New Restaurant from Vuong Loc of Portage has a name, if not a date...yet

"He's butchering," the manager who picked up the phone told me. "Can you call back later?"

"Actually, you might be able to help me out," I said. "I'm just looking for some information on the new restaurant."

"Other than the fact that we have the new restaurant, I don't know if we have any new information for the public."

"A name?" I asked. "An opening date?"

The manager took the phone from his ear and talked to Loc. I heard him ask about the name, the date.

"June," the manager said, coming back to me.

"June, like the month?"

"Yes. The name will be June."

"But not the date."

"No. The date is kind of...up in the air."

"Do you have any idea of what sort of menu Vuong will be doing? What sort of cuisine?"

He pulled his head away from the phone again and I listened in on one side of a muttered conversation. "Vuong says if you can wait ten minutes and call back, he'll be done butchering his veal and can talk to you."

So I did just that--waiting until the appointed moment and putting another call in to the kitchen at Portage--Loc's current restaurant at 2209 Queen Anne Avenue North--where they were just getting ready for the night's dinner service.

"So," I said. "June."

"June, yeah," Loc replied.

"First things first, do you have any idea what you're looking at for an opening date?"

And the short answer to that is...no. Not yet.

Right now, he and his crew are just finishing up the painting and some interior work on the former Cremant space at 1423 34th Avenue in Madrona. They're waiting on liquor licenses, the paperwork. "Basically, as soon as I got the license, I could pull the trigger," he said, saying that he hoped to be open by the end of April, but intimating that he wanted to be open, like, now.

When it does debut, June will be about twice the size of Portage, with double the seating and a private dining room in back. And Loc insisted (more than once) that it's going to be more casual than Portage as well.

"I think Portage is casual," he said. "Kinda casual. But I guess it doesn't come across that way."

As for the menu, it, too, will be bigger and more casual. When I asked about it, Loc said, "Fresh and light. Fresh and light and French-inspired." There were no specifics yet (mostly because he doesn't yet have his kitchen crew entirely in place), but it will follow in the style of Portage, for certain--the traditional French preparations and presentations that Loc knows best. The stuff that he already does every night in his kitchen at Portage, and what he'll be worrying over every night until that brand new liquor license arrives in the mail.

Hopefully someday very soon.