JUNE 1 • 2023 | 29

and part-time employees, and 
everyone I saw impressed 
me as being well-trained and 
competent. Those working in 
the dining room and bar were 
gracious and helpful. 
All these attributes make 
Mad Nice a welcome addition 
to the blossoming Midtown 
Detroit neighborhood. 
The restaurant’s location 
on Second Avenue at 
Alexandrine Street is south 
of the city’s cultural center 
and Wayne State University. 
But where does the eatery’s 
unusual name come from? 
Sasson said his family and 
friends called him “Sauce” 
while he was growing up. The 
nickname denotes someone 
“with a confidence to their 
personality.” Anyone with the 
sauce, Sasson reasoned, must 
be “mad nice.” And that is 
the kind of food, décor and 
style he wanted for his newest 
place. Everything here must 
be Mad Nice – “it felt right,” 
he said.
The restaurant-bar is in 
a brick building dating to 
1948, the former home of 
Tomboy Market and Will 
Leather Goods. The original 
terrazzo floor, a nod to the 
past, provides the footprint 
for everything else here 
that is fresh and new. The 
transporting essence of 
Mad Nice starts with a 
light fragrance piped into a 
vestibule bedecked with pink 
silk bougainvillea. Enter, 
and the main dining room 
with its towering ceiling 
and live trees make a grand 
first impression. Daylight 
floods through the large 
windows, and several layers 
of chandeliers and lighting 
fixtures make the room glow 
after dark, especially over 
the central bar. Placed on a 
slant toward the dining areas, 

Sasson said, “The bar shape 
is very social and creates 
amazing energy.”
Guests can sit at regular, 
counter-height or bar-height 
tables with tabletops of 
leathered Calacatta oyster 
white marble. Two linking 
private dining rooms have a 
lazy Susan atop a large table 
fashioned from a different 
luxury material, emerald 
quartzite. Perhaps the most 

special place to dine is in 
a banquette, the back sides 
shaped like the ladyfinger 
biscuits in the dessert 
Tiramisu and covered in a 
blush pink velvet. Sage green 
is the room’s complementary 
color. All the tableware and 
glasses are custom and lovely.
Sasson has a passion for 
fermented and preserved food 
items. Chief among them 
is the Mad Nice’s naturally 

leavened sourdough bread, 
made over several days in a 
temperature- and humidity-
controlled room. The tasty 
bread is further enhanced by 
the accompanying cultured 
butter, olive oil and flaky sea 
salt. 
Sourdough is the base 
for Mad Nice’s wonderful 
pizzas, a major portion 
of the menu with eight 
varieties. I shared three 
of them at lunch recently: 
Margherita, with tomato, 
basil, mozz (mozzarella) 
cheese, wild oregano and 
chili flakes; Shrooms, with 
wood herbs and whipped 
Ricotta and mozz cheeses; 
and Gorgonzola Dolce, with 
Gorgonzola cheese, charred 
radicchio, chili honey and 
tarragon. A pizza trolley was 
wheeled to our table, from 
which we could add fresh 
herbs and additional available 
toppings. We chose roasted 
garlic and pickled onion. 
Baked in a wood hearth 
oven, the pizzas are neither 
thin nor deep-dish. The 
delicious, lightly charred 
crusts have “leopard-like 
spots on the cornicione 
(crust),” Sasson said. We used 
thin pink metal scissors to cut 
our pizza into our preferred-
slice sizes. I really loved all 
the tastes but will give the 
edge to Gorgonzola Dolce for 
being the most unusual. 
The menu categories are 
printed in both English and 
Italian. The sourdough bread 
can be found in the “First 
Up” section of the menu, 
which features an array of 
antipasti. Also on the list 
are Beef Tartare with a quail 
egg, Shishito Peppers (during 
lunch) and three seafood 
choices. 
I enjoyed a flavorfully 
seasoned pasta dish in the 

JEREMY SASSON

Titles: Founder and CEO, 
Heirloom Hospitality
Residence: Bloomfield 
Township
Family: Wife Aly (Berman) 
Sasson and Jeremy have three 
children, with a baby due this 
summer – “all under 4,” he 
said. 
Education: Graduate of Detroit 
Country Day School High 
School in Beverly Hills, one year at Michigan State 
University in East Lansing, and earned a bachelor’s 
degree in business administration at University of 
Miami in Florida.
Jewish connections: Jeremy’s father is from Israel. 
Jeremy grew up attending Congregation Beth Ahm 
in West Bloomfield and Adat Shalom Synagogue in 
Farmington Hills. His wife went to Temple Israel in 
West Bloomfield. Jeremy, who speaks some Hebrew, 
has visited Israel 30 times.

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