Dish

Catches of the Day

The creators of Oya (777 Ninth St. NW; 202-393-1400) in Penn Quarter are adding some new ventures to their portfolio, both featuring fish.

The biggest project, at 901 Ninth St. NW, will feature modern French cooking with an emphasis on seafood. Ray, scheduled for an April launch, will replace the long-shuttered Pearl restaurant. Oya culinary director Jonathan Seningen,30, who previously cooked at the nearby Le Paradou, will write the menu, which is expected to include a "raw bar" of uncooked vegetable, fish and meat dishes, including duck tartare with black walnut vinaigrette and veal carpaccio with rhubarb sauce. Seningen says the "local, healthy and fresh" concept is his way of participating in the green movement.

The focal point of the dining room will be a 100-foot-long aquarium, visible from the street and stocked with stingrays, according to Oya co-owner Nancy Koide. Those fish, she notes, will appear only as animated decoration, "not on the menu."

Also in the works is Sei (pronounced "say"), a small sushi restaurant to be located at 444 Seventh St. NW, near the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Lansburgh Theatre. Sei will be headed by Noriaki Yasutake, whose handiwork graces the sushi menu at Perry's in Adams Morgan (and before that, Matuba in Bethesda).

Expected to open in January, Sei will resolve a problem Koide says she's had for too long in the neighborhood, by offering its sushi for carryout.

-- Tom Sietsema