Prime + Proper

A steakhouse in a 1912 loft building on Capitol Park is playing a longer game than most. That little wedge of green out front was the site of Michigan’s first state capitol, until the government packed up for Lansing in 1847 — and Prime + Proper leans all the way in, preserving the original marble staircase and patina brass and asking you, politely but firmly, to dress like you noticed.

The concept is a modern American steakhouse with an in-house butcher shop doing the real work: USDA Prime beef dry-aged no fewer than 28 days in a room lined with Himalayan rock salt, certified Japanese Wagyu with the paperwork displayed in the shop, and small-farm cuts you won’t find on another menu in town. The reputation that precedes it is about the service as much as the steak — and, in fairness, about the number at the bottom of the check right after that.

We haven’t sat down here yet; a reservation is on the books and we’ll report back honestly once we have. For now it goes on the list as downtown’s big-occasion room — the one you book when the occasion has to carry the price tag, in the same dressed-up weight class as Parc a few blocks east.