Red Haven

The service here was excellent. Our waiter was very nice and happy to explain anything we were curious about on the menu. The portions are small, except for the hors d’oeuvres. Which we thought was a little strange since the waiter (and menu) insisted that it was all to be shared.
The food, unfortunately was hit or miss.
We had the bread with different spreads. All of it was delicious except for the hummus, which was really sweet and way too much of it.
The chicken was good, but pretty salty. It came with 4 tiny pieces of artichokes, most of which were inedible, which was disappointing, especially with how little there was of them to begin with.
The steak was the best part of our meal. It was fantastic! Cooked perfectly, and not over seasoned.
Fun experience, but more then likely not some where we’d try again.

Wow! This was our first visit to the restaurant and our first experience with small plates. There were four of us and we picked out 8 dishes to share. We spent about 50/​person but the food was extraordinarily good. My wife and I both agreed that this was our best restaurant experience and to think that it was in Okemos. This is a real treasure!

(review from summer 2013) First visit, will return. Went for our first visit tonight, liked almost everything about the place.
We were seated promptly and service throughout the whole night was excellent, food came out quickly too, considering they had a full house that was impressive. I was surprised at both the quality of service and the speed of the food.
The food itself was delicious. The fried squash blossoms were amazing. I took one bite and said wow. Recently returning from a trip to Chicago where we had some $ 200+ dinners and that squash blossom was the best bite of food I’ve had in awhile. You couldn’t really taste the squash, but I didn’t care, the filling was ambrosia. It came on a little cucumber salad which was also very good, the whole plate was executed to perfection.
I also had the GRIND which was a scotch egg, very good, a little tarragon in the sausage which was nice. My wife also had a mixed green salad with berries which was very nice.
Then we split the ROAST which was beet falafel, and the GRILL which was trout with a white chocolate parsnip sauce.
The falafel plate was the one bad note. They were good, but a little mushy on the inside, not quite like actual falafel. What I really disliked was that curry sauce and the plate was littered with cilantro. I understand some people like that spice, I’m not one of them, in fact I’ve heard a portion of the population genetically tastes cilantro like soap, I think I’m in this group. There was no mention of cilantro on the menu, I think if a dish has a strong spice like that (or perhaps sage) it should be listed. Not all curry has cilantro as a rule. (I also thought it was a overpriced, almost as much as the very large very expensive looking burger, the other prices I thought were reasonable)
The trout however was excellent. Who knew that white chocolate with parsnip went with trout?
For dessert we had the «birthday cake» which was a cherry and chocolate cake and very very good, and again better than anything I had in Chicago (nice portion too).
It was noisy in there, but what can you expect with a room full of people having a good time? We’ll definitely be back.
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Update: We went back many times, one of our favorite places in East Lansing before we moved. Their theme dinners are especially fun. For instance they had a 5 course pork theme dinner with wine pairings for $ 70 a person. I always tell people, eating at Red Haven is the closest you’ll get to being a judge on Iron Chef, at least anywhere near East Lansing. It may not always make sense on the menu, but it is usually delicious in a unique and amazing way.

Even tho it’s been about a year since our local friends took us here, I am still dreaming about the delicious food. A little pricey, but worth the favor in every bite.

Farm-to-table…Grind | Broil | Stuff | Sear | Braise | Grill | Red Haven Peach Drink… We visited this gem back in the Fall, ordered everything above, and it was all amaZING! One of the dishes was actually topped w/​a celery froth (think celery bubbles), food innovation at its best! Dishes are available small or medium plated, and deliciously filling! We’ll definitely be back for more tastilizing dishes!

Great service and atmosphere. This place was not a disappointment. My boyfriend and I decided to try the eight-​course Valentine’s Day special for $ 85. It was a great deal and opportunity to try a variety of the dishes. I enjoyed every course that I ordered. My favorite plates were [STIR] (risotto) and [BRAISE] (mussel).

I selected this place for a work group lunch based on Unilocal!reviews. They worked with me to create a menu from which each person could choose, and they selected appetizers and desserts for the table. They were very accommodating, having a table for 30 set for us.
The service was attentive and prompt. My guests uniformly loved their choices. I had the vegan salad which was excellent, with a coffee-​green apple dressing which was fantastic — who would’ve guessed that combo could be so delicious! The desserts they chose for us — one chocolate /​peanut butter and one merengue — both great! We were also impressed that they were able to serve such a large group simultaneously.
It was s great experience overall!

This is easily one of my favorite places in the Lansing area. By that I mean it constantly vies for #1, and never falls below #3. The food is consistently excellent, as are the liquors, cocktails, ambiance, and service. This place truly embodies farm-​to-​table and makes great use of seasonal ingredients. This place demonstrates that food can be as delicious at it is beautiful.

Wow, once again a delicious lunch experience. Everything is so healthy and unique. Great coffee too!

Delicious food and innovative menu that changes with the season. The menu could be a bit more specific on what the dish entails — some ingredients are overplayed. It’s a good idea to observe what is being delivered to other tables — and the staff is pleasant, not overbearing, willing to explain in detail the dishes and ingredients. Still, expect some surprises.

Quiche: ice cold on inside, black burnt on bottom. Disappointed. Ambience was nice, but we likely won’t be back.

I really love this spot. I’ve been several times for lunch, happy hour and dinner, so I suppose it’s time to write a review. This is farm to table at its best. Everything is prepared fresh when ordered. Presentation is always on point — beautiful, fragrant, and accompanied by explanations from the servers. Quiche — delicious. Cheese — delicious. Bake — yum. Drinks — double yum. Better adjectives escape me, because I’m always so pleased and content after eating here. I haven’t yet tried dessert, but only because I always run out of room. Perhaps I’ll start with dessert next time!

Let the courses begin! A refreshing change of pace in the Lansing area, where fresh ingredients meet unique and intriguing flavor combinations. Each time I’ve visited with a small group, which makes sharing the small plates easy, and we can order a large variety and no one leaves hungry (in fact, just the opposite.) The décor is modern, but homey, the service is impeccable, with great wait staff who can answer any question, give great suggestions, and have felt like a new friend by the time we were done with dinner. Each course really does delight the senses, with excellent flavor pairings in each dish, as well as texture and color variety. Don’t forget dessert!

I highly recommend this restaurant for date night or even a small gathering with friends! It’s an amazing experience to be had, from the fun/​unique atmosphere to the helpful wait staff. The food is impeccable, everything we tried was delish including the drinks.

I really want Red Haven to be great, but each time (5 total) I’ve been here I have left disappointed.
The staff, location, service, and concept are all great, no complaints about that. However, the food is just not up to par, especially when you consider the price level ($ 100+ for 2 people if each has one alcoholic beverage). I have no issue at all paying $ 100+ for great food, but it needs to be great.
My main complaint is that the (often) great raw ingredients are muddled by too many competing flavors. I.e. I had the Smoke yesterday (BBQ ribs) and the smoke flavor was almost acrid. The same with the cheese course which was served with candied, smoked walnuts. Another shortcoming of the cheese course is the fact that it only has one cheese. To me, being able to compare and contrast a few different cheeses is really a key experience with a cheese course. Also, as a restaurant that promotes sharing of plates, I find it odd that it only included 3 paper thin baguette chips instead of a few slices of the in-​house bread. I believe the cheese course was $ 14.
I also tried the smelt, deep fried and dredged in cornmeal w/​a dill, crème cheese dipping sauce. The dish wasn’t bad (my son ate most of it), but the dipping sauce was overpowering the fish.
My wife always gets the carpaccio, which is basically a raw root vegetable salad with some puffed rice and a cherry vinegar vinaigrette. Not bad, but too heavy handed with the sweetness level.
The deserts have always been great, probably the best part of the meal. They really strike a good balance of sweet and savory and use solid technique and execution.
In summary, I want so much more from Red Haven and I’ve waited a long time to do this review. Hoping that each trip may prove me wrong. The Lansing area is certainly not drowning in great restaurants, but I did not review Red Haven compared to other local restaurants, I reviewed it compared to places I’ve eaten across the country and in Europe.
I will keep going to Red Haven, but not for a full meal. I’ll go for a drink and an appetizer or for dessert.

One of the best farm to table restaurants you’ll get. Came here with my family of 7 and ordered everything on the menu, just about. It’s hard to remember what we got because I’m writing this review several months later. I do remember a dish called Ragu and mini tacos. Those were absolutely amazing. Although a few dishes I could pass on all were worth trying. We dropped about $ 350 out the door and it was well worth it. The menu changes often due to local fresh ingredients being used. This place is about 90 minutes from my home and we have been back and will keep coming back for more.
I would anticipate ordering 2 – 3 dishes per guest. 4 – 5 if you love to eat like me.

This place is fantastic. It is now over 12 hours since my wife and I, along with some friends and family, ate at Red Haven and I’m still in awe of just how spectacular the food was. We tried just about everything on the menu and we all agreed there was not a single bad dish. I think the best way to convey just how good the food was is this… my mother-​in-​law hates goat cheese in all forms that she has tried it (and she has tried it in many forms). One of the plates we ordered was a warm dip made primarily of goat cheese and spinach, she tried it and thought it was delicious, even went back for more of it. If the chef can get her to like goat cheese, they can do anything.
Our waiter was very friendly and super helpful, which is good since the menu is a bit different. Their beer and wine selection was fantastic, they even have a good selection of hard ciders which I love!
The only qualm I had was the noise level (it was quite loud, even though the restaurant was only half full). I’d also caution people that, while they say it’s small plates, I’d call most of what we got closer to a medium plate… My wife and I agreed that when we go back, we will probably share 3 plates between the two of us and still leave quite satisfied. We ordered 3 plates per person (two smaller, one larger item each), and by the time our last course came out, everyone was pretty full.

This higher-​end farm-​to-​table restaurant is very unique to the Lansing area, but this place has me ‘on the fence’ a bit, and not because of the price.
Over the past year I’ve had the opportunity to dine in some great degustation restaurants in major cities and while Red Haven has some qualities that allow comparisons to be made, there are a few areas that warrant improvement.
Here are my observations based on a recent dinner with three, during which we thoroughly sampled the menu through consumption of 8 courses, dessert, and some cocktails and wine:
First, while the food is generally of great quality and beautifully presented and the kitchen puts up some great flavor combinations, a couple of the components were not too good. The kale ‘garnish’ in particular (part of two of our dishes –in identical form) was way too salty. If I pay ‘top-​dollar’ I would like everything to be excellent, without exceptions. (Additionally, I thought the dishes were generally a bit on the sweet side. This is of course entirely personal, but I would have enjoyed some more light /​delicate courses.)
Second, the speed with which courses were brought out generally worked fine. We received two courses at a time twice, but then all of a sudden four at once (2+2+4). This seemed to have been intent, but it resulted in us eating a couple slightly colder dishes. Thus, bad course management by the kitchen …
Finally, I think the menu is a bit presumptuous and unclear (as others have said too):
— I don’t mind asking a thousand questions, but it’s a bit frustrating that this is in fact required to get an understanding of what the different options entail.
— I disliked the need to order everything at once. If you claim to be a tapas-​style restaurant then this makes no sense.
— Here’s just a suggestion, but a true degustation or tasting menu (with paired wine option?) would be great. It would totally fit with this style of restaurant.
Now, the price we paid for the food (all including 20% tip):
$ 130 for the 8 courses ($ 43pp)
$ 160 for the 8 courses plus 3 desserts ($ 53pp)
This is probably high by Midwest (and, judging from some reviews, astronomical by EL) standards, but based on the restaurant type, ambiance, and especially food quality, I’d say this is par for the course, if not better. For us, the eight courses + 3 desserts was a bit overkill. 6+2 or 7+1 would have been fine too, so it wouldn’t be hard to go a bit cheaper and leave satisfied.
(Our bill of course ramped up pretty steeply by adding some cocktails and wine –and yours will too-​, but the prices for just the food are totally acceptable.)
There were also some definite highlights:
The waitress that served us was beyond excellent. Knowledgeable, personal, and relaxed. She gave great advice, answered all questions patiently, and was fun. (When our four main dishes were brought out all at once, we had a different server and he gave –in hindsight– the wrong advice for which dish to finish with, so possibly not all wait staff is just as good.)
Most of the food was really quite excellent. Here’s a rundown of our dishes:
— Bake: fresh bread with beet jam, and a delicious butter w honey & salt
— Dip: burnt rye worked remarkably well with the fresh dip.
— Press: goat tacos were ok. Not really memorable.
— Mash: potato w cream & butter deep fried. beef cheek garnish. Bay leaf ‘pesto’. The mashed potato ‘block’ was really delicious, but the beef cheeks were not as tender and juicy as expected.
— Duck: breast over leg. Great waffle syrup sauce, a bit peanutty. Nice dish, but the kale was way too sweet and salty.
— Crust: Pork brined. Sweet caramelized onions w a small ‘kick’. Very nice and beautifully presented.
— Grill: trout a bit cold. Great parsnip vanilla purée.
— Broil: squash broiled, but quite ‘al dente’. Kale again; Too salty again. Appel was nice n fresh. Pawpaw soymilk sauce (mango-​banana like; vanilla-​ish) was great.
Wine: 2012 sexual chocolate. Sirah/​Petite-​sirah/​Zinfandel blend. A bit tight. Not very complex but nice.
Desserts:
— Birthday [cake]: nice sweet potato cake with great frosting. Root beer liquor drizzle very unique and delicious.
— Chocolate [beets]: flourless cake. Very nice taste but a bit dry texture. Pumpkin sauce yum.
— Pawpaw [split]: nice n light.
So, in summary of this loooooong review. Definitely a very interesting place to eat and clearly unique to the area. Improvements are possible, but overall I thought the food was great (although not universally so) and beautifully presented, and serving excellent. In comparison with big-​city quality dining, this place would get stuck in 3-​star range. However, in the mitten-​state this is worth 4 stars for me.

I thought most of the food at this high-​end, farm to table restaurant was pretty great. Even the food that wasn’t exactly my cup of tea was an adventure! Fun, creative food! Some portions are quite small, especially when your plan is to eat tapas style, but still worth the cost for the clear effort and care that the chefs seem to put in.
The service was not great, out waitress seemed disinterested and in a hurry. This is only based on one experience, and everyone has a bad night. If the service had been on par with the food experience, I would have given 5 stars for sure!

This place is awful. I don’t intend to be mean, but this is the worst meal I’ve ever had… and paying over $ 100 for this (I want to say it was around $ 150, but I’m not too sure) was just an insult after a terrible meal.
We tried:
-«Cheese»: burnt homemade crackers, honey, and 1 cube of cheese
-«Bisque»: some cold peach bisque poured over chocolate and some other stuff. No flavor, gross texture
-«Fry»: 2 soggy tempura squash blossoms with ricotta cheese over cucumber noodles (cucumbers sliced extremely thinly)
-«Press»: fajita-​style beef, onions, and I think bell peppers (?) on a cast iron pan with 3 small tortillas that were undercooked. This was the only dish I liked bc I personally really like tacos.
-«Ceviche»: shrimp, onions, stale popcorn. Its flavor tasted very similar to Vietnamse goi (salad)
-«Broil»: I don’t even know what was in this, but it was god awful and inedible. The bf and I each took a bite and left the rest of the $ 20 – 25 plate untouched.
-«Cure»: extremely salty pork belly
I’m all for local/​farm to table food. I’m also a huge fan of restaurants like this, but the execution was just not there. Service was nothing remarkable — in fact, when we told our waitress that our food wasn’t good, she didn’t really seem to care other than issue a superficial apology.
All this food and an obscene amount of money (for poor quality) later, we left starving and had to go home and eat leftovers. Don’t even bother wasting your time or money.