Alpino Detroit
1426 Bagley St., Detroit
April 23, 2026
I may have a new favorite Detroit restaurant. Tonight I visited Alpino in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, and it was one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time.
The restaurant – a 2024 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant – offers an Alpine region-inspired menu, which is a mix of German, French, Italian, Swiss, Austrian and Hungarian dishes.
There were so many items on the menu I wanted to try, but I settled on the jägerschnitzel with a gurkensalat side and shared some of my friend’s chicken goulasch and rotkraut.
My jägerschnitzel was my favorite – the veal was perfectly cooked, tender and juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside, served with pickled mustard seeds and a sweet, light morel mushroom rahmsauce. The gurkensalat was a mix of crispy cucumbers and a mild dill crème fraîche, which was a perfect balance of crunchy and cool that felt nice on a surprisingly warm April evening.
The chicken goulasch, served in a sweet paprika, tomato gravy, was not only delicious but comforting. It not only felt warm but tasted warm, like an edible hug.
The rotkraut was the most surprising, since I’ve never been one for anything cabbage-related. The red cabbage was braised in a fantastic sauce of apple juice and cinnamon and was sweet without being overly so.
Everything we ordered was balanced – nothing too sweet, nothing too salty and all with a unique flavor. If I’d had more stomachs, I would have gone for the raclette or the fondue (with servings for two or four people). I would have also added any (or all?) of their incredible looking desserts, especially their apfelkuchen, an olive oil and thyme cake with apple butter sorbet, or their bonet, a chocolate custard with honey caramel, dark chocolate crumbs and hazelnut sbrisolona.
I’m getting hungry again just writing this. If you’re looking for a place to eat in Corktown – or anywhere in Detroit – this is where you need to be.
