The Surf Club Restaurant – Thomas Keller's Continental stage in a 1930 clubhouse

The Surf Club Restaurant occupies a wing of the Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club on Collins Avenue in Surfside, inside the clubhouse that tire magnate Harvey Firestone opened on New Year's Eve 1930 after spotting the stretch of beach from his yacht. Thomas Keller, the chef behind The French Laundry and Per Se, chose this storied address for his first restaurant in Florida, building a menu of classic Continental cuisine around the club's golden-age reputation for good times and grand parties. It holds one MICHELIN Star. The room trades the tasting-menu choreography of Keller's other houses for something warmer: tableside Caesar salad, a trolley of French onion dip, and a kitchen that treats Beef Wellington and Dover sole as events rather than archaisms. Diners who remember the old Surf Club's reputation for black-tie boxing nights and poolside fashion shows will recognise the mood immediately, even if the clientele now arrives by valet rather than membership card.

01The room and the setting

The building itself is the first course. Architect Russell Pancoast designed the original clubhouse for Firestone and a group of Miami Beach pioneers, and the club opened its doors on New Year's Eve 1930 on more than six acres of oceanfront land. Through the decades its members and guests included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Elizabeth Taylor, Noël Coward and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and in 1946 Winston Churchill spent his visit painting seascapes from a cabana by the pool. The club closed as membership dwindled and was bought by developer Nadim Ashi's Fort Partners in 2012, reopening as the Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club in March 2017 after a renovation that stripped away later additions to reveal Pancoast's original Mediterranean Revival detailing.

Keller's restaurant, designed by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, sits to the right of the hotel's main foyer and keeps the clubhouse's low ceilings, wood-panelled walls and arched glass doors intact. The room runs to blue and coral hues, art deco-inspired chandeliers, a beaded ceiling and terrazzo floors, with a trompe l'oeil mural standing in for the ocean views outside, and leather banquettes and mirrored glass softening the formality. A planted outdoor terrace extends the dining room into the Miami air, and a vintage-styled bar and lounge opens directly onto the space rather than sitting apart from it.

02The chef

Thomas Keller is the first and only American-born chef to hold multiple three-star ratings from the MICHELIN Guide, and the first American male chef made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour. He spent his childhood partly in Florida, and after more than five years developing recipes, he opened the Surf Club Restaurant as his first venture in the state, built to honour the location's history of good times rather than replicate the formality of The French Laundry.

Insider tip

Dinner only, reservations via Resy or phone; valet parking at the Four Seasons entrance.

Day-to-day leadership runs through Chef de Cuisine Daniel Donado, who joined Keller's team in 2020 as a Chef de Partie and rose to Executive Sous Chef before taking on the kitchen; he was previously a Chef de Partie at The Bazaar by José Andrés in Miami Beach. General Manager George Totari leads the dining room in close collaboration with Donado, having previously run Cranes Spanish Kaiseki in Washington, D.C. Pastry Chef Nii-Ayi Evans oversees all desserts, bread and viennoiserie served in the room.

03The cooking

The kitchen works in Continental cuisine grounded in European technique, presented, as the restaurant puts it, in a carefully choreographed fashion using the freshest ingredients. Rather than a tasting menu, guests order à la carte from a roster built around tableside theatre: a Classic Caesar Salad dressed at the table, a raw bar built on oysters and crudo, and a caviar programme centred on Regiis Ova, the caviar house Keller co-founded with Shaoching Bishop in 2017, served here with traditional garnishes or as part of a petit plateau alongside oysters and prawn cocktail.

04What to order

Signature dishes read like a catalogue of American club-dining classics: the True Ribeye™ Steak, Beef Wellington reworked as a Prime Beef Short Rib Wellington finished with sauce Périgourdine, Roasted Chicken for Two, Avocado Louie and Maine Lobster Thermidor sit alongside a Dover Sole Meunière flown in from the coast of Brittany and carved for two. The pasta list runs to a black-truffle Fettuccine Alfredo and an all-day braised beef and forest mushroom lasagne, while dessert closes on the restaurant's Lemon Meringue Tart and Coconut Cake, both named among its signature plates since opening.

05Wine and drinks

The beverage programme was designed by Michel Couvreux, Beverage Director across Keller's casual and fine-dining restaurants, and leans on an extensive list spanning old-world and new-world regions, built to sit comfortably against Continental cooking. In a nod to the original club's cocktail culture, the bar also pours signature libations inspired by the Surf Club's mid-century heyday, served alongside classic bar snacks such as marinated olives and deviled eggs.

06When to go and booking

Dinner is served Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 5.30pm to 9.30pm, and Thursday to Saturday from 5.30pm to 10pm, with reservations taken through Resy or by phone. The restaurant also runs a dedicated brunch and holiday menus, including a Thanksgiving service, through the Four Seasons' events calendar.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.