Billy Dec is honest about the bet. He has framed Sunda's Detroit room as a step outside the brand's familiar model — a jump into something new, an exciting risk that is still a risk. That is the most direct thing a restaurateur has said about opening in the District Detroit.
Sunda New Asian opened March 10, 2026, at 33 W. Columbia Street, on the pedestrian-only block that runs between the Fox Theatre and Little Caesars headquarters, across Woodward from Comerica Park. It is the fifth Sunda location for Dec, the Emmy-winning television personality and Chicago restaurateur whose Rockit Ranch Productions opened the original Sunda in Chicago in 2009. Two Chicago restaurants, plus Tampa, plus Nashville, now Detroit.
The brand was named "Best Asian Cuisine" by USA Today, has fed Barbra Streisand and Lady Gaga and Michelle Obama at various tables across various cities, and arrives in Detroit with the polish of a chain that has done this four times before.The Detroit room runs 6,000 square feet and seats 200. There is a 1,400-square-foot patio with retractable windows that open onto Columbia Street in warm months. Studio K, the Chicago design firm behind the Nobu Hotel and Maple & Ash, designed the interior.
Lighting installations include handmade Capiz shells (the Filipino mollusk shell), plus cherry and apple blossoms representing Japan and Michigan. Sampaguitas, the Philippines' national flower, are referenced in the bar's overhead floral installation. Dec's mother is Filipina, and his grandmother (his lola) is the cook he credits as the reason any of this exists.Culinary director Mike Morales is from the Philippines.
Head sushi chef Ise Matsunobu is from Tokyo. The menu runs nine sections from dim sum to caviar service. Spicy tuna crispy rice.
Oxtail potstickers. Baked crab handrolls. Pork belly bao buns served in a bamboo steamer.
A three-pound Japanese wagyu tomahawk. Miso-glazed sea bass. Cocktails like the lychee simoy (Ketel One peach and orange blossom, elderflower, lychee, lemon) and the non-alcoholic Emerald (coconut milk, pandan syrup, vanilla).The actual question is whether downtown Detroit can sustain a 200-seat restaurant on a block that goes quiet between events.
Dec said it himself: in Chicago and Tampa, the foot traffic is constant. Here it is event-driven, and there are about a thousand events a year between Comerica, Ford Field, LCA, the Fox, and the Fillmore. Sunda is betting that those events plus the District's gradual buildout add up to something.
It is a real bet. The food is the hedge.33 W. Columbia St., Detroit.
