Northern Michigan’s Most Iconic Eats, 2025 Edition

Legendary dishes to put on your must-eat list

By Craig Manning | May 3, 2025

Since 2018, Northern Express has been scouring the northern Michigan restaurant scene in search of the region’s most iconic dishes. Our Iconic Eats series has spotlighted both obvious staples (the Cherry Crumb Pie from Grand Traverse Pie Company, or the sandwiches from Village Cheese Shanty) and hidden gems (the Chicken Tikka Masala from NJ’s Grocery in Lake Leelanau, or the Petaled Brussel’s Sprouts from Corner Bistro in Bellaire).

This year, we inducted another five dishes into the hall of fame, which now includes 34 dishes from 34 different restaurants. It’s an increasingly big tent, which has had us thinking a little differently about what constitutes “iconic.” Is it longevity? Buzz? The dopamine rush you feel when you taste something indescribably delicious?

This year’s class, which includes everything from a century-old culinary tradition to one of the newest and most exciting up-and-comers in the Traverse City foodie scene, is a celebration of the many definitions of the word “iconic.”

Crocodile Palace: Crispy Pork Belly

Opened in January of 2023, Traverse City’s Crocodile Palace is the newest restaurant the Express has ever included in an Iconic Eats class. You might be wondering: How could a place that opened so recently already have enough of a reputation to make the list?

Here’s the thing with Crocodile Palace, though: Even before owners Patrick and Michael Evans opened a restaurant in TC, buzz has followed them. The brothers are Traverse City natives, but they left the region for years, cutting their teeth at Michelin-star restaurants in other parts of the country. After moving home, they started to gain a following thanks to sold-out pop-up events under the name Conifer.

When efforts fell through to open a full Conifer restaurant downtown, the brothers ultimately pursued Crocodile Palace instead, a concept that had originated as a one-night-only Chinese food pop-up at The Little Fleet in December 2021. At that pop-up, the Evans brothers tried their hand at Sichuan, a type of Chinese food known for its bold, spicy flavors. It was a hit, and a little over a year later, Crocodile Palace was up and running as a brick-and-mortar takeout joint.

Crocodile Palace has quickly garnered national attention, with Conde Nast Traveler praising its “tantalizing Sichuan takeout with a seasonal flare” and the New York Times shouting out its “lip-numbing Sichuan chicken wings.” But we’re going a different route with our pick for the dish most worthy of iconic status: the crispy pork belly.

While not the restaurant’s top seller—according to Patrick Evans, that title belongs to the Dan Dan noodles—the crispy pork belly has the distinction of being the only Crocodile Palace specialty available from both the main restaurant on Cochlin Street and the Croc Palace satellite at The Little Fleet. Evans says the pork belly became a staple at both locations due to its shareability.

“Often, when you’re eating at Chinese restaurants, there’s a huge focus on ordering a ton of food and then sharing those dishes amongst the people you're eating with,” Evans explains. “We wanted something for our menu that was a larger-format protein dish for people to share. Pork belly lent itself to that easily, because we were already receiving pork belly to make bacon for one of our other dishes.”

To ensure just the right flavor and texture, Evans says the pork belly is cured for two to three days in “the same spice mix we use on our numbing chicken wings,” slow-cooked, cooled, and then portioned out and deep fried “until it is very, very crispy.” The dish is then served with assorted fermented and vinegar pickles and a chili paste black bean condiment, which the Evans brothers make in house.

Pair it with a few other Crocodile Palace dishes—Evans recommends a bed of white rice, the cucumber salad, and the Laiziji chicken—and you’ve got a bona-fide Sichuan feast.

Legs Inn: Taste of Poland

If Crocodile Palace is the newest restaurant we’ve ever featured in the Iconic Eats hall of fame, then Legs Inn in Cross Village might be the oldest.

“We’re a third-generation family-owned business and a State of Michigan landmark, and we’ve been around for 100-plus years,” says owner Mark Smolak. “And despite how the business has evolved in that time, there's always been an emphasis on traditional, authentic Polish cuisine, which we carry on to this day.”

By far the most popular dish on the Legs Inn menu, Smolak notes, is the Taste of Poland, an entrée which essentially acts as a Polish cuisine sampler plate.

“It brings together the three most popular, most common Polish items,” Smolak says of the dish. “There’s pierogi, which are Polish dumplings with various fillings. There’s Golabki, which is a Polish cabbage roll. And then kielbasa, which of course is Polish smoked sausage. So, this dish really captures the essence of traditional Polish cuisine, and it’s always been featured on our menu for that reason.”

For years, when Polish cuisine was less familiar to the general public, the Taste of Poland was a perfect way for northern Michigan customers to get a crash course. But even now that Polish food has gone a lot more mainstream in the United States—the popularity of pierogi has exploded in recent years, particularly in the Midwest—the utility of Legs Inn’s most popular dish hasn’t faded.

“Everyone orders it,” Smolak says with a laugh. “It touches on all demographics. Really, it seems like the overwhelming majority of our customers come here to try the Taste of Poland.”

Do note that, if you happen to have a hankering for good, authentic Polish food, you’ll have to wait a little bit to get your hands on anything from Legs Inn. The business is seasonal and is just preparing to come out of hibernation for the 2025 season. “This year, we’re going to open right before Memorial Day,” Smolak shares.

Folgarelli’s Market & Wine Shop: The Godfather

A great deli is an underrated asset in any community, and Traverse City is lucky enough to have a few of them. Perhaps the most beloved of those is Folgarelli’s, the downtown market and wine shop that doubles as one of the region’s coolest takeout spots.

Take-n-bake pizzas, house-made soups, rigatoni pasta with meatballs, cheesy risotto, spinach pie, and even crab cakes: You can find all of the above and more at Folgarelli’s, making it an easy option to feed the whole family (and a hard place to walk out of without making more impulse buys than you intended).

But perhaps the most famous aspect of Folgarelli’s is its sandwiches. Like any great deli, Folgarelli’s has a daunting sandwich menu—daunting, in that there are nearly 50 options to choose from, and they all sound amazing. Ultimately, though, there’s no question about which sandwich is the most iconic.

“Our most popular sandwich is The Godfather, a combination of capicola, prosciutto, provolone, Roma tomatoes, roasted red peppers, our house-made Marge’s Italian dressing, and fresh basil pesto,” says owner Darric Newman.

That sandwich has won countless accolades (it’s been a regular fixture in MyNorth’s Red Hot Best Awards over the years) and has endured for decades (Folgarelli’s has been in business since 1978). And while being named after one of the most iconic films in history probably doesn’t hurt The Godfather’s sales numbers, Newman—who is the third generation of the Folgerelli family to own and run the store—puts forth a simpler explanation for its popularity.

“Why’s it so popular? I think purely because it is delicious,” he says.

Welp, we can’t argue with that!

North Country Kitchen and Bar: Walleye Almondine

Since changing hands in 2023, Suttons Bay’s North Country Kitchen and Bar has both switched its name (it was formerly North Country Grill and Pub) and pivoted its menu. Under the leadership of new owner Matthew Branton and chef Eric Force, North Country has embraced southern cuisine, packing its menu with Cajun and Creole flavors.

“My family is from the south, and I spent a ton of time in New Orleans growing up,” Branton told the Leelanau Ticker a few years ago. “When I met our chef, Eric Force—who was a sous chef at PepeNero in Traverse City for about a decade—I asked him what kind of food he wanted to do, and he told me he wanted to do Lowcountry Southern food. I said, ‘Well that’s weird, because that’s my family food! How can I say no?’”

That’s how a restaurant named for the north became one of the region’s leading purveyors of food from the south. Not everything on the North Country menu is southern, though: in fact, one of the restaurant’s key dishes is the Walleye Almondine, which is a Midwest American seafood tradition through and through.

A signature dish in the Great Lakes region, due mostly to the prevalence of walleye in the nearby waters, walleye almondine is a twist on a French cuisine preparation method, “a la amandine,” which simply means “prepared or served with almonds.” It may sound fancy, but walleye almondine initially became popular because it was a simple yet delicious way to prepare a readily available type of whitefish.

North Country’s version steers into the “comfort food” roots of the dish: fresh Great Lakes walleye, dredged in panko bread crumbs and almonds, friend until it achieves a deliciously crispy golden brown crunch, and finished with a sherry brown butter sauce. No wonder it’s become the top fish dish on a menu full of some of northern Michigan’s best seafood.

Don’s Drive In: Vanilla Milkshake

In the seven years of the Iconic Eats series, we have only spotlighted one item that could be conceivably described as a drink: the famous “Chubby Mary” from The Cove in Leland.

Well, today we’re making it two, and the second one comes from one of Traverse City’s longest-running burger joints: Don’s Drive-In.

Don’s Drive-In has been serving up hamburgers, fries, and “real hand-dipped shakes and malts” on US-31 in East Bay Township since 1958. A lot has changed in the nearly 70 years the restaurant has been operating—including, on numerous occasions, the owners. Don Shaff, the business’s namesake, owned the joint from 1960 to 1980, then sold it to his neighbor, Bob Wilson, who ran it until 2017. Current owner Mike Maddasion bought Don’s that year, but his history with the place reaches back to 1987, when he first took a job there.

No wonder, then, that Maddasion’s philosophy revolves around preserving what has made Don’s Drive-In a beloved Traverse City institution since its inception. For one thing, the restaurant looks and feels like a piece of mid-century Americana, from the pink exterior and retro road sign to the black-and-white checkered floors. For another, the food still tastes great—especially those milkshakes.

Need proof that the Don’s shakes are worthy of iconic status? Look no further than USA Today, which in 2019 published an ambitious list cataloging “The Best Place to Get a Shake in Every State.” The pick for Michigan? Don’s Drive-In.

“An old-fashioned drive-in, opened in 1958 and still featuring ’50s-style carhop service in the summer months, Don’s is a traditionalist in the shake department,” the USA Today blurb reads. “Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and cherry are the standard flavors (Traverse City is cherry country), with the option to mix in pieces of actual fruit – strawberry, cherry, and other seasonal specials.”

Our favorite shake flavor is the most classic one: vanilla. But you really can’t go wrong with a Don’s shake, especially on a hot July night. Bring on the summertime!