Coast couple that made a big success of White Pillars is rolling out new club and hotel
The place to be Halloween night was inside a hotel and speakeasy that, in another life, was a Gulfport mortuary.
The spooky beginning was a sold out experience and part of the mystique surrounding Siren Social Club and Hotel Vela in downtown Gulfport. The building at 1409 24th Ave. is a short walk to the beach and the Mississippi Aquarium.
Chef Austin Sumrall and his wife Tresse already are very successful as the owners of White Pillars fine dining restaurant at the beach in Biloxi.
Where White Pillars is bright and upscale, Siren Social Club is dark and moody, as its name suggests.
“It’s not the same as White Pillars. It’s a different vibe altogether,” Tresse said.
A long bar shares the intimate Siren dining room and a four-seat chef counter looks into the large kitchen.
“Our goal with the social club was to be kind of loud, fun, sexy,” Tresse said. The same check-in stand for the hotel serves the restaurant. When guests arrive, the door is opened and they get their first taste of the Social Club. The lighting is dim. “You can hear the cocktail shaken. You can smell the food from the kitchen,” she said.
Touches of “poison pink” paint and dark wallpaper give the space a vintage Cuban tropical theme.
A private dining room seats eight in luxury and a patio behind the restaurant will open next year to expand the dining space and provide an amenity for hotel guests.
The restaurant is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5-10 p.m. Reservations can be made online and Chef Austin said they will take walk-ins when space allows.
Drinking and dining
A graduate of Culinary Institute of America and a James Beard semi-finalist for “Best Chef South,” Austin put his creativity into the food and drink menus at the Social Club.
While quite different from White Pillars, the menu at the Social Club stays true to themselves, Austin said.
“We start with where everything comes from, and make sure that it’s the best quality, freshest we could possibly get,” he said.
“We have an emphasis on the raw bar with caviar, and we’ve got four different types of oysters right now,” the chef said. “Then we’re also doing some large, kind of dramatic proteins, little half of a chicken, pork chops, as big as my head. We’re doing a real beef Wellington that’s been challenging, but also very cool, and something that I don’t know that you can get anywhere else.”
The homemade pastas are classic Italian, he said, like ravioli in vodka sauce.
The 16 ounce prime rib eye is something he particularly enjoys, he said, and he put some of Tresse’s favorites on the menu, too.
The drinks from the bar lean toward Tiki, Tresse said, with a full bar and unique cocktails different than any served at the White Pillars.
Boutique hotel shares the history
Hotel Vela, with its 16 guest rooms, shares the 1920s building with the Social Club.
The building was empty for several years before the renovations began. It had an art deco feel, but it now is much more retro style, complete with a poison pink rope light illuminating the marquee front.
The exterior brick wall from the former mortuary and men’s clothing store extends along the entire upstairs and into the guest rooms.
Each of the hotel rooms, accessible by elevator, has a different layout, decorations and quotes from Mississippi celebrities like Jimmy Buffett. Reservations can be booked online.
The architecture of the building, the graphics and design throughout the property, the upscale European menu that also features seafood and unique cocktails and the location in the beach town were chosen and pulled together, the Sumralls said, to create an immersive and memorable experience.
This story was originally published November 1, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
