Dish

An edited excerpt from the Going Out Gurus blog (voices.washingtonpost.com

/goingoutgurus):

Great American's going Italian in Fairfax

Patsy's is the name Great American Restaurants is considering for its 11th dining room in Northern Virginia next fall, and for the first time, the locally owned company is looking beyond the United States for inspiration. Italian cooking, including breads and pastas made in-house, will be the focus of the future menu, says Randy Norton, Great American's chief executive.

The 248-seat restaurant is expected to open in September at 11880 Grand Commons Ave. in Fairfax, just a block from Coastal Flats, one of the company's seafood establishments. (The proximity to one of his own restaurants was the primary reason Norton thought that something different, tastewise, was in order.)

The exec likes the double meaning behind the title he's mulling: Patsy is a nickname for Pasquale, and it's also the name of Norton's wife (who has yet to agree to the idea of so much notoriety, he says).

Norton and his team have traveled to Boston, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia to gather ideas for their next project. The restaurateur tells me that the intimate Mercato, a cash-only BYOB eatery in Philadelphia, left an especially strong impression on his group.

Developing an Italian accent isn't the company's only departure from the norm. Great American Restaurants typically hires from within its ranks; for Patsy's, the group is looking outside. "Ideally," says Norton, "we'd like to hire someone soon and get them onboard."

Do I hear the tap-tapping of fingers on keyboards, polishing up résumés?

-- Tom Sietsema