A venerable restaurateur opens a breezy refuge for fresh fish
There’s something about a new restaurant in a brand-new building. Especially when it’s owned and operated by a pro, because they know exactly what they want it to do and how they want it to look.
There’s no need to retrofit a kitchen. The new kitchen is designed with an eye toward utility, economy of motion and beauty.
If you want a shucking station, you can make it a display with a bit of theater where customers can watch two workers diligently build towers and platters on a canvas of snowy white crushed ice. And then have their uniforms match the tiled walls.
Your can have your bar run the length of the restaurant with windows that open to the patio, and then suspend a polished wooden kayak above it.
You can custom-order platter-sized hand-blown glass flowers that also look like jellyfish in Easter egg colors, then cover an entire wall with them. And you can hang them yourself.
Ash Aziz did that at his latest restaurant, Perla Raw Bar, which opened last October.
And then you can hire someone to cook food that fits this fresh, breezy room filled with striking design elements all in the service of a good time.
That would be Jon Mitchell, who grew up in Chapel Hill and spent summers fishing off the coast of Wilmington and the Outer Banks. After culinary school and time in restaurants in Key West and Charleston, Mitchell is happy to work where he can take advantage of the local seafood that fills the menu and to be able to grow as part of a team.
“What brought me here,” he says, “is that Ash and I have the same ideals of hospitality. And I think a big part of that is integrity and simplicity. I like to call it an elevated simplicity.”
An example of that are the industrial-looking metal seafood towers. Each is set with homemade hot sauce in dropper bottles, a lemon wedge and saltine crackers.
“The thing about working in a restaurant is that you’re part of a team,” he says. “It’s controlled chaos, but we’re all so invested in each other’s success.”
He adds, “My favorite feedback to get from customers is when they say they enjoyed the whole experience. That’s when I know we’re all working together.”
The story was originally published in the Fall 2024 issue.
