Remember how in your last few weeks of high school you caught that whole Senioritis thing hard? Parties and events suddenly seemed lame. The kids who showed up seemed younger and younger and suddenly you found you just weren't that interested anymore. High school had been awesome, sure, and while you were slightly sad to see it go, knowing nothing would be the same again, you were a little too cool and ready to break out and start something new. Maybe even reinvent yourself.
That's a bit like what Nana is going through. On Thursday and Friday the Dallas fine dining institution inside the cavernous Hilton Anatole hosted a couple of farewell events, welcoming longtime friends, corporate stakeholders, stylish celebrities and cuisine-loving well-wishers to say goodbye, and allowing that familiar Senioritis to set in. The events toasted Nana's history and ushered in a reinvention: SĒR.
As we heard back in February, SĒR, pronounced sear, will be reborn from the ashes of Nana and will be a steakhouse concept with a ton of visual, menu and leadership changes.
On Thursday night I spoke with general manager Marc LaRocca, who was super excited about all the changes to the place. He explained that former Nana chef Anthony Bombaci has been promoted to become the executive chef of the Anatole, overseeing everything that has to do with food at the giant convention center hotel, and that former Nana sous chef Anthony Van Camp will be taking on the lead role at SĒR.
As the young and affable Van Camp chatted me up, detailing some of the upcoming changes to the physical space at SĒR, he gestured excitedly while talking about tearing down the walls, selling off the furniture and fixtures and making the place light and bright. "Everything here going to change, except for the view," he said. He is so ready to graduate.
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