Vinyl Tasting
BasBlue (110 E. Ferry Street)
Detroit
Feb. 14, 2026
The record plays on. Vinyl Tasting has fully arrived.
I’ve been following this dinner for the past four years, attending many of them and reviewing a couple for Midbrow (the sexy Sade dinner and the 2Pac twerk fest), so I’ve got some authority to say that this most recent dinner for Valentine’s Day was their best work yet.
For Valentine’s Day, it was all about D’Angelo and Angie Stone. These are two stalwarts of the “neo-soul” music scene who both tragically died last year.
It went deeper than that. They knew each other. They had a kid together. They both propelled the genre forward in their own ways.
So, how do you whittle all that down into a six-course menu for 100 people across two seatings?
In the hands of chefs Jermond Booze and Amber Beckem (plus DJ BlaaqGold on the mix, playing songs from both artists and beyond), it feels like easy work.
And it’s not even close.
That’s not to say they haven’t been on top of their game, turning the novelty of taking an artist or an album and turning it into a menu with a sense of authority that goes way beyond the concept itself. What’s helped them grow is a stable location (BasBlue) and returning customers eager to try their next musical menu.
The research is impeccable, pulling in the cuisines of the regions that the artists are from, while the chefs themselves pour their own interpretation of the music into the dishes themselves. That’s a tricky thing to do.
While the opening dish was impressive (a dirty rice-stuffed chicken wing named after D’Angelo’s “Chicken Grease”), it was the third dish that let me know we were operating in rarified air. “Ingredients of Love” (named after an Angie Stone duet) was the best shrimp étouffée I’ve had outside of New Orleans. The sweet corn and leek cornbread took it to another level yet.
“Brotha,” named after a D’Angelo track, was the runaway star of the show. Heirloom tomatoes in salsa veracruz with pickled okra, charred corn, black garlic, hibiscus chili crisp and fresh herbs. Rarely does a rendition on a “salad” hold up as solidly as it did in this line up. It was one of the best things I’ve eaten in years, lovingly paired with a Kumusha Cinsault Rosé produced South African wine crafted by a sommelier-turned-winemaker.
Once again, I can’t help but crown this one of the most innovative and exciting culinary experiences in the city.
