Welcome Home to Bar Gabi
Bună, friends!
It’s Gabriel and Gabriela — aka Gabi & Gabi — and we want to formally welcome you into our home.
Bar Gabi has been open for less than three months, and the response so far has been phenomenal. But it’s a specific comment we hear that warms our hearts most: “This place feels like home.”
It’s been amazing to see all the different kinds of people who find a home at Bar Gabi. A few regulars are Hazel Park residents who walk in from right down the street, but people also trek from Birmingham and Plymouth, too. Of course, we get plenty of Detroiters (young and old), and we’ve seen just about every cultural demographic walk through these doors.
What’s really made us sentimental is the amount of Europeans who have embraced our restaurant — Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Moldovan, Georgian, and of course, Romanian. In Detroit, everybody knows somebody with ties to Eastern Europe, whether it’s a grandma, a cousin, a neighbor, or a friend.
This has been our vision from day one: to create a cozy, hospitable home for all of Detroit. As chefs, restaurateurs, and hosts, we want all to feel accepted and welcomed here. No matter who you are or where you’re from. And, it worked! People keep coming back — four, five, even six times they’ve already come back to Bar Gabi. They say, “We forgot to try this! We need to try that!”
Of course they enjoy the food, but they can feel our sense of love and hospitality, too. It’s too easy to feel bogged down by the noise and darkness in the world. So, our goal was to create a place that unites people. It’s why we come out to the tables every chance we get. You are all people that we actually want to see and speak with, and so we personally try to say thank you every chance we get. If you ever need to speak with us, you can (and forgive us if we’re a little chatty).
Whether it’s a huge tomahawk schnitzel fried crispy or a traditional Transylvanian goulash or our deep-fried langos flatbread served with a pungent garlic sauce, we want you to feel and taste the warmth here. We also want you to experience our deep love of Italian food. It’s not traditionally Romanian, but you might be surprised to learn that pasta is experienced all over Romania. On a recent trip there, we were reminded that most of the restaurants back home serve pasta. Plus, growing up, our families made a kind of dessert pasta with crushed walnuts and sugar.
So what can you expect from Bar Gabi going forward? Well, we want to take you all through the seasons and traditions of Romania. Romania is a temperate climate with four seasons, and so Detroit has always felt familiar to us from a geographical standpoint. The food will zig and zag with the weather and what the earth brings. Since we opened, we’ve added cabbage rolls, a dish typically enjoyed in Romania in December. As the weather continues to harshen, we’ll provide more nourishing and warm meals like sausage and beans. In the spring, dishes will feature a lighter touch. Most of the pastas change monthly (though our guests have not allowed us to change our short rib rigatoni, which is one of our best sellers).
This monthly newsletter will also serve as a dispatch to you, our house guest. We’ll be telling you personal stories from our lives, explaining menu additions, detailing new pasta dishes, desserts, and more. We are, after all, chefs. This is a chef-owned and chef-operated restaurant, and Bar Gabi has always been our collective dream.
As husband and wife, we are teammates who complement each other in every way. We see everything equally. Though we have worked together many times in kitchens, we’ve never owned a restaurant together. A culinary home to host the public. And so Bar Gabi is a house that we’ve molded in our own image. We make what we want in the kitchen, explore and create harmoniously, and give to our guests continuously. We’re building a life and a restaurant together, and every time you dine here, you’re a part of that.
That love, harmony, and inclusiveness, that feeling of home — it’s what we invite you to experience each evening at Bar Gabi. You are all guests in our house. So thank you for coming to Bar Gabi, and we can’t wait to welcome you back with open arms over and over again.
Noroc!
The Botezans
Location
23839 John R Road
Hazel Park, MI 48030
Hours
Monday — Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday — Thursday: 5 - 10 p.m.
Friday — Saturday: 5 - 11 p.m.
Sunday: 5 - 10 p.m.
Please note: Kitchen closes 30 minutes prior to posted hours.