When a rumor comes home to roost, it’s nearly as satisfying as a perfect cup of miso soup. For many a month, Restaurantarama has been hearing these whispers: Sushi this, Blue Light Grill that. It made perfect sense to us that Coran Capshaw’s restaurant empire, which is already six properties strong, would expand before too long, and the idea of a second-floor eatery above Blue Light seemed plausible enough. But we couldn’t get Capshaw’s restaurant director, Michael Keaveny, to spill the beans (cue movie-trailer voice)… until now.
Keaveny: “The name will be Ten.”
Oooh, we like it!
Ten, Keaveny explains, is not the number of fingers used to roll nori; it’s a Japanese word meaning “celebration,” “heaven,” or “in the sky.” (Get it? It’s going to be on the second floor!) Ten will also be a “contemporary Japanese restaurant and sushi bar” that marries traditional Japanese food with modern presentation and (to judge from some architects’ drawings we got a peek at) very sleek décor. Tall upholstered booths and subtle colors will be a counterpoint to natural elements like bamboo, and possibly a traditional bar-top made from a huge slab of untrimmed wood.
Keaveny sounds positively bubbly about the chef he’s hired to captain Ten: Bryan Emperor, whose last name seems rather apropos. Emperor’s last gig was opening a Japanese restaurant in China, which was “very highly acclaimed,” according to Keaveny. “Bryan is extremely educated on Japanese food,” he says. “It’s just amazing the knowledge he has.” We like thinking of Emperor’s resumé as one of those jokey bumper stickers: “New York. Tokyo. Beijing. Charlottesville.” The chef has already established contact with local growers—in fact, there’s actually some edamame being locally grown, specifically for Ten, as we speak. How very… New York.
As is customary in Japan, the dining experience at Ten will be two-tiered: prepared food first, then sushi. “We just started doing some tastings. The first one went really well,” says Keaveny, with gusto. (All right, we admit it: We kind of want his job.) The fish will be flown in daily from all over creation for maximum freshness. And the shared-plate concept that seems to be taking the restaurant scene by storm—think Mas and Bang—will be in evidence, too.
All in all, our appetite for rumor has, for now, been sated (unlike our hunger for tempura). But the lofty new place will be open later this summer—perhaps in August, Keaveny says—so we’ll bide our time until Ten. Er, then.
Hot, hot, hot
Back in April, we brought you news of X, the urban-style lounge coming online in the Glass Building on Second Street. The opening date at that time was set for late May, but it’s nearly July and X still looks like a work in progress, with a white tent out front attempting to corral construction debris. On the morning of June 19, the scene got even more chaotic when a pile of oil-soaked rags left in the space overnight spontaneously combusted.
Several gigantic fire trucks later, all is well, says X spokesman J.F. Legault (who also manages the Clifton Inn). “We’re in a little state of chaos now in terms of cleaning,” he explains, but X is “still looking alive for a late June opening.”
Never leave oil-soaked rags in a pile overnight, y’all. And never underestimate the weird mishaps that can push a restaurant’s opening date back. And back. And…
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