The Godfrey Hotel opened on Michigan Avenue in summer 2023, but its full-service ground-floor restaurant came later. Hamilton's eased into service through 2024 as a neighborhood tavern with a 93-seat dining room and bar plus a 38-seat outdoor terrace facing Michigan Avenue at 1401 Michigan, between Trumbull and Eighth. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, seven days a week.
The kitchen comes from Samy Eid's Chickpea Hospitality, the group behind Leila in Capitol Park, the Phoenicia in Birmingham, and Forest Restaurant in Birmingham. Leila was Detroit Free Press Restaurant of the Year in 2020 and made GQ's national best new restaurants list the same year. Phoenicia was a James Beard Outstanding Hospitality semifinalist in 2022.
The track record is the reason the project landed with Chickpea instead of with one of the celebrity-chef partnerships Bedrock and Oxford have been signing across downtown. Hamilton's sits inside a partnership between Chickpea, Chicago-based Oxford Capital Group, and Farmington Hills developer Hunter Pasteur. Oxford and Hunter Pasteur are also behind Perennial Corktown, the seven-story, 188-unit apartment community across the street, plus a townhouse run on Tenth and Church and a parking garage at 1501 Church.
The Godfrey is part of a $75 to $100 million Curio Collection by Hilton project. The seventh-floor I|O rooftop bar with the retractable roof has been open since the hotel debut. Hamilton's is meant to be the locals-friendly companion to it.
The menu is classic American with seasonal pulls. Brunch reads tavern-friendly. Eid said in the announcement that the goal was a restaurant where Corktown residents would feel as welcome as hotel guests, which is the restaurateur version of saying the hard part out loud.
Hotel restaurants in this town have a mixed record on actually pulling that off. The bar program runs deep. Groundswell Design Group did the interior design.
Swiss Cottage Designs handled the brand identity. The whole project sits across from the rebuilt Michigan Central Station, which opened the same year and rerouted a chunk of foot traffic onto the same block. Detroit has gotten several hotel restaurants since the Westin Book Cadillac brought back the format in 2008.
Hamilton's is the first one in Corktown specifically. That matters because Corktown's restaurant block was already crowded. Eid's bet is that there is room for a tavern that does the basics very well and stays open from morning through the close of the bar.
1401 Michigan Ave., Detroit.
