Knowing the Score

For years, it has been the lunch spot for power brokers in Detroit business and politics, and popular for dinner for those headed downtown to the theater, opera, and symphony

For years, it has been the lunch spot for power brokers in Detroit business and politics, and popular for dinner for those headed downtown to the theater, opera, and symphony.

It's one of a handful of restaurants busy enough that reservations are definitely a good idea. And it has that sense of luxury that typifies city restaurants, with a menu that's surprisingly uncomplicated. Its owner calls it "unfussy."

In a city where not many restaurants last long, Opus One has had a steady pulse for 20 years, thanks largely to the two key vital signs that make a successful restaurant: consistency in its food and an ever-present owner.

Opus One opened in 1987, a time when Coleman Young was still mayor, casinos were barely on the horizon, and the economy was about to rebound into the upcoming boom years of the 1990s. The timing couldn't have been better.

"We were well ahead of the rebound," says owner Jim Kokas. "In those early years, it was pretty tough. The day we opened, the Detroit Symphony was on strike. There was no [renovated] Fox Theatre yet. The only thing downtown was the Red Wings, and they weren't very good at the time."

The Detroit Opera House had not yet been renovated, nor had Orchestra Hall for the DSO, and the Gem Theatre was still a closed-up wreck.

"So we were just kind of pioneers downtown," Kokas says. "But what was wonderful was that everybody wanted us to succeed. The city fathers wanted us to succeed, and business leaders wanted us to succeed." And overnight, Opus One did indeed succeed.

Even the restaurant's location on Larned had a certain symbolism of revitalization, sitting in the shadow the Renaissance Center and the People Mover, and just a few blocks' walk from the city offices.

Then, there was also its name, which was very 1980s and was borrowed from the hot new wine of the day, a joint venture between France and the United States in the persons of the two men who owned the best wineries in each country: Baron Philippe de Rothschild, of Chateau Mouton Rothschild in Bordeaux, and Robert Mondavi, the Napa Valley giant.

One night, several months before the new restaurant opened, Marci Mondavi, the national marketing director for Mondavi wines who's also Robert's daughter, came for dinner to the Chambertin in Dearborn, where Kokas was then general manager. As they chatted, he told her that he planned to open a new restaurant.

"What are you going to call it?" Mondavi asked.

"Opus One," Kokas replied. Kokas says Mondavi was briefly taken aback, but then said she thought it was "a great idea."

For years after Opus One opened, wine dinners for the namesake wine were held, events that included occasional visits and presentations by Mondavi family members. "To this day, we still sell more Opus One wine than any restaurant in the country," Kokas says.

The other distinction of the new restaurant was its cost. Kokas and his partner, Ed Mandziara, spent $3.5 million, an eye-popping cost at the time.

Much of the expense went into a state-of-the-art, smartly designed kitchen overseen by then-executive chef Peter Loren.

By most restaurant standards, the 5,000-squarefoot, two-story kitchen was huge. Designed for ease of use, its cooking stations and storage systems were made to take a lot of the physical stress out of food preparation. Refrigerator drawers were placed at waist height within easy reach, so that a cook doesn't have to walk far or go into contortions when reaching for chilled goods. He simply turns back to the stove.

Kokas' own mezzanine-level office overlooks just about every aspect of the cooking lines. From his office, the executive chef (today it's Tim Giznsky) can monitor kitchen functions, such as the delivery and storage of produce, and the pastry-preparation tables. Cleanup for large utensils and pans is done by hospital-style steam-cleaning equipment. Servers have easy-in and easy-out access so that they can clear a table, drop dirty dishes, and pick up their outgoing order in a matter of steps.

In those early days, no restaurant had such facilities, and Kokas showed off his kitchen as proudly as he did the opulent dining room. There still aren't many better today.

Kokas himself was born into a restaurant family, which in the summer of 2006 celebrated 90 continuous years of feeding Detroit. His grandfather Jimmy Kokalis (the name was later changed) was the first to arrive from Greece, and he eventually owned a coffee shop at the corner of Twelfth Street and West Grand Boulevard. His father, Gus, had for years run the Chambertin [restaurant] in Dearborn where Jim worked until he opened Opus One.

Today, Ed Mandziara has moved on, and chef Giznsky has become a co-owner.

Nothing has changed in the dining room configuration of Opus One, although it was recently repainted and reupholstered, and continues the fresh and prim glamour and sophistication it always had.

The main dining room is filled with natural light at lunch, and an occasionally too-loud piano adds ambience at dinner. (My only quibble with the restaurant: I love the music, not the sound level.) Plush, large banquettes in a rich goldand- brown upholstery make natural alcoves around the room, and are smartly positioned so that diners in the next alcove can communicate with people in the other alcoves. Throughout the room, a blend of light-and-dark wood frames glass and mirror panels and dividers etched in floral patterns with occasional pastoral and vineyard scenes.

Tables are covered in crisp, cream-colored linens and set with elegant flatware and stemware. Dining-room chairs are upholstered in the same materials as the banquettes.

Giznsky, who was a sous-chef at the Chambertin and took over for Loren in 1994, was a logical choice since he had done most of the cooking under Loren anyway. Loren was the creative eye; Giznsky was the one who executed the ideas and actually did the cooking. Today, Opus One has also expanded into catering large events throughout metro Detroit, which Kokas says has become the backbone of the business.

The menu is a continental-American blend with European influences, especially sauces.

Starting course items worth trying are the supremely rich shrimp Helene: two jumbo shrimp in phyllo pastry with béarnaise sauce; and snails in phyllo with spinach and Parmesan and served with a beurre blanc. Another favorite starter at our table was a very vibrant, fresh and sweet Alaska king crab salad with fried green tomatoes. Another winner: duck confit beignets. The duck was more like a loose terrine cooked in a fritter exterior. It's served with a tamarind orange sauce.

Main courses include a steak that has become Opus One's signature: a chargrilled 20-ounce bonein rib-eye called a "Cowboy Steak," which is marinated for two days in a coffee-spice rub, broiled and roasted lightly. It comes with portobello steak fries, a potato gratin, and a Madeira demi-glace sauce.

Other worthwhile entrees: a classic sautéed Dover sole à la meunière with lemon-parsley butter, de-boned at the table; and a rack of New Zealand lamb broiled with herbs and garlic, presented with a potato-fennel gratin, spinach, and served with its juices.

There's also a New York strip loin served with the same Madeira demi-glace, garnished with a potato gratin and crisp angel-hair onion rings.

In addition, the wine list is broad in choices, varied, and reasonably priced. We found a very good Oregon pinot noir for $42 a bottle to be an exceptional value.

Kokas says that, for years, downtown restaurants have fought the push and pull of doing well at lunch and fading at dinner, the hour when the professional crowd has left for the suburbs. But now that has changed.

For Opus One, at least, the increase in theater and sports events downtown over 20 years has slowly flipped the pattern over to more dinner clients than lunch clients.

"That's good," Kokas says. "It's nearly impossible to succeed at a restaurant like this in Detroit solely on a lunch crowd."

Add that to the list of optimistic signs now evident in downtown Detroit.

565 E. Larned, Detroit; 313-961-7766. L & D Mon.- Fri. D only on Sat. Closed Sun.

This article appears in the May 2007 of Hour Detroit.
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