Sea Changes

I last saw chef Michael Peterson three years ago, when he was still overseeing the kitchen at the ill-fated (doomed, actually) Plaza restaurant-coffeehouse-saloon Segafredo Zanetti Espresso. He all but vanished after that fiasco — I hoped he was writing a novel inspired by his wild experiences there. I didn't hear a word about him until last spring, when it was announced that the Wisconsin-based Teuschler Restaurant Management Group was opening a new seafood grill concept, Trezo Mare, in the new Briarcliff Village shopping district.

Brazil-born Alfredo Teuschler hired Peterson to be the culinary director for his fast-growing restaurant empire. Trezo Mare — "Treasures of the Sea" — is tentatively scheduled to open on November 16.

"The menu will be a world fusion of seafood," said Peterson, who added that the prices won't be cheap, with entrées in the $25 to $45 range. He hasn't created the Trezo Mare menu yet but will give his fans a preview on September 28 at the new Raphael Restaurant in the Raphael Hotel. For more information on that meal, call 816-802-2152.

On a different note, some other players in the restaurant scene are moving around town like scattering fish: Former Grille on Broadway owner Sean Cummings returned from Oklahoma City to take back his old location at 3605 Broadway from Hope Dillon, who had been running Poco's Latin American Grill there for a couple of years. Cummings has already installed a new version of his successful Oklahoma City Boca Boca restaurant in the space.

Dillon's former chef, Lorenza "Poco" Guitterez, is opening her own restaurant in the old Waid's building at 3063 Southwest Boulevard. For her part, Dillon is training servers for the new Japanese restaurant Nara, scheduled to open this month at 17th Street and Main. She told me that she's thinking of getting out of the food-service business — but apparently not until Nara's sushi and saki come out swimmingly.