Kojo to open up in downtown Sarasota
A new Asian restaurant, featuring the same ownership as a popular Sarasota-Manatee dining spot, will consider over a prime location in downtown Sarasota.
Kojo has moved into the 1289 N. Palm Ave. space that formerly housed Lemon Tree Kitchen on Palm Avenue Parking Garage’s ground floor, with hopes to open up by late February, stated co-proprietor Natalia Levey. She is also an operator of Speaks Clam Bar, a New York-design Italian clam bar with Lakewood Ranch and St. Armands Circle locations.
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Levey said Kojo was encouraged by time she put in in Asia as very well as traveling with her partner, and will include cuisines from across the continent in its menu.
“The menu was encouraged by the flavors and the ingredients and the uniqueness of Asia,” Levey stated. “It strives to be acquainted and fulfilling, but there will be some certainly unique and sudden flavors and dishes as well.”
Kojo strategies to feature entrees these kinds of as bacon and shrimp kimchi fried rice and carbonara with guanciale, poached onsen egg and crispy nori, along with regular sushi and nori tacos with fillings such as torched salmon teriyaki.
It will also offer you vegan and vegetarian options as effectively as starter dishes, which includes shiitake mushroom miso soup and rock shrimp tempura.
The restaurant’s beverage director will be David Roth, who has worked in numerous New York institutions and won Don Julio’s Star Again competitors.
The consume menu is envisioned to element an emphasis on sake and other Asian touches, such as presenting its take on a Midori bitter and incorporating flavors like wasabi.
The cafe will seat roughly 160-170 the two indoors and outdoors, with its inside featuring an open up kitchen area alongside with touches that contain a decorative moss wall sporting Kojo’s title. It options to in the beginning open for meal service, then develop to lunch hrs in the long term.
Kojo’s Palm Avenue house was beforehand occupied for several a long time by Tableseide Cafe Group, which at this time operates Libby’s Community Brasserie and Circo: A Taco & Bourbon Joint. Soon after opening Louies Modern day there in 2013, it reopened in 2019 as the health-focused Lemon Tree Kitchen before closing last year amid the pandemic.
E-mail entertainment reporter Jimmy Geurts at [email protected].