Traverse City restaurant Modern Bird lands on New York Times best of list

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A restaurant in Traverse City has landed on The New York Times' list of the best restaurants in the country.

Modern Bird sits on Front Street near Maple Street in downtown Traverse City. Opened in 2022 by husband-and-wife duo Andy Elliott and Emily Stewart, it serves up seasonal dishes like a sockeye salmon or the Wagyu Denver steak, made with produce sourced from local farms.

The duo opened Modern Bird a few years after moving to Traverse City from Chicago, where they met while working on the line at a restaurant. The area's diverse and abundant produce "just inspires you to create," Elliott told News 8.

"We weren't sure exactly what route we wanted to go other than we wanted to go into business for ourselves when we moved up here," he said. "We took some t