Vinsetta Garage firing on all cylinders … as a restaurant

The interior of the Vinsetta Garage gained some memorabilia in its conversion to a restaurant.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Metro Detroit celebrates mediocrity when it comes to food.

Sure, we have some standouts such as Bacco, Zingerman's Roadhouse and Roast. But for every Roast there is a "fill in the blank" charging $35 for an entrée that shouldn't cost $10.

But every now and then, something truly inspired comes along. Vinsetta Garage, located at 27799 Woodward Ave. in Berkley, is just that.

To be fair, K.C. Crain is one of the owners, and he happens to be the son of the chairman of the company that signs my paychecks.

My guess is he is not the one who is going to make this place what it is. That person would be Curt Catallo, who also owns Clarkston Union and the Union Woodshop, both of which are national darlings and Food Network veterans.

Catallo brought his team and some of his recipes down I-75 to help with the new restaurant.

Catallo's wife, Ann Stevenson, did the design work; and his head chef, Aaron Cozadd, created the menu. Both are simply outstanding.

The garage remains just that, only now it's home to a restaurant. They purposely left a lot of the details from its garage days intact. My favorite is a yellowing, hand-sketched picture of Beavis from MTV's hit show Beavis and Butt-head in mid-head-bang.

I can imagine a bored mechanic with the dimming dream of being an artist blowing the minds of his co-workers with his sketches.

Out front, two old-fashioned gas pumps have been converted to electric charging stations where customers can charge their electric vehicle at no charge.

It took me a while to get into Vinsetta. I didn't want to call the Big Guy and ask for a favor, so I waited and waited … and waited to get a peek at the new restaurant.

Finally, I got my time, and it was well worth the wait.

I always say the hands-down best burger I've ever had in my life was at Kuma's Corner in Chicago. Kuma's is best known for three things: its burgers named after heavy-metal acts such as The Iron Maiden, Slayer and Mastadon; its pretzel buns; and its macaroni and cheese.

My friends and I waited for three hours--yeah, three hours; we are crazy like that--to get into the heavy-metal-themed bar. But it was worth the wait.

But Vinsetta has all that and more.

I had a simplified version of a burger called the Macon Bacon topped with house-cured bacon, Canadian bacon, cheddar cheese and a special sauce.

The burger meat is a mix of brisket, short ribs and ground chuck. The only way the burger could have been any better was if the pretzel bun was hand-made by a Bavarian baker.

Oh, and the mac 'n' cheese. Well, if you've ever been to Clarkston Union or the Union Woodshop, then you already know all about it. The crust on it cracked like crème brulée.

If I were a betting man, and I am, I'd put money on this place having wait times like Kuma's and people like me happily standing in line.

The only downside is parking--the lack thereof. But as Catallo said, "That's a good problem to have."

The 5,000-square-foot, 160-seat restaurant has a modest price point. A burger and fries will cost about $9, and the most expensive entrées will run about $20.

I recently chatted with Catallo about getting the 90-year-old garage restaurant-ready, the cuisine and what his expectations are.

What's the back story to this restaurant?

Ann and I, we kind of fall in love with buildings that have character, and it was always obvious the Vinsetta building had unparalleled character.

We had a friend reach out to Signature Associates, only to find out it had been sucked off the market. Then I found out it was K.C. who bought it. I am an Autoweek alum. I was there for five years when I was fresh out of school from about 1989 to 1994, so I knew him.

I went down in my role at Union Adworks to talk to him about production work for Autoweek's TV show. K.C. brought up about using Vinsetta as a studio. I told him it would be a killer restaurant. We left Brewery Park, drove straight to Vinsetta and we have had the keys ever since.

Why build a restaurant in an old garage?

There is a reason they build Applebee's on concrete pads in parking lots. That's the easy way to build a restaurant. But that doesn't appeal to us.

We know that if you put in the extra care to preserve a building, it gives you something you can never build new.

Anne has designed all of our restaurants. It's coming up with a place that isn't decorated, it's real. Vinsetta is not a car-themed restaurant. It's a true garage that houses a restaurant. And at the end of the day, that is what makes it different.

I know that K.C. and I have a love of cars, and to see this place preserved means the world to us.

K.C. had the courage to get into the restaurant business. We are true partners in real estate and in the restaurant business.

Was it difficult to get the space restaurant-ready?

A building like that presents every hurdle in a business that is already full of hurdles.

I think the biggest was that it was a building that hadn't seen any reinvestment in decades, so you start with the obvious--the roof--and work your way down. At some point, you are putting a beer cooler in the basement, you realize you have touched every inch of this place.

We spent more time and money making sure it didn't look like we touched it.

What's with the sketch of Beavis?

We walked in and saw that drawing of Beavis on the door. That thing, throughout the whole build-out, we protected that like it was the Mona Lisa.

It captures something that's real. You can imagine the mechanic drawing that. It was the kind of thing we wanted to keep.

So many people came through and worked on that project, to protect that Beavis was paramount. We really worked to preserve the patina. A place like this is only original once.

How similar is the menu to your other restaurants?

You take for granted what fresh and real taste like. Nothing we do has been frozen or out of a can. 

There isn't anything except ketchup that we don't make. If I thought we could do a better job than Heinz, I would scratch-make ketchup.

We are definitely bringing our mac 'n' cheese. We like to plant the mac 'n' cheese like a flag on every new moon.

Wherever we are, that's the first thing we are going to do.

What is your expectation?

I think that we are confident only because I know we have put everything we've learned into this one. We have been doing this for a long time and love this business. We know that a project like this required everything we learned along the way. At the end of the day, it's up to the folks down here to tell us if we got it right.

But I know these people are hungry for legit. They will know legit when they taste it.