The design at Fixins is aimed to trigger every patriotic impulse of a Detroiter and more particularly of a Black Detroiter. The outsize posters throughout celebrate Motown, movies like The Wiz and Mahogany, and magazine covers from Ebony, Essence, Jet, and Black Enterprise lionizing Marvin, Aretha, Stevie, and Berry Gordy.
The featured whiskey is Uncle Nearest, called after the former slave who taught distilling to Jack Daniel. Cocktails are named for Black Wall Street (the Fixins group has an outpost on the original Black Wall Street in Tulsa) and for Belle Isle.
Detroit’s Fixins is the newest in a four-eatery chain owned by Kevin Johnson — star of the Phoenix Suns, mayor of Sacramento, motivational speaker, and restaurateur. The menu includes the usual favorites — fried chicken, oxtails, fried fish, pork chops, waffles, grits, collards, mac and cheese, biscuits, cornbread, candied yams, black-eyed peas, fried green tomatoes — and a new rendering of deviled eggs, with the white deep-fried before the stuffing is piped in. Just in case you thought there wasn’t enough frying in soul food.
There is, of course. The crust on Fixins’ fried chicken is so thick you have quite a crunchy way to go before you get to the meat, which, perhaps because of all that protection, is as juicy as it’s possible for chicken to be. I loved it while trying not to think too hard about what an inch of warm, flaky fried dough meant to me nutritionally.
There’s more of it: corn fritters, which come with the fried fish, taste almost doughnut-like. The fish itself, a generous portion, has a very light, just right cornmeal coating, bucking to be seen as the health food of soul food.
Or that nod could go to the collards, their tang leavened with a hint of sweetness, perhaps from the turkey necks they’re steeped with. Or earthy black-eyed peas, whose taste is unique but could owe something to ham hocks. Little bits of scallion scattered atop don’t look like mama’s, but were welcome.
All the sides, or fixins, at Fixins are traditional and well executed. I liked best charred okra; if you roast this vegetable, you need never fear slime. I looked online for help describing okra’s distinctive flavor and got “a green-tasting grassiness,” which seems right, but I’d add “bright.” Mac and cheese was fine but more ordinary, as were red beans and rice — again, fine, but not in a category with New Orleans or Mexico. Fried green tomatoes come with chipotle-mayo sauce and thin slices of watermelon radishes. Green tomatoes being their unripe selves, the main taste is… fried. Artichoke dip is cheesy and spicy; you’ll taste all the cheeses far more than the veg.
My favorite dish was oxtails, and one wonders why oxtails aren’t eaten more often. Is it because cows have just one tail apiece? The tails were indeed the most expensive item on the menu, at $29; it’s their fat and cartilage that give oxtails their deep, rich flavor, and of course they’re slow-cooked to ultra-tenderness. Their exquisite gravy deserved a better bed than rice that tasted boxed.
Gumbo was a little gloppy for my tastes, with a dearth of sausage. I like my muffins and biscuits lighter, too — they should be fluffy, not solid. Sugar level is a matter of taste, and these corn muffins were on the sweet side, as many, many grandmas are wont to make them.
Sandwiches are also possible: fish or chicken or burgers, the latter with melted pimento cheese. Green salads have plenty going on, such as Fritos, cornbread croutons and chicken thighs.
Fixins offers red, blue, or purple Kool-Aid for $5; personally, I would pay not to wander down that memory lane. There’s even an Adult Kool-Aid that also includes vodka, peach purée, and lemon juice. No thanks! I was happy with my Black Wall Street Old-Fashioned with Uncle Nearest rye, which came looking quite sophisticated, a rich brown in a tapered glass. I ordered it partly for the name and partly, I admit, for the crème de cacao. The chocolate is leavened with Hella smoked chili bitters and more “spicy spices.” To my taste it was far superior to the PYT, which was a pretty purple but medicinal. Cocktails in general run to the sweet side, with lots of Caribbean-ish ingredients.
Fixins already has a reputation; it was very full each weeknight I visited, and loud. A sign warns that 90 minutes is your maximum, though food comes quickly enough. Happy hour is Monday-Friday 3-6 p.m.
