The Steakhouses Worth the Splurge
The Wall Street Journal
By Joshua David Stein
The American steakhouse is perhaps our best-defined national restaurant genre. A byword for a maximalist experience, powered by meat and liquor, a showstopping bacchanal, a backdrop for business dinners, power lunches and birthdays, it’s the culinary embodiment of the American psyche: large, loud and showy.
Recently, however, something unusual has been brewing. Americans are getting weirder, more wide-ranging in their inspiration.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Miami's Will Thompson and Carey Hynes opened a popup called Sunny's Someday Steakhouse in a forrr.er roof tile factory with a large courtyard in Little River. It was makeshift luxury. Hanger steaks and Parker rolls came out of an outdoor kitchen; diners ate at picnic tables, and the whole thing was packed up at night. For two years, Sunny's was one of Miami's buzziest residencies. In 2022, the space closed (as did the group's other restaurant, Jaguar Sun, in August 2024). But it was a case of reculer pour mieux sauter:
When Sunny's opened in October 2024 as a full-service, permanent restaurant, "someday" had finally arrived.
The raucous 13,000-square-foot restaurant is centered around the same magnificent banyan tree in the courtyard, but the kitchen is permanent and ambitious. The menu observes all the steakhouse mores - but just barely, according to Thompson: "If we didn't call it a steakhouse, no one would think we are one." Each part of the menu bears surprises, from the Octopus Ceviche with grapefruit, cucumber, and peanuts (It works!) in the raw bar section to a chile-and anchovy-rubbed Berkshire Pork Chop. There's an unusually muscular pasta section, too. But the steaks are the backbone. At $39, the classic 10-ounce Prime Hanger is shockingly affordable; at $258, the 32-ounce Wagyu Ribeye, less so. "We're trying to have our cake and eat it too," said Thompson.
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