Echelon Kitchen & Bar offers a wood-fire and vegetable-forward New American dining experience in Ann Arbor. It's known for its bold simplicity, flame-kissed flavors, and a gorgeous ambiance that pays homage to the building's architectural past with a warm art deco design. The restaurant provides an upscale setting perfect for special occasions.
Customers consistently praise Echelon Kitchen & Bar for its outstanding and impeccable dining experience. The food is described as exceptional, creative, flavorful, and beautifully presented. Service is highlighted as fantastic, attentive, knowledgeable, and genuinely welcoming, with a strong sense of teamwork among staff. While some dishes like the crudo might not appeal to everyone, the overall consensus is highly positive, with many recommending the Dover sole and various vegetable dishes. The cocktails are also noted as impressive.
Additional Details
Echelon Kitchen & Bar emphasizes locally-sourced ingredients. The team is planning to open a new tiki bar, with Max mentioned as the manager for this upcoming space.
Vegetarian optionsVegan options (accommodated due to vegetable-forward focus)
Best Times to Visit
The restaurant is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. It is open Wednesday through Sunday, typically from 4:00 PM onwards, making it ideal for dinner. Given its upscale nature and positive reviews, it's particularly recommended for special occasions.
Outstanding experience from start to finish. The food was exceptional — creative, flavorful, and beautifully presented. Malik, our server, was fantastic: attentive, knowledgeable, and genuinely welcoming. Every staff member who assisted us throughout the evening contributed to the amazing experience. You can truly feel the teamwork and hospitality here. This restaurant absolutely deserves its Michelin semi-finalist recognition, and we can’t wait to return. Highly recommend!
Came here for my birthday and ended up trying around half of the menu. Almost every dish was outstanding, and the presentation was just as impressive. Personally, I don’t think dessert is a must, but the Dover sole is absolutely worth ordering. I’d also recommend trying several of their vegetable dishes, which were some of the highlights of the meal.
What a gem! Echelon is truly an amazing experience!
In fact, our experience was so remarkable, we ate there twice while in town. The restaurant is gorgeous, a real feast for the eyes that gives a significant nod to the building's rich architectural past while pulling a warm art deco design in a space fitting for an architectural magazine. As amazing as the space was the entire service and food team. Our servers - Jenn on night one and Ella on night two - were so friendly, knowledgeable and everyone went above and beyond to ensure our experience at Echelon was something we would never forget (and we won't!). We even got visits from the kitchen with Chef Joe VanWagner coming by to greet us, expediter and professional forager Marc Jacob Qualls-Sanchez coming by for a long session on his foraging expertise (amazing!), and even their new tiki bar (coming soon!) manager Max giving us the DL on that space and renovations. We felt like royalty! For a special treat above and beyond the food, service, and overall experience, the Echelon team passed around menus that night to have all the front and back of house staff autograph it for us! I am so excited to add this to the unforgettable memories of our trip to Ann Arbor.
It's absolutely no wonder that Echelon was nominated for a James Beard award. Every bite, every conversation, every story, every sensation was top-shelf!
2-28-26
An impeccable dining experience from start to finish. This is true upscale dining where the professionalism of the staff is matched only by the creativity of the kitchen. We opted for the 7-course tasting menu, and every single dish offered unique, phenomenal flavors that we hadn’t experienced elsewhere. Even with the complexity of the meal, the service was lightning-fast and attentive. The cocktails were equally impressive—well worth the price for a special occasion.
The filet mignon was tasty and the presentation of each dish was artistic! I enjoyed the decor and our waiter, Zan, was very kind. The crudo was not our favorite but the rest of our meal was pretty good (spicy chicken sandwich, caramel dessert).
