2025 Restaurant of the Year: Mabel Gray

After a decade, Chef James Rigato and his swashbuckling crew continue to bring the world to Michigan one plate at a time.
From top left, clockwise: linguine and clams; Honeycrisp apple kimchi; Island Creek oysters; hamachi (made with daikon radish, grapefruit, gochugaru, cucumber yuzu kosho broth, and olive oil). // Photograph by E.E. Berger

It’s a rarity for a restaurant to storm onto the scene and remain exciting almost 10 years later. But Mabel Gray, which opened in September of 2015, continues to exceed our expectations by pushing boundaries with globally inspired seasonal menus, keeping its staff creative, happy, and fulfilled — and not getting stale. How do they do it?

They keep their feet moving.

Chef James Rigato leaves the country often. Sommelier and general manager Paulina Schemanski goes to Champagne, France, every year. Max Schikora, the bartender, who had previously never traveled out of the States, just hit Mexico City and Tokyo. The pastry chef? Ireland and Alaska. Rigato is buying back-of-house staff member Jordan Reynolds a ticket to Japan, and another, Kenny Goodwin, is set to spend a month in Italy.

“Perspective,” Rigato says about the benefits of travel. “It’s why you send your kids to school. I view my staff like I’m responsible for them. I want their time with me to be rich, stimulating, and positive.”

Cozy and intimate, a seat at the bar remains one of the best ways to experience Mabel Gray. Photograph by E.E. Berger

When Rigato, who grew up in a trailer park in Howell, found cooking, he discovered his calling, and with it, he inherited a golden ticket to see the world. Soon he left the U.S. for Italy, Vietnam, and France. Each time, he returned to Michigan with thicker skin. He came back a little calmer. A little more curious, more aware. As he puts it, traveling makes Americans “less afraid.”

It raises the question — why, exactly? Why would you want a whole staff of employees to be traveling, effectively leaving the Hazel Park restaurant? Why is travel so important to the restaurant’s identity? What does it mean for its evolution?

In short, everything. The secret sauce to Mabel Gray’s long-standing success isn’t so much a secret — it’s travel and the empathy it induces. It’s baked into everything they do.

The Rings of Saturn is a refreshing blend of pineapple rum and cashew orgeat. // Photograph by E.E. Berger

Yes, getting out of the country has imbued Rigato and his team with culinary inspiration, but it’s also instilled compassion, perspective, and chemistry. This is a staff that’s growing and learning together, not just as peers but as human beings. The food reflects that, too — it’s a maelstrom of well-traveled flavors, textures, and experiences, sucking you into its global vortex. Mabel continues to be a celebration of seasonality, but it’s much more than that; it’s a look into the creative minds of people who’ve seen the world.

The Mabel team has experienced vibrant, intoxicating evenings in Mexico City; eaten local fish in Alaska; picked wine grapes with Romanian women living in vans; spent long, alcohol-soaked nights in Ireland; traversed the French countryside; and faded into the bustling day traffic of Tokyo.

To put it succinctly, the team at Mabel travels the world, they grow, and then they come back to Michigan eager to share their newfound perspective.

— Danny Palumbo

Flavorful and Fleeting

This Salad Verte is dressed with a vinaigrette made from dried sherry and Dijon mustard. The fresh lettuce is topped with herbs, garlic breadcrumbs, feta, sunflower seeds, cucumber, and radishes. // Photograph by E.E. Berger

It’s December 2024, and I’m at Mabel Gray to experience Rigato and company’s current iteration of their transient menu. As you read this, the food is already in the past. They’ve left this collection of well-rounded dishes in the dust, and the team is more than happy to do so. The food at Mabel is as elusive as it is dynamic, changing every few weeks. This particular menu, though, is a jazz record full of Mabel Gray hits.

The mushroom carpaccio is a beautiful, layered, pancake-looking disc full of fat and robust flavor. Thinly shaved white mushrooms are topped with a rich maitake conserva, then drizzled with a bright lemon vinaigrette, dotted with a pesto pungent with pecorino Romano, and then finished with a sheet of pine nut crumble on top for crunch. Lemon, olive oil, pine nuts, and pesto — the mushroom carpaccio sings of sacred Italian simplicity. It’s also an adequate representation of what Mabel does best: Each ingredient is treated simply, and yet each ingredient gets its proper praise.

Then there’s the Honeycrisp apple kimchi, which I would happily submit to the Pure Michigan tourism campaign. Sweet, crisp apple slices are tossed in a vigorous kimchi paste that pops with ginger and garlic. Short strips of crispy Nueske’s bacon, which hails from Wisconsin and is among the most delicious bacon you’ll encounter, rest neatly atop the apple slices. Celery adds freshness, and spiced candied cashews add more crunch (Mabel loves crunch). Bacon and apples — simple, and yet presented with such artfulness. This is what the restaurant is all about. Mabel, at its best, presents ingredients that make sense in a way you’ve likely never experienced before.

Take the linguine and clams — Rigato’s traditional vongole receives influence from Japanese ramen in Tokyo. Fresh, eggy pasta is buried underneath a layer of Manila clams, but, like ramen, this classic pasta dish contains more broth than most, and so customers find themselves happily slurping warm, buttery, aromatic liquid in between bites of chewy noodles and clams. Rigato’s linguine and clams stays true to the classic preparation — fresh clams, garlic, parsley, white wine, and butter — but there’s this extra oomph provided by the use of fish sauce. It’s a heightened pasta dish that’s well traveled. It’s linguine and clams that got curious, got on a plane, and went east.

Photograph by E.E. Berger

On other visits, I experienced the spiedini — mortadella ribbons grilled on a skewer (which I can only describe as “deli meat yakitori”), flaky hamachi collar with a properly spiced Jamaican jerk sauce, and a Colorado lamb chop spread with a sweet, nutty muhammara that felt utterly Dearborn. Recollecting Mabel is often a laser show of concepts and cultures, intersecting through Michigan, the Midwest, and the globe.

Pastry chef Ali Sensovich has been a marvel over her tenure at Mabel and continues to deliver straightforward desserts that still somehow subvert and excite. Her peppermint chocolate cheesecake is sublime. Her pear tart is crispy, dense, sticky, and packed with  subtle sweet flavor. On a separate occasion, while on dessert reconnaissance, I was completely smitten with Sensovich’s rich and moist sticky toffee pudding, which beams with the flavor of brown butter, fried sage, and crystal cranberries dipped in hot simple syrup for a nice sugary pop. Sensovich’s desserts are understated, not too sweet, and always a textural wonder.

Creatively, Sensovich is also drawn to Mabel’s fluid nature, and the push to travel has influenced her cooking as well. Recently, on a trip to Alaska with another co-worker, she was taken with the state’s inherently insular food sourcing. Because Alaska is so isolated, imported food just costs so much more. “They depend on their own sourcing, what they can use. If you [someone living in or visiting Alaska] don’t have fish every meal, then you’re doing it wrong.”

“With Mabel Gray, I wanted to do something that was welcoming to small concepts and I could do on a small scale,” chef-owner James Rigato told Hour Detroit’s then-critic Christopher Cook in late 2015, months after opening in Hazel Park. // Photograph by E.E. Berger

Mabel is similar, featuring ingredients as fleeting as the seasons themselves. “We’re always talking to farmers and suppliers,” Sensovich says. “What do you got? What’s new? What’s fresh? What’s in season?”

But just as quickly, she says, it’s “Goodbye. Next thing.” A short memory. That’s what Rigato and company ask their diners to expect.

“Everything good in your life is fleeting,” Rigato says. “A great bottle of Champagne. The perfect wine. It’s already over, man. Christmas morning — it’s already over.”

— Danny Palumbo

Reliably Sublime

Photograph by E.E. Berger

Yes, Mabel’s calling card is a seasonal, ephemeral menu, one that morphs with product availability and takes full advantage of the Midwest’s bountiful produce. But while the restaurant comes and goes as it pleases, the food remains consistently excellent. Mabel Gray is a stalwart in metro Detroit and a marker of restaurant excellence not just in Michigan but across America. That’s why it’s Hour Detroit’s 2025 Restaurant of the Year. The award is a celebration of Mabel pulling off the impossible feat of being truly outstanding for an entire decade.

Mabel Gray continues to be rebellious, refined, worldly, and yet still so consistently approachable. The shotgun-style space remains, at its core, an old Coney shop in Hazel Park turned upside down. A relaxing, glowing orange light envelops the room, which features plenty of vintage tiling and coloring.

Along the side wall rests a long leather bench, complete with rows of wooden tables and chairs. The open kitchen protrudes into the dining space in such a way that it makes you feel as if you’re part of the team. And, as in all great restaurants, the bar remains the best seat in the house — snug but still roomy and an excellent way to strike up a conversation with a stranger or one of the bustling staff members. Though Mabel is traditional, it is also the absence of tradition — with handwritten, chef’s choice tasting menus featuring loud flavors.

This Michigan Honeycrisp apple kimchi features apple slices tossed in a gingery, garlicky kimchi paste and topped with celery, lemon yogurt, spiced candied cashews, scallion, and bacon from Nueske’s, an artisan meat supplier in Wisconsin. // Photograph by E.E. Berger

It boasts an attentive, knowledgeable, natural staff. If you go to Mabel, you’re going to be pushed out of your comfort zone. That’s because the staff has been pushed out of their comfort zone.

Rigato himself doesn’t shy away from sentimentality or a lived-in idea; he knows that Mabel Gray has always been the sum of its staff. They’re travelers. Swashbucklers. Picaroons. To him, all the well-trodden and romantic expressions of restaurant culture are true.

“We’re an old pirate ship,” he says about Mabel’s 10th year in Hazel Park. “It’s broken in. It’s well seasoned. Everyone on board shares the same idea — we love sailing. We love new menus. We love guest chefs. We love seeing a new land. We are f—ing pirates that want new adventure. We’re the vampires that want new blood.”

Rigato continues to steer his staff toward new experiences, new lands. Mabel’s the ship, but it’s the treasure map, too.

— Danny Palumbo

The Beverage Program

Bartender Max Schikora was inspired to travel internationally after he began working at Mabel Gray. // Photograph by E.E. Berger

You can tell a lot about a restaurant from its house wine and cocktail list. In the case of Mabel Gray, everything you need to know is right there in the house Champagne, Champagne Drappier’s Carte D’Or. It’s a classic from a long-established family, complex and nuanced without being showy. And that’s exactly what you get from Mabel Gray.
Led by sommelier Paulina Schemanski, the bar team at Mabel Gray pares down the drinking experience to its sensuous essentials, maximizing the impact of the bar footprint by zeroing in on indispensable and adaptable ingredients.

It takes skill, knowledge, and a confidence born of years of practice to construct a winning beverage pairing. Schemanski does this week after week with her tasting menu pairings, mixing Old and New World wines and adding the occasional serendipitous find to surprise and delight guests. She’s a Champagne whiz and uses her platform to advocate for small growers and low-intensity winemakers. Her Mabel Gray Champagne Society (and its newsletter) is essential for French oenophiles.

Lovers of Italian, Spanish, and California wines can also rejoice in finding new favorites from Mabel Gray’s well-considered cellar. Schemanski’s wine pairings are all about balance. The wine “cave,” opened in June 2024, expands the experience with an inviting and moody space evocative of wine country cellars and exclusive chateaux tastings.

The seasonally available prickly pear margarita is prepared with juice from fresh cactus pears, which the team makes in-house. // Photograph by E.E. Berger

The rest of Mabel Gray’s bar team is equally adept. Longtime employee and head bartender Max Schikora loves to riff on classic cocktails with seasonal ingredients. Take the Rings of Saturn, a rum-based take on the classic tiki drink with pineapple rum and cashew orgeat. It’s simultaneously refreshing and cozy, a beautiful complement to the food menu’s warming winter items. The cocktails are bright, focused, and Instagram-worthy.

On a recent visit, my companion — a regular at Mabel Gray — asked Schikora to surprise him. This is not a move universally advised, since the bartenders need to know a guest’s preferences and peccadillos, plus be intimately versed in the bar’s current ingredient list. Schikora whipped up one of his recent off-menu experiments, a savory blend of bourbon, amaro, and cranberry plus a couple of finishing touches. It was the perfect drink for my companion on a brisk winter night.

Mabel Gray’s bar team creates magic night after night by leaning into what they love. Each bottle of wine, each spirit, each ingredient, from the herbs and juices brought straight from the garden to the green Chartreuse, is chosen with care. The bar’s dedication to refined but never fussy drinks is a reflection of the ethos behind chef James Rigato’s restaurant.

— Mickey Lyons

Food Events

This Colorado lamb chop is topped with a sweet, nutty muhammara (the traditional Middle Eastern roasted red pepper spread). // Photograph by E.E. Berger

Mabel Gray has never expanded to a second space, and it’s never needed to, either. The restaurant remains a creatively fulfilling entity for the staff and does so through food events like Vegan Month and Burger Week.

Some dinners happen only a few times a year. Chief among them is Sunday at Nonna’s, a collaboration with John Vermiglio of Grey Ghost (which sometimes hosts). Sunday at Nonna’s is a wonderful dinner full of foods you’d, according to Rigato, “eat in your grandma’s basement” — big, beautiful meatballs; cheesy garlic bread; chicken cutlets with salsa verde passed around on large platters; summery sweet corn cavatelli; and red sauce weighted with olive oil. Friends, there’s nothing else like Sunday at Nonna’s around here.

Rigato and Vermiglio have the unique ability to tap into exactly what makes Italian American comfort food worth celebrating and then turn up the dial. There’s not a doubt in my mind that, if the pair chose, they could open the best damn Italian American restaurant in metro Detroit. Mabel continues to be a creative incubator, a place for fresh ideas, and a space to collaborate with outside chefs.

Everyone is welcome there. The restaurant itself is an island, but its people aren’t marooned on a desolate archipelago. Staff, guest chefs, customers — they’re all traveling back and forth on the same road.

— Danny Palumbo

Champagne Never Goes Out of Style

Dubbed “the fairy godmother of Mabel Gray,” sommelier and general manager Paulina Schemanski joined the team in 2019. She writes the Mabel Gray Champagne Society newsletter. // Photograph by E.E. Berger

Mabel’s latest evolution comes with its brand spanking new Champagne Society — a recently constructed wine room dedicated solely to sparkling wine. The space looks Gothic, both moody and romantic, like the type of place fancy vampires go to hang out and drink blood from a chalice after a long night of work. Its purpose? To celebrate Champagne.

“Paulina is the fairy godmother of Mabel Gray. She’s the future of beverage in southeast Michigan for sure as far as Champagne goes,” Rigato gushes about Wine Director Schemanski. While past sommeliers at Mabel have always featured sparkling wine by the glass, with the help of Schemanski, there are now typically over 100 varieties in Mabel Gray’s charming Champagne dungeon at any given moment. There’s nothing else like it in metro Detroit.

To hear Rigato and Schemanski tell it, Champagne never goes out of style. What’s more, Champagne pairs beautifully with Mabel Gray’s culinary sensibilities — fatty, funky, acidic, and crunchy. It’s the ultimate beverage complement to Mabel’s already-stellar food. A reminder that the industry is food and beverage. The pair saw an opportunity to heighten one half of the experience, and they jumped on it.

Photograph by E.E. Berger

Champagne has long been an industry favorite. Both Rigato and Schemanski say that most sommeliers who come into Mabel for dinner drink Champagne. “All wine roads lead to Champagne,” Rigato says. “Your finest chefs around the world, your baddest sommeliers, [that’s] the common thread. I just went to an omakase in Tokyo — they pour Champagne.”

No other restaurant in southeast Michigan pushes Champagne like Mabel Gray, and its loyal customers are getting wise to the drink, too. “It’s like being at a burger bar and being like, ‘What’s good here?’” Schemanski says. “Oh, it’s the burger?” Champagne is now part of Mabel’s identity, just one of the many ways the restaurant has evolved over the years.

Make a choice to go all in on something you’re passionate about — that’s the Mabel way.

— Danny Palumbo

Mabel Grey is located at 23825 John R. Road, Hazel Park. Call 248-398-4300 or visit mabelgraykitchen.com for more information. 


This story originally appeared in the February 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our digital edition will be available on Feb. 10.