The Lan Kwai Fong Restaurant Group is going into partnership with Group 97 on the latter's Park 97 in Shanghai, and has taken over management of the club. Park 97 remains open while the interior design, sound system and kitchens are undergoing renovation. Three of the Lan Kwai Fong Restaurant Group's popular restaurants - Baci, Tokio Joe and California - will have branches at the club, according to the group's spokeswoman, Josephine Lawrence, and 'they won't be carbon copies' of the restaurants here.
Paul Fung, ex-chef of the Island Seafood & Oyster Bar in Causeway Bay, is now director of his own restaurant. The Belon Seafood & Oyster Bar had its grand opening on Monday, at G/F, 20 Pak Sha Road, Causeway Bay. The cuisine is French, with emphasis on seafood and oysters. Reservations on 2915 0505.
The short-lived Tribeca Bar and Restaurant at 38-44 D'Aguilar Street has closed, and will re-open as Buddha Thai Restaurant and Bar. Grant Baird, group director of operations for the Epicurean Group, says the new restaurant will serve authentic Thai food, cooked and served by an all-Thai staff. The chef will be Somsak Cutoapan, formerly in residence at the Aberdeen Marina Club. They're planning on keeping prices 'medium to low', with lunch tabs ringing in under $100. The restaurant is scheduled to open this month.
Another of the group's restaurant, Le Bistrot de Paris, on On Lan Street in Central, now has a kitchen under the direction of chef de cuisine Darren Johnson and executive chef Paul Wong. The two have created new menus: dishes include skate wings cooked in clarified butter with garlic custard, pan-fried truffled sea scallops on a warm vichyssoise salad with sea urchin sauce, and oven-baked fresh Atlantic salmon trussed with anchovy fillets. The restaurant now has a wine bar on the ground floor, serving more than 20 wines by the glass. Tel: 2869 1132.
The tiny Knutsford Terrace in Tsim Sha Tsui, which already has Italian with Tutto Bene and Pappa Razzi, and Spanish with El Cid, will soon be the new home of several restaurants, all opening at #10. Island Seafood & Oyster Bar - a branch of the original restaurant in Causeway Bay's Fashion Walk - has opened on the ground floor (Tel: 2312 6663), with dishes like those above and right. A Touch Of Spice serves up Vietnamese and Thai on the first floor (2312 1118). Soon to open are Balalaika Russian Restaurant, and Xian Wine Cigar Restaurant.
Thai restaurant Supatra's, which moved from D'Aguilar Street, to make way for Benissimo, into Ice House Street, will close for renovation early this month. It will re-open as an expanded version, on two floors of the building. Work should take four to six weeks.
