Little Fish chef/owner Mike Stollenwerk says September 8 is the tentative opening date for Fish, his new liquor-licensed restaurant that’ll take over the old Astral Plane space at 1708 Lombard.

The restaurant, which Stollenwerk and Co. are completely redoing inside save for the hardwood floors, will feature about 45 seats and a 10-seat bar.

The menu here will be quite different from Stollenwerk’s beloved Catharine Street BYO — instead of starters and entrées, items will be split into the specific categories of “raw,” “cold,” “hot” and “sweet.” Raw selections won’t be quite as extensive as a full oyster bar’s, but they’ll have plenty of choices on the half shell from both coasts. (Pay per oyster, not per half dozen.) Cold choices will include house-crafted specialties they’re unable to do at Little Fish due to space constraints — think octopus carpaccio and hiramasa prosciutto. The hot selections will be just like the large plates at Little Fish. “Sweet,” of course, will be dessert.

Perhaps the biggest boon for Fish will be its liquor license — they’ll have a large wine list, with plenty of by-the-glass choices (a focus on Cali whites and sparklings, as Stollenwerk has a lot of contacts out there), a beer list and a small specialty cocktail selection with seafood-friendly tipples like a cucumber martini.

Stollenwerk adds that the teeny Little Fish will be taken over by its current sous chef, Chad Jenkins, but “nothing’s going to change.” That includes the insanely popular $28 Sunday prix-fixe, for which they’re booked through October. Fish won’t be doing that deal, but there are plans for a three-course early-bird dinner menu as well as Sunday brunch.

Chef Mike Stollenwerk talks Fish

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Openings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.