Bar Q, the Village's New Asian Barbecue Restaurant

Chef Anita Lo, whose intimate and sophisticated Barrow Street restaurant Annisa has been a hit for years, has now opened a bigger venture in the West Village. It’s a 120-seat Asian barbecue restaurant called Bar Q, which specializes in dishes like baby back ribs made with Lo’s mother’s “special sauce.”

In an interview last February, Lo said she’s been thinking about opening an Asian barbecue restaurant for at least six years, in part because her mother went to school in Tennessee, “and I’ve always noticed the parallels between southern cuisine and Chinese cuisine.”

Lo's sleek new restaurant features a glass greenhouse in the back for year-round garden enjoyment, as well as dining in the main room and the bar. As this photo shows, the design is ultra white, and Lo would be wise to send out her rib entrees with a generous side of wet-naps. The menu includes unagi and seaweed fritters, lobster spring rolls, grilled tuna ribs with yuzu kosho and a raw bar with sashimi, which high rollers can wash down with swigs from a $150 bottle of Ruinart Blanc de Blancs Champagne. 308-310 Bleecker Street (Grove Street), (212) 206-7817.

Photo of Bar Q courtesy Ryan Charles.