Inside Sunda, a new Southeast Asian wonderland in downtown Detroit
Detroit — Travel-loving restaurateur Billy Dec is opening his first restaurant in Michigan next week.
Sunda New Asian in the District Detroit opens Tuesday, March 10, with a little bit of the best elements from of all his Sunda locations, he says.
The design-forward space has room for around 200 guests, with seating near a sushi bar adorned with hanging capiz shells, in a versatile dining room that can be cordoned off for private parties and around a huge pink quartzite bar with retractable glass walls along Columbia Street.
Dec has four other Sunda New Asian restaurants, two in his native Chicago, plus Nashville and Tampa. For his Detroit debut, he's hired around 100 locals, and trained many of them at the other locations.
"Detroit is fascinating to me," Dec said, adding that he knows he has to "earn" the city's love and create relationships, and so far he's felt welcome. "I come home feeling jacked every time. That human energy is magical."
"I want to be here, this is exciting to me," he said, adding that he'll be around all opening week.
The menu in Detroit is similar to the other Sundas, with a focus on Filipino, Japanese, Chinese and Thai cuisine through a contemporary lens of fun and luxury. It's all meant to represent Dec's heritage and his travels throughout Asia.
Think dim sum, sushi, lumpia and pad Thai, but also caviar service, a 3-pound wagyu tomahawk steak and a kamayan feast for four.
With its high-profile location on Woodward within walking distance to theaters and the city's sports stadiums, Sunda is elevating Filipino food to a level that Metro Detroit hasn't seen before. There are Filipino restaurants around here, but none serving martini flights and lobster sushi rolls with wagyu and foie gras like Sunda does.
"When I created Sunda, it was important to create this mix and celebrate all of the places I've traveled to," said Dec. He didn't intend on the brand, which he founded in 2009, being just Filipino, but an elevated take on Southeast Asian cuisine. "Filipino culture, partially because it's been influenced by so many different cultures, it's very open-armed ... and so for us it was easy to play with other cultures."
He grew up helping his family members make lumpia and has those memories many children of immigrants have about bringing a "weird" lunch to school — maybe fish or pork with a vinegar sauce and rice, not peanut butter and jelly — as a kid growing up in Chicago.
Sunda and the brand's culinary director, Mike Morales, offer a large menu that has a lot of shareable items and small bites that are high-end and interesting. At a media preview offered early this week, I was able to sample some of the dishes ahead of the restaurant's opening.
Some of the most popular menu items are the oxtail potstickers ($23), served as a quartet of seared pillows stuffed with rich, fatty meat and topped with a wasabi cream, and the crispy Brussels sprouts, a large sharable salad of lightly charred shaved sprouts, red cabbage, carrots, fried shallots and minced shrimp in a sweet and slightly sour nuoc cham vinaigrette ($24).
A high-value dish is the bulgogi roti tacos, a blend of Korean and Indian cuisine that is four "tacos" with a soft, flaky roti shell that are stuffed with thinly sliced, flavorful rib eye and a red cabbage slaw ($29). I would also recommend the Great White ($16), a amuse bouche that showcases the kitchen's skills with the flesh of the white fish wrapped around rice and topped with a house-made potato chip and black truffle shavings.
The ube espresso martini is a Filipino spin on a classic that is sweet and frothy with a hint of floral and vanilla, and dark purple. The cocktail is part of a flight of espresso martinis ($28) that also includes traditional with Ketel One vodka and a chocolate chili version made with mezcal.
The bar also has a huge menu of sake, including sake flights, mocktails, wines from around the world and a global selection of beers that includes Sapporo and Kirin Ichiban on draft.
Dec is a big personality; a friendly guy who has a mix of authentic Midwest charm and celebrity sparkle. The Emmy Award-winner has traveled to Asia with his friend actor David Schwimmer and mingled and mixed cocktails with superstar Kendall Jenner. A Chicago-Kent College of Law and Harvard Business School alum, Dec has also served on the White House Advisory Commission on Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders and the White House Bullying Prevention Task Force.
After he welcomes friends new and old to his Detroit Sunda, Dec's next project is the release of his documentary film "Food Roots." Airing nationally on PBS in May to coincide with AAPI Heritage Month, the award-winning film follows Dec as he travels to his mother's native Philippines with the goal of preserving his ancestral recipes.
Dec worked with Academy Award-winning producer Doug Blush, who has Michigan roots, for the documentary along with Emmy Award-winning director Michele Josue. Grammy Award winning Filipino-American musician apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas did the score.
Music is a big part of Sunda's vibe, too. During our preview visit ahead of the opening, we heard chilled-out versions of hits from the '90s and 2000s, plus modern classics like the Beastie Boys, all curated by Dec himself.
Reservations are open now on the website or via the OpenTable app. Starting March 10, Sunda New Asian will be open 5-10 p.m. Tues.-Thurs., 5-11 p.m. Fri.-Sat. and 5-10 p.m. Sun. at 33 W. Columbia in Detroit. Call (313) 464-4847 or visit sundanewasian.com/detroit.