conrad said. “You have to have all of the pieces covered to set a vibe. When you walk in, we want you to not only smell the wood smoke, but be inundated with sonic pleasures from Spain and Latin America.”
Honoring creativity
Another way restaurants are incorporating art into the dining experience is through visual art. At Freya, a multi-course dinner restaurant in Detroit’s Milwaukee Junction neighborhood, the dining room serves as a gallery of sorts with rotating displays of original works, curated by local artists.
“We want to honor creativity,” owner Sandy Levine said. “The more ways we can do it, the restaurant becomes more enjoyable. It makes for a special experience.”
At Freya, the focus on art started with a former general manager and continued after he left. Although Levine doesn’t have a background in art, he’s become more knowledgeable thanks to the artists he’s worked with. The restaurant’s most recent. display was curated by India Solomon, a Detroit-based abstract visual artist.
Guests can purchase pieces from each display and some exhibitions have sold out. Levine himself has been one of the buyers and is now the owner of multiple works.
“It’s made me a lot more interested in art,” he said. “Learning and forming relationships with the artists [have] been a fun experience.”
For diners at Freya, the vibe starts with the opening of each new artist exhibition. The restaurant hosts an opening party complete with vinyl records from local artists.
These efforts serve to attract a diverse audience and to honor the neighborhood where Freya is located.
“The history of the neighborhood is pretty special,” Levine said. “We want to be a positive addition to the neighborhood. It has a kind of magic to it. We’re very fortunate to be here.”
Fostering a sense of community is also important to those at Ima. Ransom, who grew up cooking and listening to records, moved to Detroit specifically to start his career as a DJ, where he eventually became a staple of the electronic music scene.
Although he put DJing on hold to attend culinary school in Chicago and later manage the opening of new restaurants across the country, Ransom eventually made it back to Detroit in 2016.
Despite running Ima, he still found the time to re-establish his DJ career.
“I need to get out of the kitchen sometimes and have other creative outlets,” he said. “Music lets me use a different part of my brain than cooking. I need both to have a happy existence.”
Like Ransom, the Vinyl Tasting team has had a variety of career experiences.
Booze has worked at restaurants throughout the country and is currently on staff at the Detroit Food Academy. Beckem has worked at several well- known Detroit restaurants including Selden Standard and Cooking with Que. She is the executive chef at Bas Blue.
For Conrad, his journey began as a child. His family owns a restaurant in upstate New York where he grew up and began his restaurant career as a dishwasher at age 14. It was music that first brought him to Detroit, where he continued his restaurant work. He then spent time working in Michelin-starred restaurants in Chicago before returning to the Detroit restaurant scene, where he was the chef for eateries in the Book Tower building and at Takoi.
Reflecting on what inspires him today, both as a chef and musician, Conrad said,
“My staff, my staff, my staff. I have an incredible team of hyper-talented young cooks and chefs. I feel so fortunate to get to share space with them all every day and, man, they are good at it.”
Sources of inspiration
When it comes to inspiration, all of these chefs echoed Conrad’s thoughts.
Ransom’s interest in music began as a child as he listened to his parents’ and sister’s eclectic tastes. He started DJing in high school while also working in restaurants. He had always enjoyed watching cooking shows and discovered that he thrived on the energy found in restaurant kitchens. Ransom later found a home in electronic, house and techno.
Much like Conrad, it was music that first brought him to Detroit at the age of 20. He had originally lived in Northern Michigan, Tennessee and East Lansing. Eventually, he moved to Chicago to attend culinary school and went on to work in San Francisco and Baltimore before returning to Detroit in 2016, when he began to develop his concept for Ima.
“What inspires me is the desire to experience new things and to share them with others,” he said. “Experimenting with new ingredients and discovering new music is my creative outlet. And having great people around drives me.”
Similarly, Levine’s restaurant experience also began in childhood.
At age 11, he started working at his grandparents’ deli and immediately fell in love with the rapport among the staff. He went on to work at corporate restaurants like TGI Friday’s, Hard Rock Café and Pizza Hut as well as independent venues in Detroit. He is also behind local successes Chartreuse, The Oakland and Dragonfly. In 2021, together with chef Doug Hewitt, Levine opened Freya.
“It’s the people that make up a restaurant that inspire me,” Levine said.
“There’s a camaraderie among the staff. I also enjoy interacting with guests; the relationships I’ve built over the years are very gratifying.”
The people that inspire Booze are both contemporary and historical. A native of Arkansas, Booze traveled to Rhode Island to earn a culinary degree and then to Ypsilanti to attend Eastern Michigan University. He originally planned to major in dietetics but then switched to African American studies. He was fascinated by the ordeals that his mother and ancestors endured. This knowledge fueled several of Booze’s culinary ventures including Taste the Diaspora, which celebrates culinary traditions from the African diaspora. And with Vinyl Tasting, Booze continues to incorporate diaspora flavors into his dishes.
“The older I get, the more I appreciate history and culture and finding new ways to explore who I am,” he said. “And I want to help improve the landscape for people who live here.”
For these chefs, there’s an unexpected factor behind the art that drives them: the people they work alongside and share life with. Both art and food can bring people together, making them ideal partners for restaurants and pop-
ups alike.
Shannon Mackie is a marketing professional and freelance writer. Also a self-published author, she lives in Detroit with her family. She is inspired by the unique stories of the subjects she interviews.
