If you needed another reason to believe Michigan’s food scene is having a moment, here it is. USA Today just released its 2026 Restaurants of the Year list, narrowing it down to 39 restaurants in the entire country, and one of them is in Michigan. That is some elite company!
Download the WGRD Mobile App Now
Michigan has been getting a lot of national food recognition lately. For example, Traverse City was recently named one of the top dining destinations in the entire world. A Michigan pizza spot also landed among the 10 best in the entire U.S. Now, another homegrown restaurant is earning a place on one of the most selective national lists out there.
How USA Today Selects Its Restaurants
What makes this particular honor stand out is how USA Today builds the list. Instead of sending in outside critics or relying on online reviews, the selections come from USA Today Network journalists who live and work in the communities they cover. These are writers who dine at these places regularly and truly understand their local food scenes.
Meet Spencer in Ann Arbor
In this case, the Michigan restaurant that made the 2026 list is Spencer in Ann Arbor!
Spencer is owned and operated by husband-and-wife team Abby Olitzky and Steve Hall. The downtown Ann Arbor restaurant and wine shop opened in 2015 and has built a loyal following for its seasonal, farm-driven dishes and thoughtfully curated wine program.
Lyndsay C. Green of the Detroit Free Press says of Spencer,
”
By day, Spencer is a wine shop, with rows of hundreds of natural wines. By night, it moonlights as a cozy fine dining restaurant centered on seasonal ingredients. The room is transformed with sturdy, wooden communal tables, where diners rub elbows as they cut into fresh pastas and tear apart pieces of hot, fluffy bread. The tasting menu here is dictated by produce availability at nearby farms and preserves from previous peak seasons, like pickled cherries in December. When the temperature is right, enjoy lunch at the patio bar, where the best of the restaurant and the wine shop converge for a standout meal paired with quality libations. Ten years in, Spencer offers something magical in the heart of Ann Arbor any time of day.
“…