$$$$ ★★★★★
By Eric Barton | May 2, 2025
I don’t usually order a martini with an anchovy garnish, but I also don’t usually eat steak in a banyan-shaded courtyard that feels like a Fellini dream set in Little River. Sunny’s Steakhouse, if you haven’t been yet, is not really a steakhouse, or at least not the kind where men in ties try to one-up each other on who’s got the rarer cut of wagyu. Sunny’s is more beautiful, more celebratory, and, somehow, more serious about food.
Shrimp cocktail
It started as a pandemic pop-up, a backyard party with better lighting and beef. But now it’s a proper restaurant, sprawled across 13,000 square feet of chandeliers, a courtyard shaded by a massive banyan, and servers who seem like they truly care about getting every single thing right. There’s a raw bar on ice. A guy making pasta in the back like he just stepped out of a dream about Bologna.
The menu reads like someone tried to one-up every other steakhouse in town and actually succeeded: a duck lasagna that tastes like it’s been slow-danced through a ragu, a 32-ounce ribeye that makes you question whether you’ve ever actually had a good steak before, and sauces you didn’t know you needed, like a pineapple hot sauce that lands somewhere between sweet heat and acid trip.
Wagyu carpaccio; credit: Michael Pisarri
Chef Aaron Brooks, formerly of the high-floor Four Seasons restaurant Edge in Brickell, clearly came here to cook. That would’ve been enough. But then the bar team went and built a martini menu with 50 combinations, including your choice of garnish, which is how I ended up drinking gin with an anchovy and wondering if I’d finally figured out adulthood.
Agnolotti; credit: Cleveland Jennings
Sunny’s landed this year in the Michelin Guide, which should be just the first step in getting a star in ‘26. Sunny’s is the rare place that’s as good for a birthday as it is for a Tuesday. It’s Miami, distilled and grilled over oak, and if you think you know what a steakhouse is, go to Sunny’s and let it prove you wrong.
Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who splits his time between Asheville and Miami. He’s on a constant hunt for the best pizza, best places to bike, and for his next new favorite destination. Email him here.
