A new, 120-seat restaurant is due to open in Power Plant Live! at the end of this month. It's called Tatu, and it will offer Asian food in a setting that owner Jody Pennette paints as just a toe-tap away from a nightclub.
"There is a DJ," said Pennette, of Greenwich, Conn.-based cb5 Restaurant Group. "It's for toe-tapping and bouncing your head, not putting your fork down and dancing. ... The moment you want to dance, there's a great selection of clubs [outside the restaurant]. We're sort of the primer for that."
Pennette already owns a restaurant by the name of Tatu, at the Seminole Paradise casino in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., developed by Baltimore's Cordish Co. Cordish made Pennette aware of the opportunity to move into a 5,500-square-foot space in the Power Plant. It was previously occupied by Blue Sea Grill, which closed a year ago after five years in business.
There will be three components to the menu, as is the case in Fort Lauderdale: Traditional Chinese, Pan-Asian and Japanese. Here's a link to Tatu's menu.
"Really great, local, greenmarket, heirloom" ingredients will set the food apart from more run-of-the-mill renditions of those cuisines, Pennette said. The Chinese, in particular, will be "a bright, fresh departure from some of the gummy stuff," he said.
Because the Florida Tatu is part of a casino complex, Pennette said, it is "a big shimmering box, 30-foot ceilings, crushed black granite walls. It's a very powerful, dramatic space."
That wasn't going to work in the brick Power Pant, so they opted for a different style. He described it as "a rather provocative Shanghai Deco '30s feel. The interior is plush, almost a bordello, over the top. Very sexy. ... It's intoxicating."
(Bordello? Why do I suddenly feel like I'm back at yesterday's Top Ten? Oh, never mind.)
A pomegranate martini of the sort used to wash down upscale Asian fare at Tatu. Sun file photo