The Best Restaurant in Southwest Michigan
Houndstooth, Benton Harbor, MI
Off the Beaten Path Gem in Benton Harbor, Michigan
The best restaurant in southwest Michigan resides in an unlikely place. It’s not located in the region’s larger cities of Grand Rapids or Kalamazoo nor in the charming lakeside getaways of Saugatuck or New Buffalo. The restaurant is Houndstooth and you’ll find it in Benton Harbor. Don’t let this town’s bleak backstory dissuade from seeking it out. The food that awaits is rather special
Cumin cream bathed the barbcued carrots. Dijon cream and milk braised pork coddled the calamarata pasta. The bread is so striking that one feels bad slicing into its garlic and chive crust. Bison tartare with egg yolk, cucumber, and toasted nori presented itself as some sort of surfing cowboy taco and it was excellent. Heirloom tomatoes mingled with sikil pak, panela, and salsa macha. I’ll look up what half of those items are and report back. It was good regardless.
“Tamarind Scallop” is the kind of phrase that I like to put on a shirt. These two were joined by pear, japanese sweet potato and garlic rice and constructed into a delectable mini fortress.
Fried skate wing resembled deep sea coral and was equisite when slathered with the vibrant, fiery Yemenite schug sauce.
Desserts were visually stunning and delicious. The panna cotta is so beautiful that you’ll want to hang it on your living room wall. Layers of vanilla and passionfruit are topped with rolls of meringue that resemble baby trunks of birch.
The bar that extends the length of the dining room and functions more like a chef’s table as you get a front row seat to the kitchen preparation. On a prior visit I scoped out a item being assembled that I didn’t see on the menu. Upon inquiring, I learned that on occasion, the owners like to create a secret menu item that is a gourmet riff on familiar fast food. In this case, the prize was a connoisseur’s version of a Cheesy Gordita Crunch that, unsurprisingly, was as great as everything else on the actual menu.
Houndstooth - 132 Pipestone St, Benton Harbor, MI 49022
