Through thick, clear glass that’s part of the floor in the main dining room at Chinese Laundry, customers will be able to look down into a 10-seat, private room with a VIP entrance, leather walls and a 10-foot table with a custom-made top, featuring what owner John Elkhay recently referred to as a “tastefully-undressed” Asian woman.
The price for eating in the private room isn’t set yet, although there will definitely be a food-and-drink minimum accompanied by an Omakase menu, with seasonal selections of seven- to 12-course Asian meals, says Elkhay of his newest restaurant, slated to open its doors on North Main Street in Providence next month.
Elkhay, the 49-year-old owner of Providence hot spots Big Fish, 10 Prime Steak & Sushi, Citron and XO Steakhouse, has high hopes for his newest restaurant. The 1977 graduate of Johnson & Wales University wouldn’t say just how much his Chow Fun Food Group has invested in the restaurant, but Elkhay did say that “by square foot, it’s the largest financial commitment we’ve made” in Providence.
The restaurant, which will offer Asian fare, also has been a long time in coming.
It has taken five years of planning and construction to open Chinese Laundry – named for the former Chinese laundry in the building. Aside from satisfying permitting demands and developing an intricate design – custom-leather upholstering, walls with hand-painted designs, bamboo-inlayed tables – the construction team hit an underwater spring when they were digging into the basement floor – making it necessary for Elkhay to install a complex water pump and backup generator.
The eatery will be the smallest of Elkhay’s restaurants. “We only have a 600-square-foot footprint building and we wanted to do something unique with it,” he said.
Chinese Laundry will be split into sections. On the first floor are the eight-stool bar area and the 14-seat dining room. Upstairs, there will be seating for 32, including the “Oh Ultra Lounge” with a glass-panel wall overlooking a Zen garden and video monitor – playing mostly Japanese Noodle Westerns and cartoons.
The kitchen, with a diagonal width of about 9 feet, is barely large enough for the sushi and executive chefs, said Corporate Executive Chef Nick Rabar, who has worked with Elkhay for the last five years.
“Obviously, the size of the kitchen fits the size of the restaurant,” he said. “But, next door, XO’s is about quadruple the size.”
A graduate of New York’s Culinary Institute of America, Rabar said that in designing the menu for Chinese Laundry, he and Elkhay are creating something “as authentically Asian as it can be.”
He cited as examples organic poultry and homemade noodles and soy sauce. Much of the menu will be pieced together from what’s available at smaller local markets, he said. And that’s not a gimmick, “it’s the way the world is moving,” he said. “The food is unaltered, so you can taste it in its purest state.”
With such a small kitchen and dining room, after-dinner coffee might be left off the menu. The restaurant might not serve dessert, Elkhay said, because “if you can’t offer coffee or espresso, you can’t have one without the other.”
But Elkhay’s XO – the adjacent storefront – offers dessert, he said. The opening of Chinese Laundry will add another choice to a block that’s already packed with restaurants – including Olives and Mills Tavern – but Elkhay said that won’t be a problem.
“If you look at Federal Hill, one day there was one restaurant,” Elkhay said. “Then the next day there were two, then there were 20.” •
