A new restaurant with room for nearly 300 people has opened inside the newly renovated clubhouse at Lakeshore Yacht & Country Club in Cicero, bringing Italian-Mediterranean cooking and sweeping views of Oneida Lake to the Onondaga County suburb. The restaurant, called Azura, seats close to 200 people in its main dining room alone and has two bars spread across the property.
According to syracuse.com, Azura is run by partners Jose Avalos-Rios and Alejandro Gonzalez, who are two of the four partners behind Inka’s and Margarita’s restaurants. Day-to-day operations are handled by Andrew McDermott and Sebastian Ramirez, the outlet reports. Building owner Guy Hart said the clubhouse renovation that made room for the restaurant cost about $500,000.
Gonzalez told the outlet the restaurant’s name, Azura, refers to the sky-blue look of Oneida Lake itself, the water the dining room now overlooks. The menu leans into Italian-Mediterranean dishes helmed by a chef from Rome, Italy, with signature plates that include rigatoni with vodka sauce, handmade ravioli and sea bass, per the same report. Gonzalez said the team tested the menu and felt it suited community preferences before settling on the final lineup.
From Private Club Meals to a Public Dining Room
Azura didn’t open its doors to just anyone right away. For several months, Gonzalez said, the restaurant served only members of the country club before opening to the general public on November 3. During that period, members tested dishes and gave feedback before the public opening.
Now that it's open to everyone, Azura runs noon to 9 p.m. on weekdays and stretches to 10 p.m. on weekends, the report notes. The seating capacity tops out at 300 people across the full space, which includes the main dining room and the two bars.
A Shifting Vision for the Lakefront Project
The restaurant's concept looks different than what was originally described. Back in January, Avalos-Rios told syracuse.com that the partners planned a spring opening with a blend of American/Fusion-style food, including seafood and ceviche on the menu. The restaurant that ultimately opened this month instead specializes in Italian-Mediterranean dishes, and the dossier does not explain what prompted the change in direction.
That earlier January report also framed the clubhouse restaurant as an early first step in redeveloping the country club and golf course into an upscale community on the shores of Oneida Lake. Hart told the outlet at the time that construction on the housing portion of that broader development would likely not begin until 2027.
Shops and Apartments Still to Come, Owner Says
Hart said he plans to add shops and apartments to the property down the road, and that he's working with two multifamily housing groups to construct the apartments, according to syracuse.com's latest report. No timeline for those additional phases has been confirmed.
The scale of that broader vision has drawn local pushback before. A Change.org petition opposing what it calls the Lakeshore Villages project cites a 2022 town board meeting at which, according to the petition's account, organizers described plans for 200 single-family homes and townhomes along with roughly 400 apartments and condos. The petition argues the development would worsen an already strained local road network, stating that “this build would be catastrophic to an already highly congested traffic system.” That petition's figures reflect its own account of the meeting rather than a verified town record.
For now, the clubhouse's transformation into Azura stands as the most tangible sign of change at the lakefront property, with diners able to pull up a seat overlooking Oneida Lake after several months of member-only service.
