Sunda’s Southeast Asian Flavors Land in Nashville Next Monday

In just a few days Chicago restaurateur Billy Dec will have his first restaurant outside of the Windy City, as his Rockit Ranch Productions hospitality group prepares to open the first expansion of Sunda in The Gulch next Monday.

The pan-Asian restaurant and bar will open at 592 12th Ave. S., a prime corner formerly home to Cantina Laredo where 11th and 12th Avenues converge. And Dec certainly appears to be all in on the new Nashville venture. Not only is he currently in the process of relocating his family from their longtime Chicago home to Music City, but he has also brought a number of key members of his Chicago Sunda team to operate the new outpost, including executive chef and partner Michael Morales, lead mixologist Nahm Kim, general manager Choon Lai, and operations partner Brett Shane. He’s even partnered with Nashville-based restaurant group Fresh Hospitality on the project.

While the Chicago location serves lunch, brunch, and dinner, the Nashville outpost will just offer dinner seven days a week, at least to start. A menu is not yet available online, but the wide-ranging dinner offerings at the original location, which draw influence from Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, should provide a pretty good idea of what to expect: dim sum, noodle and rice dishes, grilled proteins, nigiri and sashimi, and a variety of sushi rolls and larger entrees. A large list of house cocktails, along with draft and bottled brews, and wine and sake lists will round out the beverage options.

The new restaurant design has been kept under pretty tight wraps up to this point, but expect a complete transformation of the roughly 8,000-square-foot space, with design firm Strada, LLC drawing inspiration from the Chicago original.

Hours will be 4 p.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday and 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Be sure to check back very soon for more details.

• Sunda [Official Site]
• Asian Restaurant Sunda Coming to The Gulch [ENASH]