Sunda New Asian Brings Its Chicago Concept to Downtown Detroit
The 200-seat pan-Asian restaurant opens near Comerica Park this week.
Sunda New Asian opens this week near Comerica Park in downtown Detroit, bringing the pan-Asian concept from its Chicago original to a 200-plus-seat space that makes it one of the largest restaurant openings the city has seen in years.
The Chicago Sunda, which has operated in River North since 2009, built its reputation on a menu that spans Southeast Asian cuisines (Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese) without collapsing into the kind of vague "Asian fusion" that strips each tradition of its specificity. Dishes like the sashimi pizza and whole roasted duck have become signatures. The question worth watching is how that precision translates to a second location at this scale.
The Detroit space is designed for volume. Two hundred seats is a bet on downtown foot traffic and event-night crowds from Comerica Park and Ford Field. It's a different calculation than the smaller, chef-driven restaurants that have defined Detroit's recent dining growth, and it signals that national restaurant groups see Detroit's downtown as a viable market for large-format operations.
The team has indicated that the Detroit menu will draw heavily from the Chicago playbook while incorporating some local sourcing. Details on specific Michigan partnerships haven't been announced yet.
We'll visit once the kitchen has had time to settle and report back with a full assessment.
Sunda New Asian is near Comerica Park, downtown Detroit. Opening this week. Reservations available online.