RESTAURATEUR, CHEF MATT PRENTICE DIES
Royal Oak native owned Three Cats restaurant and other eateries in the area
Chef Matt Prentice, 62, of the Three Cats restaurant in Clawson and many other eateries throughout the region over the years, died of an undisclosed non-COVID related illness Thursday.
News of his death was announced early the same day in a statement on the Three Cats Facebook page.
Prentice was so active by the late 1990s that he had more than a dozen Metro Detroit businesses owned, from delis, a bakery and seafood and catering establishments to fine dining spots.
The restaurants he owned and operated over the years included Coach Insignia, Shiraz, No.VI Chophouse, Northern Lakes Seafood, Plaza Deli and others.
In 2019 he partnered with the owners of Leon & Lulu in Clawson— Stephen Scannell and Mary Liz Curtin — to open the small plates Three Cats restaurant inside the shop at 116 W. Mile Road.
“There is an enormous empty spot at Three Cats,” Curtin said in a statement Thursday. “Matt was a big man with an enormous heart, a loud laugh and a generous spirit. He was a wonderful teacher, a great mentor and an unbelievable cook.”
She and others at Three Cats are proud to be a Matt Prentice restaurant, Curtin added.
“We will always serve (Prentice’s) favorite recipes and there will always be mushrooms on the menu,” she said.
Drew Cayuela, whom Prentice trained, will become the new chef at Three Cats, Curtin said.
Prentice grew up in Royal Oak in a neighborhood near the National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica at 12 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue. His brother, Andrew Prentice, was a Royal Oak City Commissioner in the 1990s.
Prentice attended the iconic Culinary Institute of America then returned home in Royal Oak when he was 20 because of “family health problems,” according to his LinkedIn page. By 1980 he raised enough money to buy a failing deli.
Within four years he teamed with Sam Frankel, a developer and mentor, to open Cafe Jardin in the center of Somerset mall,
and went on to open other deli-concept eateries at other locations.
Prentice “helped jumpstart the career of wellknown chefs in the area, including chef James Rigato of Mable Gray and chef Eric Ward of Joe Meur’s Seafood,” according to Thursday’s statement.
Curtin said Prentice was living in Madison Heights at the time of his death.
“Of course I don’t know how much he lived there because he basically lived in the kitchen,” she said.
Prentice was also involved in a number of charities. He worked closely with the Rev. Faith Fowler at Cass Community Social Services, a Detroit nonprofit that helps people with housing, food, job training and other necessities.
Prentice created a kitchen at CCSS that serves more than 700,000 meals a day.
“Matt taught our staff to cook from scratch,” Fowler said in a statement. “He taught me how to recognize hospitality and practice generosity. “We are heartbroken … and we will always be grateful to Matt for his friendship and talents.”
Curtin said Fowler is working to create a small restaurant called Prentice Place at CCSS.
Three Cats/Leon & Lulu is doing a fundraiser to help get the restaurant started, Curtin said.