The Surf Club in Surfside, a 20-minute drive (on a good day) up Collins Avenue from South Beach, has long represented Miami Beach privilege and restricted access.
Tire tycoon Harvey Firestone and a few friends including Miami Beach pioneers Carl Fisher and Irving Collins cruised up the Miami Beach coast in the 1920s during Prohibition, seeking a pretty place to drink and play. They found their perfect spot on the Atlantic amid the sand and palms in Surfside, and architect Russell T. Pancoast brought their romantic vision to life.
For many years after it opened on New Year’s Eve 1930, The Surf Club remained a private hangout where the lucky few socialized behind closed doors: local society and celebrity guests such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Elizabeth Taylor, and Winston Churchill. Activities included poolside fashion shows, debutante galas, black-tie boxing nights and over-the-top parties.
Growing up in Miami Beach I was not among the chosen. My husband on the other hand was an escort at many debutante events, and remembers dancing at Surf Club cotillions (while I was twisting to rock and roll at the high school gym in my socks).
Times changed. Restrictions loosened, the club closed and was purchased in 2012. It recently reopened to all as the Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club melding past and future: Spare modern spaces and modern art contrast strikingly with 1920s Mediterranean detailing, morphing the property into a luxe hotel and condo.
And this year on premises with its own entrance and management, multi-award-winning Star-Chef Thomas Keller — whose restaurant group includes The French Laundry, Per Se, and Seabourn cruise dining venues, opened The Surf Club Restaurant to anyone willing to pay for the stellar experience.
On my two visits Chef Keller was very much present, not only overseeing the kitchen, but schmoozing with guests and preparing table-side.
Some takeaways:
The restaurant evokes mid-20th-century Miami cool with a laid-back feel. The background music in the dining room is very much last-century hit-parade. Jackets are suggested for men but many wore loose-fitting guayabara shirts and even tees. Women looked casual glam.
A bar area with small tables offers a piano and bass duo, while the dining room beyond is lighted romantically. Table settings are retro-elegant. Service is swift, polished and friendly.
As expected, products are top-of-the-line; flavors are rich, bright and on point; and presentations, labor-intensive. Attention to detail shows immediately: butter in a special server to maximize flavor; a bouquet of crunchy crudites, carefully iced; breadsticks with exceptional snap and flavor; warm, crusty rolls.
The old-school classic menu fits the Surf Club setting: I especially enjoyed pasta covered in shaved white Alba truffles, Oysters Rockefeller set on a footed server, and Wagyu Beef Wellington with port wine sauce carved table-side (in my case by the chef himself).
To end on a high I split my ultra-moist coconut chiffon cake with my husband’s chocolate cake topped in gold flowerets, homage to an extravagant time and place.
Yes, the tab for this opulence is sky high. But if you’re willing to splurge, this is the place to indulge your senses in an idealized Miami that embraces and enhances the past.
After our meal we strolled along a beachy path behind the property listening to the surf, watching the Miami moon rise over the ocean and imagining Harvey Firestone pulling up his yacht, back in that other age of excess when people like me could only dream of experiencing this rarified pleasure.
