I wanted to get this review up sooner, but after breaking my foot everything got pushed back a little.

Guns & Butter is an exclusive pop-up restaurant that changes location. Nathan Skid at Crain’s Detroit Business writes more about it here. Guns & Butter has been all over the world including India and New York. This time it was hosted at the Shinola retail showroom in Detroit. One of my biggest questions was where did the name Guns & Butter come from. Come to find out it is an economic theory that models the relationship between a country’s military spending versus food. The country has to decide the ratio of guns verses food that it needs or what combination works best.

 Since my husband was out of town, I decided to take my friend Andrea with me and have a girl’s night.

I had been to the Shinola store before, but I wasn’t sure how they were going to set it up for dinner. Until we arrived, I had no idea how intimate the dinner would be. They had different seatings, but we were the first one on the second night. There were only 20 of us for this dinner.

As soon as we walked in a had to sneak a peak at the menu. We didn’t know what would be served and I was anxious to find out. I am a picky eater so I was nervous about what the menu would be like and if I would like everything that they were serving. It turned out to be pretty great, there was only one thing that had ingredients I didn’t like.

They cooked everything right in the showroom and they had an open bar with different wines for us to choose from. This was all for a set price of $30 because it was during Detroit Restaurant Week.

The first course was a fudgy egg yolk with a maple bacon gastrique. I had never had a fudgy egg before but it was delicious! The presentation was amazing:

The second course was Monty’s beef crudo and romao cheese with a sourdough and herb salad. I wasn’t sure if I would like this since the meat was a little raw, but the combination of all the ingredients made it melt in your mouth. You can’t see the beef, it is hidden under the tomato:

The third course was where I ran into problems – Poached fluke, steamed shitake mushrooms and cauliflower with pumpkin seeds. I don’t eat seafood and I hate mushrooms, but I decided when I came to this event that I was going to try everything even if I didn’t like it. I was so proud of myself for eating six large bites of fluke. My friend said it was delicious so I will let you take her word for it:

The fourth course was roasted loin of lamb and silky spiced eggplant with pistachios confit. I don’t think I have ever had lamb or eggplant before and I really like this dish.

For dessert, we had white chocolate custard and Nutella caramel with late summer and early fall fruit. This dessert was so good, I only wish there were more of it!

We had a great experience at Guns & Butter! I can’t wait until the next one pops up so I can take my husband with me. After talking to the guests and organizers, the best way to find out where the next pop-up will be is to follow them on Facebook. I haven’t seen any new ones yet, but I am keeping an eye out. The chef did say that they were planning to open a permanent location early next year, so that will be awesome!

I have to say that I’ve never felt like so much of a foodie in my entire life. I felt like we were on a show on the Food Network or something. Have any of you been to Guns & Butter before or a pop-up restaurant?