What is ZUNZUN?

THE SINGLE: My wife Becca and I have always wanted to create a place for everyone to come out and have an enjoyable evening with a date, friends, or the people sitting at the table next to you. We wanted a restaurant that didn't feel stuffy that serves quality-driven food and cocktails.

THE E.P.: I've spent 27 years in this industry, mostly in fine dining. Over the years, I’ve seen that fine dining usually means the dining room is quiet, the wait staff are stiff, the chef is angry, the cooks are underpaid, but the food is top quality. 

It took me a long time to realize you don't have to follow these rules—angry chef, rigged service, funeral parlor dining room and underpaid employees. Over time, Becca and I have tried to chisel away at some of that. Why should getting top quality food involve all the negative side effects? I’ve tried to be the chef I would want to work with in the kitchen. I always want our kitchen and restaurant as a whole to be a place where people can continue to learn, just as I want to continue to learn too.

But if Becca and I were going to be the change we want to see in this industry, it was time to put it all on the line. In the late summer of 2023, we decided to close a wildly successful business that we loved, a place we had poured our hearts and souls into, to go about being a force of change.

We had the seed of an idea about what we wanted to create, but how would we make all the pieces fit together to form a complete picture? Sitting on our porch going over and over this new concept, we were constantly bombarded by hummingbirds. Becca has multiple bird feeders and a garden full of flowers that create a smorgasbord of num nums for the little, fast flying zoomers. Watching the birds go back and forth from feeder to feeder at high speeds the idea finally hit us: Sharing and snacks. 

We’d call it Zunzun, after the Caribbean Spanish word for hummingbird that mimics the sound of their flight. The food would be a fun blend of imaginative combinations mixed with classic cooking techniques, with flavors drawn from as wide a range of cultures as a hummingbird’s migration path. We’d offer a mix of small to medium plates and sharing boards, craft cocktails and an extensive whiskey & wine list. 

We wanted a place where a couple could come out on a date night and share multiple dishes, with lots of different flavors, buzzing from flower to flower. We wanted groups of friends to be laughing over crossing forks that fly deftly from plate to plate grabbing one snack and moving to the next. A place where you can come in by yourself after a day of work and try different bites, get a cocktail, hangout, unwind. 

And not least, a place where when someone brings your food or drinks you can ask them anything about it—because they made it. They know what the ingredients are, they know how it's cooked, and what it tastes like. Their hands are the ones involved in the whole process. They receive the delivery of raw ingredients, they prep, they cook, and they deliver to your table. Every member of the team helps make the whole experience happen.

That’s our concept in a nutshell: Keep the quality of the food high and ditch every other dusty part of fine dining from a bygone era.

So come in, have a drink with friends and neighbors, pass the dish down this way, laugh more, dance if you want to. 

You're not going to be here forever before you migrate along. Drink the best drinks. Eat the best food. Laugh, talk and be merry. 

—Chef Matt Adams