My ‘steak snob’ wife and I tried Sully’s for the 1st time. It was a legendary experience.

The Pine Belt steakhouse Sully’s has been open on the Coast for more than a year now and has carried its popularity well from its Hattiesburg roots.

The Gulfport location, the restaurant’s third, is downtown on 13th street near The Rack House and has built up a 4.5 star rating on Google.

Sully’s promises “legendary food” and a lively experience all in the name of 19th century bare-knuckle brawler John L. Sullivan.

The restaurant’s namesake serves as the inspiration for the establishment thanks to Hattiesburg being the location for the last official bare-knuckle fight in 1889, a bout Sullivan won in 75 rounds.

Our trip to Sully’s saw us sit in the bar attached to the restaurant, an aptly named area called Tavern Seventy-Five where we enjoyed live music and Braves baseball on the screens.

For this review I brought along my wife, who is a foodie in the streets and an artist in her own kitchen. A self-described Steak Snob, she’s more qualified than I to judge a place that is regarded so highly for their steaks.

And that’s what she ordered, a 12 oz. New York strip with the legally required side of mashed potatoes. I, a sucker for pasta, had the spicy chicken and andouille pasta with a side of onion rings.

We landed on these items from a menu that offers the full smattering of burgers and seafood to steaks and specialty pastas.

The menu itself does plenty to tout its own food. You’ll learn some of the steaks are procured from a very particular farm in Iowa and that there are zero microwaves involved in any step of the food preparation process.

Also noticeable, the majority of the menu items are fairly priced. The steaks can run high, ranging from around $30 to $65, but the rest of the offerings will make a lighter dent in your wallet than most other steakhouses.

The steak, fair to say, lived up to its billing. My wife does not hand out high praise to just any steak (trust me on this one), but she called her 12 oz. slab with diamond grill marks the “perfect steak.” And it was.

For maybe the first time ever, I witnessed my wife eat a steak without steak sauce and she came away extremely impressed the amount of flavor the cut carried, not to mention the perfectly cooked-to-order center that only added to the presentation.

My pasta was excellent, too. As with many places on the Coast, Sully’s does not short you on portions. Not exactly spicy, but certainly not bland either, the dish was both filling and delicious.

The item that flew under the radar was the little bread roll served with both of our dishes. Making up for the total lack of complimentary bread usually customary at steakhouses, the roll was baked with a touch of honey in every small bite and paired well with our meals.

If you’re looking for a dinner that checks the atmosphere and quality boxes without breaking the bank, consider Sully’s.

I’m convinced if Sully himself came back to taunt beachgoers with his magnificent mustache and pulled-too-high trousers, he’d be proud of the steak-slangin’ establishment.