Ferndale, MI — For several months, I had been keeping close tabs on the development of a new project in the former space of the Hilton Road Cafe in Ferndale.

The owners of the popular local breakfast haunt announced one year ago that after 15 years of service, the cafe would be closing its doors. This past April, Chef Nikita Sanches, co-owner of the former Rock City Eatery in Detroit, bought the space with a wholesome mission of giving back to the community.

Nikita’s latest endeavor, the Patchwork Culinary Project, is a social cause restaurant with educational and training programs for local immigrants and refugees who want to pursue jobs in the hospitality industry or become restauranteurs themselves. The menu will offer patrons a taste of cultural cuisines from various areas of the world and occasionally host pop-up events for immigrant guest chefs to showcase dishes from their homelands. Nikita’s restaurant is a beacon of hope and opportunity for many who face an uphill battle in a new environment. It also leads to more diverse food options for the local community and could help alleviate ongoing labor shortages in the hospitality and food industries.

The Patchwork Culinary Project is a bodega-style deli featuring international-inspired sandwiches like banh mi, Cubano, Italian, and shawarma. Nikita officially opened the doors on Friday with a soft opening, ready to illuminate the path for the immigrant community to get their own taste of culinary success.

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Prior to the opening, I had reached out to Chef Nikita to set up an interview so that I could share his story and inspirational mission for this blog and my station. Nikita and I arranged for a midday visit on Wednesday, two days before the grand opening. I had been looking forward to sharing this story for months, so when I pulled up Wednesday morning, I was excited to meet Nikita and one of the chefs he’s already been helping, Chef Matheen Syed.

The restaurant, which is located along Hilton Road just south of I-696, had new branding on the window of the front door for its newest occupant, the Patchwork Culinary Project. The sign of the previous tenant remained above the new eatery at the time, but I found it to be like paying homage to what had come before it. I walked in and was warmly greeted by Chef Nikita and Chef Matheen, who co-owns and operates DosaLicious and More with his wife.

I chatted with Nikita and Matheen for a few moments, breaking down my filming method and how the shoot would go. I started gathering b-roll footage of the interior space and interactions between the two chefs. Chef Matheen’s budding culinary business was featured during a pop-up dinner event at Patchwork Culinary Project several weeks ago. I soon learned that Nikita has been helping guide Matheen through establishing a culinary business, including assisting Matheen in getting ServSafe (food safety/handler) certified.

After capturing some great content of Nikita preparing cookies and veggies, I sat down with Matheen first to learn more about his food venture.

“I’m an immigrant from India. So I came here 24 or 25 years ago. I’ve been in the I.T. business, but in the back of my mind, I was always getting into the food business, which is something I have always been thinking of for many years, a food service business showcasing my favorite hometown food, dosas. So that’s where the name DosaLicious and More was born,” said Matheen.

Matheen recalled when he first learned about the mission and support offered at Nikita’s Patchwork Culinary Project.

“The idea for DosaLicious has been popping up for several years. And, you know, I read this article in one of the magazines about Chef Nikita Sanchez of the Culinary Project, and then said, okay, you know, since it is favoring us, immigrants, to kind of approach,” Matheen said. “So, we approached and talked with Chef Nikita, and he was really amazing. He went all the way and helped us through the entire compliance of setting up the business of DosaLicious and More, from registering with the State, the Health Department, and setting up everything. So I always say that Chef Nikita is an angel in disguise who’s always helping people to kind of bring the person up and start their business.”

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Chef Matheen’s DosaLicious and More is currently operating as a catering service and making appearances at pop-up events, like the upcoming October Bazaar at the IAGD in Rochester Hills on the 26th. For those who might not be familiar with a dosa, it is a traditional breakfast food that emerged from South Indian cuisine. It looks like a thin pancake rolled up, similar to a crepe, and often comes served with chutney and sambar. I asked Matheen about his personal connection to dosas and what they mean to him.

“Dosa is a staple breakfast for me. It goes back to my childhood memories, and that’s exactly the recipe I brought in from my grandmother and my mother, and then it was passed on to me. So waking up in the morning, I would get the aroma of those being cooked by my mom, and I think it is a recipe passed on from two generations, which I am now bringing to the folks out here to the entire customers in Metro Detroit,” Matheen explained.

Sharing joyful memories from our youth through culinary means is one of the things I love most about food and its significance in our lives. We’re all the better because we have opportunities readily available for newcomers to our country so they can contribute and share their skills, passions, and memories/stories with their communities. We gain more diversity in our culinary sphere, adding culture and opening doors to new cuisines to explore or combine with our own. You see examples of this at Amar Pizza in Hamtramck, which features several Bangladeshi-inspired pizzas via Detroit-style.

Matheen says having support from Nikita was integral when he and his wife first took the leap of faith and embarked on the path to becoming restauranteurs and small business owners. Matheen explained some of the challenges immigrants and refugees face when navigating the business process and why having someone like Nikita there to help is instrumental.

“So, a lot of immigrants, when they come here, they kind of struggle with, you know, getting to know things, how to put things in place. And I think this was a readymade solution for me with Chef Nikita. The collaboration happened because of my son. He referred me to Chef Nikita, and the entire thing kind of fell into place. Chef Nikita goes out of the way to help immigrants and kind of bring them up again. You know, I may sound like a broken record, but still, it is what it is,” Matheen said. “He’s been very kind throughout the process. As I mentioned earlier, you know, helping me stick to compliances and guiding me through the process of what to do and how to go about and navigate this business.”

I bounced over to a different table to interview Nikita, who was working on various kitchen tasks while I interviewed Matheen. Nikita’s journey mirrors the paths of the people he is helping now through the Patchwork Culinary Project. Nikita immigrated to the United States from Russia when he was a preteen, finding himself in his first culinary job after only a couple of years living here.

“I moved here when I was 12 from Moscow, Russia. When I was 14, it was time to get a job. So, I got a job serving food at an assisted living facility called Fleischman. I learned a lot from different bubbies that lived there and then eventually got into the kitchen and started cooking. From that point on, it was just all cooking all day. I fell in love with it, and I’ve been doing it for over 20 years now,” said Nikita.

Over those 20 years, Nikita worked his first job for over a decade and then went on to open his first restaurant in Hamtramck for three years. Before long, a prime spot opened along Woodward Avenue near downtown Detroit, where Nikita established a new eatery that he’d operate for about seven years. After that business closed, Nikita took a few years off during the pandemic, eventually feeling compelled to return to the culinary world to launch a new venture.

“I swore when we opened up our restaurant in Detroit that I’ll never open up another restaurant again because it’s such a rigamarole. So many things that go into it. But taking a couple of years off after we closed, you know, it’s something I’ve done most of my life, and it’s something I have a passion for,” Nikita explained. “So I kind of started getting an inkling to get back into it. But I didn’t want to just open up another restaurant; I wanted to have some sort of a social good attached to it.”

Nikita went on to explain the mission of the Patchwork Culinary Project and what inspired its inception.

“I’m an immigrant. I had to navigate opening up a restaurant and dealing with all the impediments that come along with that. So I figured, you know what? I’m going to try and alleviate as much of that pressure or difficulties that folks might face and help them out and have that be a part of our restaurant and also be sort of like an incubator where folks can come in, you know, test drive their food and see if that works, maybe sell their products. You know, just get a taste of running an actual restaurant. So that’s what kind of made it worth it for me to open up another restaurant. And that’s what we’re hoping to accomplish here.”

Nikita said following the soft launch on Friday, the next goal will be establishing the Patchwork Culinary Project and making contacts with several groups that help immigrants and refugees around Metro Detroit. Being a mentor for Chef Matheen along the way has already resulted in a taste of success for DosaLicious and More, which hopes to launch a food truck in the next year or so. I understood a lot more now what Matheen meant when he repeatedly referred to Chef Nikita as an angel in disguise.

“There’s nothing better than have someone like Mister Syed say that. He’s helping me accomplish my goal, and getting that genuine thank you and having that reward is essentially what is driving me to keep doing this,” Nikita said.

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I thanked Nikita and Matheen for speaking with me and parted ways with the chefs, heading outside to grab some exterior shots before leaving. After interviewing both chefs, I was genuinely overjoyed and inspired by the kind and heartful mission of Nikita’s Patchwork Culinary Project.

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I couldn’t attend the opening weekend for the Patchwork Culinary Project, but I’m excited to stop in next weekend for a coffee and a bite to eat. I’ll also be keeping tabs for future pop-up events or special dinners since I’m always excited to try new or unfamiliar cuisines! Whether you’re going to check out the food or support the fantastic programs being offered, hopefully, you can check out the Patchwork Culinary Project soon.

For more information about the Patchwork Culinary Project, click here. For more information about DosaLicious and More, click here.