By Phillip Valys | pvalys@sunsentinel.com | South Florida Sun Sentinel
At the new Sunness Supper Club in Fort Lauderdale, a taste of South Florida's bygone but much-admired dining scene is aiming to make a comeback.
When the American comfort-food restaurant debuts across from The Galleria mall -- expected on Thursday, Dec. 19 -- it will tout not one but two veteran chefs: James Beard winner Allen Susser (Chef Allen's) and Arthur Jones (Barton G, Mark's at the Park in Boca Raton), the linchpins behind treasured local eateries from the 1980s through the 2000s.
It will be a "supper club with modern twists," owner Michael Stanley says, like tableside Caesar salad service, heaping baskets of breads, Wagyu steaks and Florida lobster, cozy half-moon booths, and an eye and ear for what he calls "old-school hospitality."
"Restaurants these days forget the 'please' and the 'thank you' and the 'welcome,' " Stanley tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "I wanted to bring that all back: the great food that doesn't cut corners, the huge parties in large booths, the feeling of family and empathy, the classic dishes like french onion soup and burgers that show the simplicity of American regional food."
Stanley knows he might be over-romanticizing the past. Even so, with the 130-seat Sunness he wants to recapture the glamour of the local supper clubs his grandfather, Stewart Sunness, took him to visit during his childhood.
He remembers the clink of glassware and heavy socializing at Miami Beach's The Forge steakhouse and Embers Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge, and the snap of cool professionalism at Wolfie Cohen's Rascal House and The Left Bank in Fort Lauderdale. Some supper clubs -- picture social joints pairing American fare with live music, flowing alcohol, big crowds piled into booths -- still thrive in South Florida, like Anthony's Runway 84 and Mastro's Ocean Club.
Sunness faces bustling Sunrise Boulevard but its entrance is in the back, and after check-in, guests will be escorted through a dim, winding hallway into a 6,000-square-foot dining room adorned in sage-green walls. Its centerpiece is a U-shaped marble bar accented with wooden wine racks. High-top tables and wide leather banquettes provide seating for parties of up to 30. Upstairs, a 4,000-square-foot speakeasy named Bar Betty, opening in three months, will carry live music and cocktails from mixologist Ally Champion (The Apothecary 330).
Stanley, a Weston resident, previously ran a lunch program with wife Karen called Yummy in My Tummy, which served schools in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties for more than a decade. In 2020, they started Sunrise's MK Takeaways, which made restaurant-grade, heat-and-eat meals for pandemic customers anxious to dine in confined spaces. Both companies folded when Karen passed away in 2021, he says.
Now he's focusing on his new restaurant-bar, which has replaced the short-lived Verino's Pizzeria & Grill and inherited its wood-fired brick pizza oven -- to be used for firing up maple-glazed crusted salmon, mussels and prime New York sirloin.
Stanley wants his supper-club homage to make sense to modern diners, especially new transplants, who lack institutional knowledge of South Florida's late, great restaurants. He found his muse by hiring Susser, a chef-hospitality guru-cookbook author, as a consultant to train staff and program Sunness' menu of American classics.
If every region has its own food celebrities, the multihyphenate Susser and his restaurant, Chef Allen's in Aventura, made South Florida worth bragging about. He helmed it for 25 years (eventually closing in 2011) and is part of the so-called "Mango Gang" -- alongside chefs Norman Van Aken, Mark Militello, Doug Rodriguez and Robbin Haas -- who in the 1980s and '90s pioneered "Floribbean"-style cuisine that married local and island flavors.
These days, Susser says he avoids the limelight that brought him acclaim (James Beard's Best Chef 1994, Outstanding Chef semifinalist 2008) in favor of behind-the-scenes work.
"I don't need the ego of opening my own restaurant anymore," he says. "Been there, done that, wrote the cookbook. Now I get more enjoyment from helping other restaurants grow."
And Susser's culinary imprint is all over Sunness' menu, including the mango-glazed baby back ribs ($18) with Brussels slaw, and its shrimp and grits ($32), which use North Florida rock shrimp and stone-ground Carolina grits sauteed with shallots, bacon, tomato and red wine vinegar. Both are inspired by dishes from his old Chef Allen's menu, he says.
Ditto for Sunness' half-pound cheeseburger ($24), two patties of chuck-brisket-short rib blend cooked on the plancha until crisp with sauteed onions, thin-sliced pickles and American cheese. The burger recipe is drawn from Susser's late Burger Bar eateries in Palm Beach Gardens and at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
"When you bite into this, you know you're going to have a great cheeseburger," Susser says. "I'm glad Michael put this much faith in me. With Sunness, he's going for an old-school supper club, but my thought was always: What does great food look like in 2025? He's letting me do whatever I want, and I just want it to be delicious.
"It's what I was doing at Chef Allen's, which is creating new world cuisine using influences from the Americas and the Caribbean, and by taking boutique producers who could supply us and make a difference."
Susser won't be cooking -- that will be veteran chef Arthur Jones -- but he plans to maintain a constant presence at Sunness, introducing seasonal menu items and cutting underperforming dishes.
That will set Sunness apart from old supper clubs, which "lacked flexibility and had five to 10 signature static dishes," he says.
"I'll stay involved as long as possible to get it right," says Susser, adding that he helped program the cafe menu at Books & Books in Coral Gables for 10 years. "Food is about style and seasonality and creating new memories in a new space."
Stanley agrees. "Chef Allen is the best," he says. "What he's done for South Florida's dining scene is miraculous. He's helping me bring back classic supper-club food and style that makes more sense to this generation without being too nostalgic."
So is Jones, he adds. The veteran chef, who also worked at Prezzo in the early 2000s, "constantly shines" with his plating techniques. One of Sunness' classic desserts, strawberry shortcake, is modernized with a cloud of cotton candy and a drizzle of strawberry syrup crowning a housemade biscuit, whipped cream and fresh strawberries.
"Arthur's knowledge is amazing but he's got very little ego," Stanley says. "There's a world-class flair to his plating. Like with Allen, he took techniques from his past and brought it into the present."
Separate brunch and lunch menus are scheduled to debut in January.