Why Selden Standard matters.
Selden Standard is an acclaimed New American restaurant where Cass Corridor's independent creative culture meets Andy Hollyday's seasonal Michigan cooking, wood-fired technique and a defining chapter in Detroit's modern restaurant revival.
Set at the intersection of 2nd Avenue and Selden Street, just two blocks west of the Fisher Music Center, the restaurant occupies a historic Midtown commercial stretch between Cass Avenue, West Canfield Street and Woodward Avenue's major cultural institutions. Its low-rise brick building preserves the modest scale of the surrounding storefronts, reflecting a neighborhood whose older commercial properties have accommodated successive generations of independent businesses. Inside, exposed brick, natural wood and restrained contemporary furnishings establish a warm architectural setting that connects the former commercial property to its culinary purpose. An open kitchen places the wood-burning hearth within view of the dining room, with counter seating, communal tables and an outdoor patio extending the restaurant's informal approach to gathering. The result is a restaurant whose intimate architecture, neighborhood setting and visible cooking process give Detroit's renewed commitment to independent, ingredient-driven dining a distinctive physical expression.
What defines Selden Standard.
Selden Standard is best known for the partnership between chef Andy Hollyday and restaurateur Evan Hansen, whose 2014 opening helped establish seasonal, ingredient-driven cooking as a defining force in Detroit's contemporary restaurant culture. Hollyday began his professional career at a small family restaurant in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, developing an early understanding of kitchen operations before pursuing formal culinary education. He graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, in 2003, entering a profession increasingly shaped by regional sourcing and the international exchange of culinary techniques. His subsequent experience included L'Essentiel in Chambéry, France, Tribute in Farmington Hills and Oliveto in Oakland, California, exposing him to different approaches to classical technique, Mediterranean cooking and ingredient selection. Hollyday later became executive chef of Michael Symon's Roast in Downtown Detroit, directing the kitchen of a nationally recognized steakhouse inside the Westin Book Cadillac. Hour Detroit named him Best Chef in 2012, establishing his individual reputation before he undertook an independent restaurant project. Hansen arrived at hospitality through a different professional route, graduating from the University of Michigan in 2001 with degrees in English and biology before spending eleven years working in web design, marketing and communications for the university. His interests in homebrewing, Japanese cuisine and craft beer developed during his time in Ann Arbor, eventually expanding into a serious engagement with wine and the possibilities of an independent restaurant. A 2002 Schäfer-Fröhlich Riesling became an important early encounter with distinctive wine production, helping shape the beverage philosophy he subsequently brought to the partnership. Hollyday and Hansen developed Selden Standard around their shared ambition to combine sophisticated cooking and carefully selected drinks with the accessibility of a neighborhood restaurant. Their search led to a former dry-cleaning property on 2nd Avenue, a building that had stood vacant since 2006 and occupied a corner outside Detroit's established fine-dining districts. The partners undertook an extensive redevelopment of the deteriorated property, working through a lengthy renovation as the surrounding Cass Corridor began attracting renewed investment in independent businesses. Public plans for the restaurant emerged in 2013, and Selden Standard opened in November 2014 after nearly two years of preparation and construction. Detroit Free Press named the establishment its Restaurant of the Year in 2015, followed by the same distinction from Hour Detroit in 2016, establishing consecutive major local honors during its earliest years. Hollyday accumulated five James Beard Award semifinalist appearances for Best Chef: Great Lakes and became a finalist in that category in 2023. The James Beard Foundation subsequently recognized Selden Standard as an Outstanding Restaurant semifinalist in both 2024 and 2025, extending its national standing beyond the individual accomplishments of its chef. These distinctions trace the development of a restaurant whose founding partnership joined Hollyday's international culinary training with Hansen's hospitality philosophy at a consequential moment in Detroit's restaurant revival.
Hollyday's cooking begins with Michigan agriculture, using the changing availability of regional ingredients to determine the restaurant's culinary direction and the techniques required to express each harvest. Relationships with Fisheye Farms, New Suns and Keep Growing Detroit connect the kitchen directly to growers whose vegetables arrive with the freshness and seasonal variation central to the restaurant's approach. The vegetable carpaccio provides a concentrated expression of that philosophy, bringing together produce such as kohlrabi, radishes, beets and carrots selected for their contrasting natural flavors and textures. Thin preparation gives the vegetables a shared physical form, allowing the differences between their sweetness, bitterness, moisture and crispness to become the principal characteristics of the finished dish. This attention to produce extends throughout the kitchen, where vegetables receive the same technical consideration as meat and seafood. The wood-burning oven introduces another dimension to that ingredient-led approach, concentrating heat against exposed surfaces and developing caramelization, char and smoke through direct contact with fire. Roasting transforms the natural sugars of seasonal vegetables, creating deeper sweetness and browned exterior textures that remain connected to the character of the original ingredient. Seafood and proteins encounter the same heat through preparations that emphasize controlled cooking, carefully developed surfaces and the balance between richness and acidity. Hollyday's experience across French, Italian and American kitchens informs the way these techniques are applied, giving familiar regional ingredients a culinary range extending beyond any single national tradition. House-made pasta provides another expression of that technical foundation, allowing dough, filling and sauce to respond to the produce and proteins available during different parts of the year. The kitchen's small-plate format brings these preparations into a shared meal, creating opportunities for roasted vegetables, pasta, seafood and meat to contribute different textures and intensities across successive courses. Hansen's beverage philosophy follows the same underlying commitment to agricultural character, emphasizing wines from smaller producers whose growing conditions and production methods give them distinctive relationships with food. The selection of local and international beers extends that approach through contrasting fermentation styles, malt characteristics and bitterness, complementing the kitchen's use of smoke, acidity and concentrated natural flavors. Seasonal cocktails introduce another connection between the bar and the kitchen, drawing on fruit, herbs and carefully balanced spirits to develop drinks suited to the changing menu. These relationships allow the meal to develop through complementary contrasts, with the agricultural character of the ingredients providing continuity between food and drink. Selden Standard's distinctive culinary achievement rests in this sustained connection between Michigan producers, disciplined technique and communal dining, transforming seasonal availability into an evolving expression of contemporary Detroit cooking.
How Selden Standard fits.
Selden Standard works as the concluding destination for a Cass Corridor itinerary connecting Detroit's expansive performance architecture, the preservation of its musical heritage and the revival of independent manufacturing within the neighborhood's historic commercial landscape.
Begin at Detroit Masonic Temple, the expansive Gothic complex that established one of the city's most ambitious cultural and fraternal institutions during the height of Detroit's industrial expansion. Architect George D. Mason designed the building for the Masonic fraternity, combining ceremonial lodge rooms, entertainment facilities and extensive gathering spaces within a structure occupying nearly two acres. Construction began in 1920, and a cornerstone ceremony followed in 1922 using a trowel associated with George Washington. Completed in 1926, the building contained more than one thousand rooms, with elaborate decorative programs and specialized facilities serving the many Masonic organizations housed within its walls. Its principal auditorium became an important Detroit performance venue, accommodating orchestral concerts, theatrical productions and appearances by musicians including Jascha Heifetz, Jimi Hendrix and B.B. King. Continue to Orchestra Hall, the historic concert venue that conductor Ossip Gabrilowitsch demanded as a permanent home for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Architect C. Howard Crane designed the building, and construction proceeded with extraordinary speed before the inaugural concert on October 23, 1919. Its acoustically distinguished auditorium hosted internationally celebrated performers, including Sergei Rachmaninoff and George Gershwin, before the orchestra relocated in 1939. Reopened as the Paradise Theatre in 1941, the building became a major center of African American musical performance, welcoming Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker and Lena Horne. A prolonged preservation campaign led by Detroit Symphony Orchestra bassoonist Paul Ganson ultimately secured the building's restoration, allowing the orchestra to return in 1989 and establishing the foundation for the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center. Conclude at Third Man Records Cass Corridor, the Detroit outpost of Jack White's independent record company, where music retail and vinyl manufacturing occupy a former industrial building along West Canfield Street. White founded Third Man Records in Detroit in 2001, later establishing its principal operations in Nashville before returning to his hometown through a partnership with Shinola founder Tom Kartsotis. The Detroit store opened in November 2015 inside a building formerly associated with the Willys-Overland Motor Company, introducing a retail environment organized around records, performance and music-related objects. Third Man Pressing followed in February 2017, bringing eight newly manufactured record presses into a purpose-built production facility visible through interior windows. The plant incorporates water-recycling systems and an industrial design conceived to make the manufacturing process part of the encounter with recorded music. The progression moves from George D. Mason's expansive performance complex through Orchestra Hall's classical and African American musical heritage and culminates in Third Man Records Cass Corridor's revival of vinyl manufacturing, connecting Selden Standard to the architectural and creative reinvention of Midtown Detroit.
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