Bar Gabi

We heard about Bar Gabi the best possible way: from the table next to us at Little Bella’s, who leaned over to tell us to go now, before the rest of the metro figures it out. So we went. Now we’re the ones leaning over.

Our server Chris talked us out of the octopus we’d walked in wanting and into the evening’s scallop special — the right call, and exactly the right size for two to split, with peas and sprouts underneath. Then the Ceafă de Porc: pork steak, mini Yukons, parsley, butter, and a carafe of garlic sauce we poured onto everything without regret. Alongside it, a rigatoni with braised short rib in parmesan crema that we are still thinking about. Andrea called her Hugo Spritz the best she’s had in metro Detroit; the Ember Reserve — bourbon, amaretto, tawny port, demerara, bitters, served in a very good coupe — hit precisely the spot.

Husband-and-wife chefs Gabriel and Gabriela Botezan opened the room in the old Framebar space in October 2025 to give Romanian food the serious treatment it almost never gets in this country, and the detail work shows everywhere: wax candelabras down the walls, a soundtrack worth staying for, moss and mirrors in the bathrooms. It is not a cheap night and it is not a fast one. It was one of the best we’ve had in Hazel Park. We’ll be back.