Lucky for seafood lovers: Truluck’s returning to Fort Lauderdale, but where exactly?

About three years after shuttering at Fort Lauderdale’s The Galleria mall, the seafood eatery Truluck’s is close to reopening at the Paramount Residences on the beach.

Expected to debut in late October, the new location marks a first for this upscale chain, according to operating partner Todd Perry.

“You know, over 30 years with this concept and this will be our first beachfront location ever,” he says. “Which just seems hard to believe.”

THE NEW LOCATION

The 240-seat restaurant, with an expansive patio just under 4,000 square feet, is ensconced at the condominium building between Vistamar and Belmar streets, next to Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, in a quieter enclave just a few blocks north of the touristy area known as The Strip. The space, at 701 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd., has an unobstructed view of the beach and formerly housed Moréa, a Mediterranean restaurant that had a seven-month run.

“We left our last location in The Galleria as COVID was happening, and we have been looking for the right location in Fort Lauderdale for the last three years,” Perry says. “We just felt like it was the perfect location for our concept of what we do.

“The Paramount is a wonderful residential property, a very high-end, beautiful building. And the residents in The Paramount, I believe, were looking for a concept like ours to complement their building,” adds the Fort Lauderdale resident. “So in our negotiations and conversations with that group, we began to become very comfortable with the fit with The Paramount and the Truluck’s concept and the Truluck’s Group. And that grew into a lot of confidence on our end that we will do very well there and that this will be an enduring location for us.”

THE MENU

The menu is getting a bit of a redo, with the details being worked out at the other South Florida Truluck’s, in downtown Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. The new Fort Lauderdale restaurant will be a taste-test market of sorts for its 11 other locations. (There was once a Truluck’s at Mizner Park in Boca Raton, but it closed in 2018 due to a lease dispute.)

“Our culinary team has been working hard for the last several months on what we think is the addition of the type of items our customers will enjoy in a beachside setting,” Perry says. “We have a beautiful patio, they’re facing the beach, and the chef and his team have worked diligently to produce a lot of shareable plates, small bites, appetizers, tacos, that sort of thing that we think will be a big hit in this location and in our other locations. So Fort Lauderdale’s menu is going to feature several new items that have not yet launched elsewhere.”

Truluck’s reputation for using sustainable sourcing and products from local purveyors in various markets will actually expand, Perry says.

“There’s so much that comes to us locally here in southern Florida, and I’m just thrilled to see that the chef is taking advantage of that and will have a lot of local fare on that menu,” he says. “Our commitment to that sustainability piece and protecting the marine life that provides us with a livelihood has been at the forefront of Truluck’s DNA for quite some time, and I think shopping locally and reducing our carbon footprint all feeds into that commitment.”

Helming the kitchen will be regional chef partner Odel Arencibia, a native of Cuba who after two harrowing attempts to flee the island finally made it to the United States in 1999.

“Chef Odel is, in my opinion, one of the best I’ve worked with in my 30-year career, and certainly one of the best at his trade that I think Truluck’s has ever had the pleasure of employing,” Perry says. “Chef Odel has done a lot in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area. In his short tenure with us, chef Odel has been instrumental in designing some of the new dishes that were rolling (out). A lot of that (research and development) work were really ideas that he brought to the table and perfected in that kitchen in Miami. He’s done a wonderful job for us in Miami building a very talented professional culinary team there, and it’s really paid dividends in a lot of ways.”

Perry says he always learns something new about food from Arencibia.

“He seems to have a story behind everything that he’s done, and one of my favorites that I’ll probably tell until I die is he created a Cubano sandwich for us … and his story about how he learned in Cuba, from an old farmer, how to prepare the pork just right — slow cook, the right temperature, and then put all those ingredients together to get the flavor profile in our true Cuban sandwich — was something that I felt like I had, you know, paid to go see a play about or something.”

The new Truluck’s will also, of course, offer a happy hour seven days a week, from 4 to 6 p.m., with what Perry described as “some very unique craft cocktails as well as wines by the glass that you don’t find just everywhere.”

THE DESIGN

The vibe will also be different with the build-out done by Deerfield Beach’s RCC Associates and the design by Texas-based B. Russo Designs.

“We really are doing things a little differently in today’s world in terms of design,” Perry says. “We met the other day with the folks that build these beautiful interior trees (in the dining room), and so we’re going to have quite the view in the interior of that restaurant. And, of course, it’s floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the patio and the beach.”

Among the changes: No more white linen tablecloths. And, unlike at the former space at The Galleria mall, no more piano lounge.

“In this new location, we’re moving away from the piano bar lounge feel … Now we’re going to have a music curator every night — that’s equivalent to a high-end DJ. So it’ll be a slight change to the feel,” he says. “The bar and lounge will be a central piece of this property. It’ll be what you enter in your sense of arrival.”

He describes the decor as being more modern than longtime customers might be used to.

“We feel like the new design is a little more contemporary … a little brighter than what we’ve done in the past. Some of our restaurants over the last several years have had a darker club feel to them, a country club-type feel to them. This is going to feel much lighter and airier and take in that beautiful view and all the natural light coming through those windows,” he says. “I’m just really excited to see people’s faces when they see the place.”

Truluck’s will open at 701 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. For more information, go to trulucks.com or call 954-908-2255.