Kojo to open up in downtown Sarasota

A new Asian restaurant, featuring the very same ownership as a popular Sarasota-Manatee dining spot, will take 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, reported co-operator Natalia Levey. She is also an owner of Speaks Clam Bar, a New York-type Italian clam bar with Lakewood Ranch and St. Armands Circle locations.
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Levey stated Kojo was encouraged by time she invested in Asia as well as traveling with her spouse, and will include cuisines from throughout the continent in its menu.
“The menu was motivated by the flavors and the components and the uniqueness of Asia,” Levey stated. “It strives to be acquainted and satisfying, but there will be some absolutely special and surprising flavors and dishes as very well.”
Kojo designs to feature entrees this kind of as bacon and shrimp kimchi fried rice and carbonara with guanciale, poached onsen egg and crispy nori, along with common sushi and nori tacos with fillings these as torched salmon teriyaki.
It will also present vegan and vegetarian options as well as starter dishes, together with shiitake mushroom miso soup and rock shrimp tempura.
The restaurant’s beverage director will be David Roth, who has worked in many New York institutions and gained Don Julio’s Star Again competitiveness.
The consume menu is expected to characteristic an emphasis on sake and other Asian touches, such as supplying its take on a Midori sour and incorporating flavors like wasabi.
The restaurant will seat about 160-170 both equally indoors and outdoors, with its inside that includes an open up kitchen area alongside with touches that consist of a decorative moss wall sporting Kojo’s name. It plans to at first open up for dinner services, then expand to lunch several hours in the long run.
Kojo’s Palm Avenue area was previously occupied for many a long time by Tableseide Restaurant Team, which at the moment operates Libby’s Neighborhood Brasserie and Circo: A Taco & Bourbon Joint. Immediately after opening Louies Modern-day there in 2013, it reopened in 2019 as the well being-focused Lemon Tree Kitchen before closing final year amid the pandemic.
Email entertainment reporter Jimmy Geurts at [email protected].