Fishbowl, that hip "Sixties pan-Asian" noodle-wok-sushi works that subsumed the lounge once soldered to AquaKnox, the posh sea-flesh parlor created by chef Stephan Pyles and Michael Cox, has now swallowed AquaKnox itself. Whole. AquaKnox owner Carlson Restaurants Worldwide shuttered the restaurant earlier this month and is in the process of transforming it into "zen den at Fishbowl." Indeed, a sign on the door reads "calling all Geisha girls, ninja warriors and happy Buddhas" and concludes with the call, "Make me one with everything," which perhaps is another way of saying AquaKnox wasn't generating enough cash flow, so they decided to give it one name to save on menu printing costs. "Fishbowl is so lively and fun that people gravitated toward that," says a Carlson spokeswoman, explaining the transformation. "So they just decided to expand it." Zen den will have the same menu as Fishbowl but with larger tables. Reservations will also be taken on both sides. Zen den will open April 6 after extensive interior renovations. Maybe they'll serve ice cream koans.
After steering the stove for just a few months, former Salve! chef Sharon Hage is uncoupling from her post at Hotel St. Germain at the end of this month. Hage purchased the venerable York St. restaurant from longtime owner Felissa Shaw and plans to keep the name while she tweaks the place, at least for a while. But tweaking shouldn't take too long. The dining room only has 42 seats. "I counted them before I wrote the check," she says. Hage, who says she's yearned for her own restaurant, is diving into York St. solo and says she should have it open with her own cuisine by June. What kind of cuisine? "It's not going to be a sushi bar or anything like that," she pledges. "It won't be global. It'll be a little bit of everything, but I don't want to say global." Don't say fusion either...Joel Lebovitz, owner of the Thomas Avenue Beverage Company, says he's finalizing plans to launch a sister restaurant across the street from TABC in a circa 1940s building that most recently housed a barber shop and a car detailer. Lebovitz says it'll be a small neighborhood restaurant serving upscale New American cuisine. Look for the as yet unnamed restaurant to open sometime next summer...The Dallas restaurant community was deeply saddened by the loss of Dallas Morning News restaurant critic Suzanne Hough. Hough died early last week of kidney failure after being hospitalized for roughly two weeks. She was 46. Hough wrote for D magazine before contributing restaurant reviews to the News and was also editor of the Zagat Dallas-Fort Worth Restaurant Survey.
