Taken by Surprise

Creative twists on old standbys give Terry B's in Dexter a flavor all its own

By Christopher Cook

A couple of years ago, Terry Braciszewski, who runs Ann Arbor Rehabilitation Centers, a place that helps people with head injuries, was looking for a location to have a surprise birthday for his wife, Kate, a nurse also associated with the center.
Each morning on his way into Ann Arbor, he would drive through Dexter, passing by the sedate, charming old house that was home to the Tuscan House. Wondering if it might be the place for the party, Braciszewski stopped in. Yes, said the owner, he could handle such an event, and a few weeks later the party was held.
“It was a great success,” Braciszewski says, and during the party one of the guests appro-ached him and said: “You know, the owner wants to sell it.”
As his guest departed for an afterglow party elsewhere, Braciszewski stayed behind and had a glass of wine with the owner. He walked around and looked the place over, which is when he was struck by a rare head injury of another sort that sometimes hits extremely intelligent people: the notion that owning a restaurant is somehow a good idea.
Restaurants come and go, but in the world of dining it seems that a good location is always just that, and that’s certainly what eventually Braciszewski bought at the end of 2005.
Before it was the Tuscan House, it had been Cousins Heritage Inn, which for years topped many Detroit restaurant lists as one of those worth-the-drive stops, and across a 20-year run under Paul and Pat Cousin it had garnered the attention of The New York Times and national magazines for its regional produce and game-based cooking.
Renamed Terry B’s Restaurant & Bar, it reopened quietly in the summer of 2006 after an extensive renovation that left the front entirely intact. The exterior is now vivid yellow with purple trim and awnings. But much of the interior and a maze of little rooms, along with the entire second floor, were gutted so that today you walk into a dramatic two-story main entry area beyond which is a large bar, something the other inns never had.
The old dining room has been retained and redone, and the entire restaurant glows under a fresh, earthy orange-and-ocher color scheme that’s matched to the building’s Arts and Crafts design. It’s also accented with simple window treatments and triangular wall lighting sconces of that style. A meandering outdoor deck that encompasses several tall trees has been added next to the dining room.
The food is a delightful interpretation of American and continental cooking by Douglas Hewitt Jr., whose most recent stop had been the Five Lakes Grill in Milford, and before that, the Franklin Grill in Franklin. Diana Smalley, a restaurant professional, is the general manager, and she and Hewitt run the restaurant on a daily basis for the Braciszewskis.
When someone told me recently that I really wanted to try Terry B’s in Dexter, I reacted to the name by asking: “Why would I want to write about food at a biker bar?” But three visits later, the name remains the only thing that seems out of sync to me.
Terry B’s is neither fine dining, nor high polish, and nor is it trying to be either. And that’s one reason why it succeeds. It’s what I like to call “honest” restauranting, a place that’s solid and self-confident, and devoid of fakery and frivolity.
Hewitt calls the menu American modern, and wants people to be comfortable with what they see on it, but still find fun surprises in what they get.
For example, take Hewitt’s “redesign” of calamari. Thin slices are flash-fried to a standard crispness, but then he moves it away from its native Italy (where marinara sauce or lemon aioli would be the norm) and drops it into Mexico via a crisp tortilla shell and an accompaniment of black-bean salsa and smoky roasted corn, all bonded with a quite spicy rémoulade.
Hewitt can also be traditional, and his time at Five Lakes Grill with chef Brian Polcyn shows up in another first course: the Dexter Plate, five large bite-size pieces of charcuterie each with a selected dab of chutney or sauce and a little vegetable accompaniment. The most remarkable of which is something he calls a “duck ham.” It’s a duck breast wrapped in a rind used for making ham, which is then smoked. It comes out a reddish-pink color with intense duck breast and wood flavors perfectly in balance.
Other starters to be recommended are a chicken gumbo spring roll with smoked tomato and tomatillo salsa, and a chile-and-lime vinaigrette for dipping. New Orleans meets the Orient. Mexico gets a bit of a rehash from Hewitt in a grouper-and-shrimp ceviche in a lime vinaigrette with diced avocado and blue-corn chips.
I tried seven of the 11 entrees during my three visits. And while the listings sound fairly commonplace and can also be found on many restaurant menus, in Hewitt’s hands each is outstanding for its brightness of flavor and in balance with the other items served with it. And they are all totally distinct from the way most other restaurants would make them.
For example, the hands-down favorite was the single braised short rib, which arrived at the table sitting on a bed of mashed potatoes with three asparagus spears sticking from under the potatoes. The rib looked somewhat dry, as if it needed to be cut with a knife. But it fell apart at the touch of a fork into pieces of bright, glistening, and moist beef. Hewitt said the rib “has become our most popular item; some nights we just run out of them.”
Other main platters worth trying: rotisserie chicken with mashed potatoes and creamy leeks. But surprise, surprise: There’s a leg of pheasant confit hidden in there, too.
Or try the roasted duck leg and thigh served with a lentil risotto (how often do you see that combo in risotto?) braised cabbage, and a red currant demi-glace.
Hewitt has a daring but smart sense of how to take common items and, without disturbing traditional preparations, he finds innovative touches to either add or rebuild the dish successfully in a way that amuses, surprises, and works.
Take his version of a Po’ Boy sandwich, which is constructed of smoked duck breast, grilled goat cheese, roasted smoky red peppers, arugula, and red onion on a baguette, and a sauce that we incorrectly suspected was a reduced balsamic; it was, in fact, an orange gastrique.
Hewitt’s success at these reconstructed dishes is easy to flub, and many chefs do. Overall, I didn’t find one of Hewitt’s dishes with which I would quibble.
Serving the food is a restaurant staff that is so attentive, earnest, and endearing that it was easy to overlook little service blips.
When we pointed out to the waiter that the butter swirl that arrived with a breadbasket was fouled by a refrigerator smell, he brought another of the same thing. Oh, well. Could we have some olive oil, please?
And, it does seem a little self-defeating to go to so much effort to make the place and the food look so nice and then serve a salad with the dressing on the side in one of those little clear little plastic cups that hospitals use to dispense pills.
Also, it’s impressive that a bottle of wine is brought to the table along with a decanter. But it’s also a good idea to have the client taste the wine before it’s actually decanted. On balance, these are really somewhat inconsequential observations when compared to the whole look and feel of the place and the high quality that emerges from Terry B’s kitchen.
So many restaurants wallpaper themselves with cool interior design, officious service, and food that has been passed through technicians who can make a dish startlingly pretty but have little or no idea how to make it taste good. Not here. And that’s the blessing that makes this place a success.
Terry B’s is to Dexter what the Beverly Hills Grill is to its town, and what 220 Merrill is to Birmingham, and Café Zola is to Ann Arbor.
Just as Cousins Heritage Inn was for many years worth a trip to Dexter, so is Terry B’s.