At 7759 Auburn Road, the dinner menu is printed with an end date. Host's website lists Chef Ryan Mateling's Aiko Street Food with "Ends 11/28/2026" under the name. Under "Coming Soon to Host!" it lists Chef Domenic Joseph's Modern American residency for Dec. 1, 2026 through Jan. 30, 2027.
Most downtown restaurants keep the same kitchen for years. Host is built to hand its kitchen to a different chef every few months, and that changes how you plan a dinner out in Utica this season. Aiko is open Tuesday through Saturday nights until Saturday, Nov. 28. A different menu takes over the following Tuesday. Less than two weeks after that, the city holds its downtown tree lighting and fireworks.
What Aiko serves before its last Saturday
Metro Times reported in October that Mateling brought his northern Michigan food truck back to metro Detroit for a two-month residency at Host. He's running an izakaya-style dinner menu built for sharing over cocktails, sake and beer. The dishes Metro Times listed include:
- Seared oxtail terrine with chimichurri
- Shrimp-and-pork gyoza and beef bulgogi gyoza
- Ebi shinjo, or shrimp fritters
- Vegetarian and gluten-free okonomiyaki
- Whole crispy Japanese-style wings
- Yakisoba with a coconut sauce, and tonkatsu ramen
The same report said Mateling planned to add regular and vegan omakase tasting menus after the first week. It also described a Tuesday robatayaki night from 5 to 8 p.m., with grilled skewers starting at $8. Aiko's dinner hours are 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 5 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Host also takes Aiko orders through DoorDash. Starting the week of Nov. 16, Aiko has two Saturday nights left at Host: Nov. 21 and Nov. 28.
Aiko is named for Mateling's Japanese grandmother, and the name means "beloved child." According to Host, he has cooked at Voyager, Besa, The Cook's House, Antietam and Amical. He ran Aiko as a pop-up series at Detroit and Traverse City spots like The Schvitz, Frame and The Little Fleet, then turned it into a food truck. He later helped develop the M-88 Food Court in Bellaire. After the residency, Host says, he plans to open a new Metro Detroit brick-and-mortar takeout concept in the new year.
So the Utica residency is one stop in a longer run for Aiko, and it's the stop closest to Macomb County.
Why the menu is designed to end
The end date comes from how founder Michael Ivkov first got into the business. ClickOnDetroit's 2023 profile reports that he worked his way up from dishwasher to manager, then co-founded a food truck called Stockyard. It popped up at secret locations across Detroit and served multicourse dinners to about 12 ticket holders. Several local businesses let them use their space for free. When Ivkov opened his own place in his hometown of Utica, he wanted to extend that same hospitality to chefs who were just starting out. Hour Detroit adds that the Stockyard dinners in 2014 were held at places such as the Michigan Theater and the Packard Plant.
Host opened in 2022 with a restaurant on the first floor and a coworking space upstairs. ClickOnDetroit described six private offices and several shared rooms. Residencies cover dinner service only and last one to three months. Host pitches it to chefs as an incubator: a "low-risk, high-traffic location" with a customer base already in place, where they can test a menu before going further. Crain's Detroit Business covered the restaurant in 2023 as an incubator meant to launch the next wave of restaurateurs.
In practice, that means the dinner menu at Host changes every few months. That has been true since the first year:
| When | Resident chef or concept | Cuisine |
|---|---|---|
| Fall 2022 | Davante Burnley and Kiluanji Watkins | Dishes like confit duck poutine and lamb Bolognese |
| Early 2023 | Chef Mark Camaj | Italian |
| March 2023 | DeutschTroit | German |
| April–May 2023 | Chef Michael Murabito | Sicilian-Mediterranean |
| June 5–July 15, 2023 | Break'n Cornbread, Shanel DeWalt and Brandon Johnson | "Big energy comfort food" |
Hour Detroit's 2023 report said modern French would follow that August and Moroccan food that autumn. In early 2023, Crain's reported that Murabito was setting himself up to run his own restaurant. Mateling's planned takeout concept fits the same pattern of chefs moving on from Host to their own places.
The part that stays the same
Brunch is the one meal that doesn't rotate. In 2023, ClickOnDetroit reported that Host planned to move brunch to an in-house team after relying on a featured chef. Today, Host Brunch House runs under Executive Chef David Parker, who Host says has been with the restaurant for more than a year. It's open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
The daytime menu at 7759 Auburn carries over through the chef change, so a weekend brunch in December will feel familiar. The dinner menu after 5 p.m. resets.
Domenic Joseph has December and January
Host lists Chef Domenic Joseph's residency as Modern American, running Dec. 1, 2026 through Jan. 30, 2027. At two months, it's the same length as Aiko's run, which started Oct. 6. Dec. 1 is a Tuesday, so the new dinner menu starts three days after Aiko's last Saturday.
His residency covers the busiest stretch of the downtown calendar: December holiday dinners, the tree lighting weekend, New Year's and most of January. Any December dinner at Host this year will be one of his.
Dec. 12 lands in the new chef's second week
On Sept. 8, the Utica City Council unanimously approved the annual downtown Christmas tree lighting ceremony and fireworks for Saturday, Dec. 12, 2026. The fireworks are paid for under the second year of a three-year contract the council approved earlier.
For a sense of how the night has run before, the Macomb Daily's 2022 preview placed that year's event at 7 p.m. at Memorial Park on Auburn Road, west of Van Dyke Avenue, by the big clock near City Hall. That year's program included the Utica High School Chieftain Marching Band, holiday carols and a Stuff an Ambulance drive for Toys for Tots. Mayor Gus Calandrino told the paper the city had combined the fireworks, long popular at Jimmy John's Field, with the Christmas celebration. It replaced a Fire & Ice Festival that hadn't drawn well. The 2022 sponsors included Utica-area businesses and Jimmy John's Field.
In 2022, that meant Auburn Road, the same street as Host. A few doors down from Host, Main's Treat Coffeehouse is at 7765 Auburn Road. It opened on Nov. 21, 2025, so this will be its second holiday season downtown.
The downtown calendar, in order
- Saturday, Nov. 21: Aiko's second-to-last Saturday at Host, with dinner from 5 to 11 p.m.
- Tuesday, Nov. 24: Aiko's last Tuesday robatayaki night, 5 to 8 p.m., if it's still on the schedule.
- Saturday, Nov. 28: Aiko Street Food's final night at Host.
- Tuesday, Dec. 1: Chef Domenic Joseph's Modern American residency begins.
- Saturday, Dec. 12: Downtown Utica Christmas tree lighting and fireworks.
- Saturday, Jan. 30, 2027: Joseph's residency ends, and the next chef takes over dinner.
Host takes dinner reservations through Toast from its restaurant page. That page also posts the current menu and the dates for the next chef.
At Showtime Realty, Utica is part of our home market, and we follow downtown closely enough to know when a menu changes on Auburn Road. If you're thinking about what your home near downtown is worth, or how the riverfront blocks compare with the rest of Utica, schedule a consultation and we'll walk you through the numbers.
