SUNSET BISTRO: Trio Transforms a Tired Italian Joint

By Nelson Williams

A man walks into a bar looking for work. It’s not the setup of an old joke but the true backstory of Sunset Bistro, Treasure Island’s vibrant new restaurant-lounge.

The man is Thomas Mandzik and the bar he walked into in mid-March was Feola’s, a tired Italian joint off the lobby at the Thunderbird Beach Resort. Feola’s owner, Vadim Mun, an ex-banker who had been working seven days a week as chief cook and bottle washer since buying the ristorante in 2018, quickly realized Mandzik knows hotel restaurants.

For a decade, the Tampa Bay-born Mandzik had cut his teeth and countless steaks as the head chef at The Tradewinds Island Grand Resort on St. Pete Beach. To be top gun, he bolted the nest in 2017 to become the executive chef at the Hilton Bayfront’s Tangerine.

But like millions of others this year, Mandzik found his workplace shuttered due to the pandemic. “I can’t just sit home all day,” he says, “so I took Mun’s offer to bartend.”

Overnight, Mandzik created a list of house drinks, including the Florida Martini, a smoky aperitif with vodka, fresh-squeezed blood orange juice, muddled strawberries, a dash of sea salt, and a splash of gin.

The owner loved the drink, and his bartender’s drive. “I have to solve every problem I come across,” admits Mandzik.

The problem with Feola’s, he notes, was that you can’t throw a garlic knot on the beach without hitting another Italian eatery. Soon the bartender and owner were bonding over their shared dream of transforming the ho-hum ristorante into a hip hotspot.

Mandzik was promoted to general manager and given a delicious decree: Create a serious restaurant with handcrafted Gulf Coast cuisine that segues into a live-music lounge after the sun goes down.

So was Sunset Bistro born. “It was all Thomas,” says Mun modestly of morphing Feola’s into Sunset Bistro. “He knew we want locals and tourists to go home with memories of fine Florida food, not Italian.”

Mandzik populated an initial menu with Gulf Coast favorites and collaborated with Mun and his wife, Nataliya, on a more polished motif.

They dotted the walls with sunset photos and debuted a midnight-blue ceiling flecked with stars and holiday lights. Then they punctuated the sunset theme with yellow leather stools at the U-shaped bar, which overlooks covered al fresco seating and the hotel’s beachfront pool.

About this time, a woman walks into the bar looking for a job. Again, it’s no joke, but how Sunset Bistro found its new chef.

There was no waitress post open, but the applicant mentioned that her husband had trained at the Cordon Bleu Institute of Culinary Arts in Atlanta and needed a place to hang his chef’s hat. And so Matthew Janiak, a young veteran who served three tours in Iraq before getting his culinary degree, came to man the kitchen.

The chef, who earned his chops cooking for a few of Dickie Brennan’s iconic New Orleans restaurants, plans to keep the popular crab-stuffed mushrooms, blackened mahi mahi, crab cakes, and house burger on the menu. (Not to mention the strawberry shortcake, which is the best $4 dessert in town.)

Another holdover is the all-you-can-eat brunch with mimosa for $15 from 8 am till noon on weekends. For $6 more, your breakfast beverage becomes bottomless.Over the next month or so, Janiak will unveil a mostly new bill of Florida fare, peppered by his Big Easy past, featuring rotating specials.

As for the live music, sultry chanteuse Fiona Frensche is already a fixture on Fridays from 6-9 p.m. Her jaunty mashup of pop and bossa nova are so nuanced you’ll find yourself bobbing your head before you realize she’s put a jazzy spin on a Radiohead tune.

Sunset Bistro’s self-assured soft opening proves it is poised to join the Pearl and Middle Grounds among the top the dining destinations in Treasure Island.

Sunset Bistro is located at 10700 Gulf Blvd, Treasure Island, FL 33706 
Menu: places.singleplatform.com
Order: ubereats.com, slicelife.com
Phone: (727) 347-8415