Not long after Will Thompson and Carey Hynes opened the Sunny’s Steakhouse pop-up in 2020, diners started clamoring for a permanent location. Well, they finally got their wish.
The brick-and-mortar Sunny’s opened in Miami on Wednesday, with the owners retaining the original outdoor brick courtyard but complementing it with an indoor, white-tablecloth space. Some hits from the first iteration have been brought back, but the menu has been built out to include favorites from Thompson and Hynes’s recently closed Jaguar Sun and a few entirely new plates.
Dry-aged ribeye
Michael Pisarri
“Sunny’s is a dinner party, one that’s predicated on world-class food, beverage, and service, but it’s got to be about more than just what is on a plate or in a glass,” Thompson said in a statement. “It feels like much of what makes restaurants special has gotten lost. Sunny’s is our attempt to bring some of that magic back, in a space that’s as easy to drop into for French fries and a martini as it is for a 50th wedding anniversary.”
Hynes and the executive chef Aaron Brooks have cooked up a modern steakhouse menu, with the steaks prepared over a live oak fire that the whole dining room can see. In-house dry aging has been applied to a 26-ounce ribeye, and there’s both an Australian Wagyu strip and ribeye. Sauces range from the traditional (béarnaise, potato butter) to the playful (pineapple hot sauce, bone marrow vinaigrette). For a little surf-and-turf moment, there’s a whole raw bar featuring some of Florida’s finest seafood, as well as larger plates like yellowtail snapper and black cod in a smoked tomato and mussel broth.
Seafood platter
Michael Pisarri
Along with the Sunny’s classics, the team has added pasta to the menu. A spicy pork rigatoni and corn agnolotti with blue crab have been imported from Jaguar Sun. New dishes, meanwhile, include duck lasagna and chitarra with mushrooms and sherry. Pair any of the plates with that steakhouse classic cocktail, the Martini. Sunny’s has devised a choose-your-own-adventure Martini menu, with your choice of spirit, style, and garnish. There’s also a lengthy list of house cocktails, plus robust no- and low-ABV options.
The outdoor courtyard harkens back to the restaurant’s beginnings, but the Sunny’s team has built out an impressive 13,000-square-foot, 220-seat space. Inside, the design draws on Palm Beach Regency style and mid-century modernism, with antique light fixtures, plush fabrics, and those quintessential white tablecloths. All the stuffiness of a classic steakhouse, though, has been checked at the door.
Click here to see all the images of Sunny’s.
