Life is full of odd coincidences. I was at brunch with friends on Saturday. We were talking about restaurants, as we often do. One mentioned the Fish & The Knife and asked if I'd ever been. I replied that I had not. "Oh, it's just awful," she lamented, "and they have this weird nightclub thing going, too. Don't even bother."
Apparently, my friend is not the only one who was not impressed. Eater Houston found a Yelp review from a woman who had a holiday party scheduled for December. She received a text message from a manager who said she'd have to find a different location for her event because the restaurant is closing.
It took a long time for the restaurant to open in the first place and almost immediately after it actually did open, there was a big controversy over their claims that New York-based restaurant and hotel designer Tony Chi had a hand in the design of the place. Chi was so adamant that his name not be associated with it that he to hire a lawyer to insist that publications retract what Fish & The Knife's managers initially insisted was true.
Even if he didn't have a hand in the design, by all accounts the restaurant was visually stunning. It was even nominated as a "Stone Cold Stunner," Eater's restaurant interior design category, mere days ago. The poll opened on November 14.
Culturemap Houston reached out to Fish &The Knife's manager Brownyn Noyes, who confirmed the restaurant is closing to work on its branding. The article quotes Noyes as saying, the restaurant and nightclub mix was "confusing" to patrons.
What name will Fish & The Knife reopen under, and will it be a club or a restaurant? It will be interesting to see what the ownership decides to do with the space.
