John Tesar Sets His Sights on Memphis & North Carolina

Spoon Bar & Kitchen chef John Tesar certainly has his hands full these days. Besides preparing to open modern steakhouse Knife at the Hotel Palomar in conjunction with investor Beringer Harvard and hotel group Kimpton, as well as working on fast-casual seafood concepts for Chanticleer Holdings, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based group that is currently closing a deal to acquire Spoon, the Dallas Morning News Biz Beat Blog revealed today that Tesar also "has deals to open hotel restaurants in Memphis and on the North Carolina coast" (deals unrelated to his current projects with Chanticleer or Kimpton).

When reached for comment, Tesar explained that he has formed his own company to develop restaurants called, simply, Tesar Restaurant Group. The planned projects that Biz Beat Blog mentioned will be an additional Knife location at a Memphis hotel in a landmark building "right on the Mississippi" that was once an ice factory, and another Spoon or other seafood concept at a coastal North Carolina hotel attached to a convention center outside Wilmington. Both hotels are being developed by an unnamed New York real estate group.

In other Tesar news, he says he's just signed the contract for his upcoming cookbook, Seafood Without An Ocean, which will be co-written by a former editor for Simon & Schuster. The chef says he has signed with InkWell Management, a New York-based literary agency that also represents authors Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert, and, closer to home, Daniel Vaughn.

· Chef Tesar's Sale of Spoon Expected to Close Today; More Deals Are in The Works [Biz Beat Blog]
· John Tesar Says Knife at Hotel Palomar Will Be The Spoon of Steakhouses [-EDFW-]
· Spoon Bar & Kitchen is Selling, But What Does it Mean? [-EDFW-]
· All John Tesar coverage [-EDFW-]

[Photo: Margo Sivin/EDFW]