Iron Men

Stephen Starr, Chef Masaharu Morimoto and designer Karim Rashid finally open up shop.



Starr attraction: Inside the newly opened Morimoto, designed by UArt’s Karim Rashid. photo: Scott Weiner

Drama.

Restaurateur Stephen Starr craves it so much that even mentioning it in describing his restaurants seems redundant.

The Japanese pop of Pod, the Orangina of Tangerine, Buddakan’s operatic serenity, the mojito moody Alma de Cuba, the Franco frilliness of L’Ange Bleu, are all opulently appointed for maximum theatricality.

In contrast, his new Japanese fusion locale Morimoto, scheduled to open Nov. 13, seems, at first, less theatrical. This is surprising, what with an estimated cost of $2.5 million, a design by Karim Rashid, a University of the Arts interior design prof known for revolutionary furnishings and collaborations with Issey Miyake, and the long planning process between Starr and the restaurant’s namesake, Food Network star Masaharu Morimoto, best known as one of Japan’s Iron Chefs. The Hiroshima-born king of the "Kitchen Stadium" is both culinary wizard and gladiator, wielding specially designed knives as Charlton Heston would a sword. Morimoto, 46, chose Philly for his debut venture after meeting Stephen Starr two years ago to begin discussions.

The restaurant’s facade at 723 Chestnut St. (next to Seven Mountains Spirit Fist Kung Fu studio) may add to its sense of calm. It’s a simple slope, a concrete wave of eggshell white. The color is carried through Morimoto’s long narrow hall in an undulating wave of hand-done plaster, through a low entryway of floor-to-ceiling glazed, carbonized, wide-slat bamboo.

What seems like a center-isle maze of smoky-violet, cut-glass booths and bright-olive tabletops is, instead, an algebraic grid of hollow units from which inlaid light fixtures emanate different shades. The 24-feet-wide dining area shares these colors and textures, with white leather seats with black leather sides and phallic-shaped tabletop lights. A VIP balcony bar overlooks a large square sushi/raw bar bearing the restaurant’s flag.

"Stephen’s probably the most design-savvy restaurateur in North America, a most progressive man" says Rashid from his Manhattan offices. Despite that, the iconoclastic designer was given free reign to design Morimoto his own way ("That made Stephen very nervous," he laughs), even as far as having a say in locales. Having done much work in Tokyo, Rashid understood immediately the duo’s idea of taking a modernist look at tradition. "I selected the more difficult of the spaces — the long, narrow one — both as a challenge to me and because of the majesty of it all," says Rashid of the 200-feet-deep, 22-feet-wide space he had originally designed to be named Oiishi (Japanese for delicious). The design Rashid implemented into this rectilinear space was meant to blossom out without shifting from its natural grid. Rashid then placed grid onto grid with the perfectly aligned symmetry of Morimoto’s center seating, and then shaped the rest around it in an Arpian circular flow. "It’s a juxtaposition, really," Rashid says. "Organic-seeming walls and ceilings made of natural materials shaped by a digital aesthetic that flow softly around a mathematical center of hollow glass, which has its own way of speaking." Rashid ties the translucent quality of glass and forged nature of plasters and woods to the tertiary quality of the space. "I wanted to help allow Morimoto’s cuisine to inspire what I’d like to feel from the ambience of a space. I didn’t want theater." Add to this his seamless light sources atop each table — "candles are such a cheat," he says — and what you get is Lite-Brite reality.

All this makes Morimoto the most elegantly neutral, organically envisioned restaurant in town, a far cry from Starr’s more noticeably theatrical ventures.

Perhaps I speak too soon.

On the evening I arrive, a full working menu has yet to be finished. The raw bar will soon fill with clams the size of human heads, crab claws the size of octopus tentacles, rare Atlantic bluefin tuna (about $14,000 for a 300 pounder), toro (or tuna belly; nearly the same cost, to say nothing of $10,000 spent for a freezer that chills to 112 degrees below zero) and other exotic fishes for the saucy dish named "Morimoto Sashimi." Then there’s Morimoto’s presentation for items like Yose Dofu, a hot tofu tableside dish where servers bring heavy Nabe earthenware to the table, add warm tofu milk and seaweed reduction, stir, wait, then stir in grated wasabi, cover and wait again until another server brings hot crab ankake sauce to top the dish off. There’s also a wooden wishing well sampler of blowfish and sea urchins with fresh orchids, and Drunken Shrimp Yopparai, where live shrimp are thrown into sake to get "drunk" and then are thrown into a steamer and served with Thai soy.

Then there’s Morimoto himself. Having been regaled on TV and in print has made him a bit of a diva. He has not liked waiting around while Starr, Rashid and construction workers did their thing. No matter. Such culinary skills, the willingness to tweak Japanese tradition by adding spices of all nations, all with physical flourish — these are things that would make anyone a little Garbo-like.

This evening, Morimoto — a bullish man with long, streaked hair nestled under a pulled-low baseball cap — is in the kitchen mixing an eel sauce, with more accent on eel, less on sauce. This is what he does. He is proud he’s had nothing to do with the design. He laughs about opening Morimoto with Starr in Philly rather than being a small fish in New York.

"Stephen’s a big success. He’d be so with or without me. After Nobu [the SoHo arm of the chain restaurant where Morimoto was formerly head chef] and the dishes I created there, if I opened a restaurant there, they’d say, ‘Isn’t he just copying Nobu?’ [Here] I’d be independent." That liberation extends to the differing dramas he feels each meal should provide to each diner every time. "I want to entertain. Make customers happy. I want people to come back again and again and remember the fun. I want the drama to be there from very start."

Morimoto stops stirring and says, "I don’t think the food is so very necessary," with a playful smirk. It’s the look of a man confident in his ability and the new space that bears his name.

Morimoto, 723 Chestnut St., 215-413 9070.