SLICE OF LIFE: Al Paris readies his new venture, Mantra, on Rittenhouse Square. "You have to leave your feelers out—in cooking, in design," says Paris.

Certainly, these digits don't look like the manicured hands of a chef of his stature, a guy who helped build Philly's restaubar scene. Paris, 48, has been part of Striped Bass and Pomodoro for Neil Stein, was co-owner and chef at Rococo, Circa and Guru with Philippe Daouphars, and partnered with the Bynums for Zanzibar Blue, The Sound of Philadelphia (TSOP) and Warmdaddy's.

But he didn't build those spots. Not like he's doing with Mantra, fitting it out from stem to stern, designing it, configuring its walls, making its furniture. From painting the foyer Tibetan red with skeletal Thai bo leaves shellacked onto the surface, to placing delicate iridized glass beads into banisters and cutting rare tile and glass for mosaics, every bit of this Mantra is his.

The 100-year-old postcards he had blown up and made into canvas paintings? His.

The single trees sliced to create cabinets and tables? He cut the wood.

"When a designer translates your work, it's their interpretation," says Paris, a painter and sculptor. "I waited my whole life to have my own place."

He waited too long to let that happen.

That he will be doing Pan-Asian food was no shock. Losing the also-Asian Guru has been the bane of his existence. "That was my baby," says Paris. So Mantra is ripe with Paris' Asian-inspired flavors -- peppered sake Kumamoto oysters, ponzu-marinated tuna, garlic drunken sailor mussels. Paris loves mussels.

But that he was going to do all the construction by himself? Well, his hands tell that story.

He's made fish tanks from old streetlamps. Formed plaster wave walls from reinforced gypsum. Fashioned a simple votive candle display to make a part of Mantra resemble a rich devotional teahouse.

And three months after taking the lease at the South 18th Street address, Paris is nearly done (he hopes to open Mantra within a week)—all this in between driving his van on weekends to TSOP at The Quarter at the Tropicana in Atlantic City and readying the next Growth Evolution (the Bynum brothers company for which he is executive corporate chef, developing culinary programs) space at the Riverview complex: the new Warmdaddy's. "That's going to have great legs," says Paris of the blues club relocated from Old City to include a bigger world music program, grander menu and easier parking. "We like places where music is one more layer," says Paris of ZB, Warmdaddy's and Mantra, "where you can move your elbows when you eat and feel the energy."

Hard to believe that Paris has any enthusiasm left for anything not Mantra. But he's a man generous of spirit. Decades of studying Buddhism and Eastern philosophies (a dog-eared copy of Alan Watts' Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown is on the bar he fashioned from boule-cut layers of 300-year-old black walnut and butternut) as well as those 11 years of kung fu helped.

When asked why he hasn't gone solo sooner, Paris says, "Eeeeey, we were busy."

"When I did this, I knew I wanted to be on [Rittenhouse] Square, yet have less than 200 seats." He remembered Neil Stein's Fishmarket—a Federal-style box that resembled both a gingerbread house and a pirate ship from the front. And it was Stein who brought the Germantown-born Paris back from San Fran to open Pomodoro in 1990. (Stein is also godfather to Paris' daughter.) Stein even wanted Paris to take over the Market a few years ago. "Before Neil went on "vacation,' he gave me his blessing. That's good karma."

"Building out your own thing is a logical extension to and for anyone who cooks," says Paris. "When you become a chef, you're not just a mechanic or engineer—you're designing. On a very base level, you understand the ingredients. And they become your repertoire."

Like he does to the ingredients that form Mantra's menu—Bengal spiced lamb, tamarind glazed duck—Paris spoke to the restaurant's building materials. "The material told me how it wanted to be used." It's the same thing you see running through nature; the pattern of wood, the pattern on the fish he uses to make his samurai shiso-spiced salmon.

"You have to leave your feelers out—in cooking, in design." And to his deep satisfaction, the layers of music, staff and an affordable daring menu of umeboshi clams, Maine lobster kamikaze sprinkled with masago dust and such come together to stimulate everyone who walks through Mantra's doors.

"I want to soothe people, to energize them," says Paris. "You can make a very human statement by doing such. That's what a restaurateur is—a restorer."

Mantra, 122 S. 18th St., 215-988-1211.