The Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers’ popular Top 10 Takeover dining series is back with a lineup that showcases chefs who gave back to their communities during the pandemic. Next up to go on sale: In the Business of Food from Ederique Goudia.
Tickets for the Aug, 26 event go on sale to the general public at noon Friday. In takeover — the fifth of 11 dining events taking place every other week through Nov. 1 — takes place at Batch Brewing Co. at 1400 Porter St. in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. The seating will be outdoors and covered.
The five-course menu reflects Goudia’s organizations and businesses that represent food and the community.
Tickets are $65 and include tax, gratuity and a $3 donation to Forgotten Harvest. Seatings will be at 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Purchase tickets online at freep.com/top10. You can also enter to win two free tickets courtesy of our partner, the Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers. Go to chevydetroit.com/top10 to enter. In addition, Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers is hosting a food drive at each event. A collection box will be on hand for nonperishable food donations.
Detroit Free Press subscribers can get a jump on tickets one day early. A portion of tickets will go on sale for subscribers only at noon Thursday. Subscribers should look for an email that includes a link to purchase advance tickets. If you didn’t receive the email, contact [email protected].
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This year’s Top 10 Takeover series honors the chefs and others named as Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers 2021 Food Fighters. This effort took the place of the annual Restaurant of the Year, which went on hiatus during the pandemic. Instead of naming the Top 10 Best New Restaurants, the series focused on honoring people in the local dining scene who made a difference in their communities.
Now in its seventh year, Top 10 Takeover events often sell out quickly. Tickets go on sale about two weeks prior to each event.
This year’s Top 10 Takeover is not only a way to experience food and drink offered by these restaurants, but to show support and give back to these diverse Food Fighter chefs.
“These chefs and restaurateurs were selected based on how they leveraged their culinary skills and connections to help do good in and for their communities during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote Mark Kurlyandchik, former Free Press restaurant critic.
Growing up in rural Louisiana, food was at the center of Goudia’s life.
“My mother’s parents lived across the street from us and my grandfather had three gardens,” recalls Goudia. “He made his own sausage, his own wine, ground his own cayenne pepper. We lived off the land. I grew up with just getting food directly out of the garden.”
That deep sense of connection to the land, to the food that grows from it, and to the community that it sustains it are central to Goudia’s adult life. Those tenets inform all the work she now does as a chef, culinary instructor, consultant, and co-founder of Taste of the Diaspora, a successful Black History Month initiative that highlighted Detroit’s Black-owned restaurants and farmers while celebrating the immense impact of African foodways.
In 2020, Goudia was tapped to become a lead chef for Make Food Not Waste, a massive undertaking to feed hungry Detroiters using food that would otherwise go to waste.
Here’s a sampling of what will be served from In the Business of Food:
First course
Smoked gouda and black pepper biscuits with sweet pepper fig jam from Slow Jams, representing Detroit Food Academy.
Second course
Tomato and watermelon salad with turnip stem pesto featuring Nurturing Our Seeds Farm and representing Make Food Not Waste
Third course
Duck confit gumbo with popcorn rice featuring Oakland Avenue Farms, representing Taste the Diaspora.
Fourth course
Okra and smoked chicken andouille creole with corn grits and turnip puree featuring ng Deeply Rooted Garden and representing Gabriel Hall.
Fifth course
New Orleans wedding cake —- almond cake with pineapple filling, lemon curd and praline crumb highlighting Brooklyn Street Local, representing In the Business of Food.
Drink pairing can be purchased the day of the event. Beer pairings are available for $25.
Top 10 Takeover dining series lineup
- The Block — June 16
- SheWolf Pastificio — June 29
- Batch Brewing Co. — July 15
- Saffron de Twah — July 28
- Farmacy Food— Aug. 12
- In the Business of Food — Aug. 26
- COOP — Sept. 8
- Kuzzo’s Chicken & Waffles — Sept. 22
- Bunny Bunny — Oct. 6
- El Nacimiento — Oct. 20
- Bangkok 96 Street Food — Nov. 1
There are few seats available until midnight Thursday for the chef of the year dinner on Aug. 12. Go to Freep.com/top10 to purchase tickets.
Contact Detroit Free Press food writer Sue Selasky and send food and restaurant news to: 313-222-6872 or [email protected] Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter.
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