It's been well over two years that we've known about the approach of chef Brandon Jew's ambitious Chinatown project, named for the more proper spelling of his ancestral name, Mister Jiu's. As Eater reports, the renovation of the former Four Seas space at 731 Grant Street has taken longer than planned, and Jew is now aiming for an early 2016 opening after crowdsourcing some final opening expenses via Kickstarter.

Jew, who grew up in SF and used to go to Chinatown often with his grandmother to shop, is looking to redefine people's idea of modern Chinese cuisine and highlight Chinese dishes and ingredients for their subtleties, using fresh local produce and high quality meat. He later went on to become the opening chef at Bar Agricole, earning many accolades in the process, and this solo project has been in the works ever since he left the kitchen there — marking a shift away from the Cal-Mediterranean cuisine he was known for and turning back to his roots.

At Mister Jiu's he will be keeping with the tradition of Chinese banquet-style menus, offering eight banquet courses based on different styles of dishes — rather than traditional groupings that went by fish, poultry, etc.

He tells Eater that he's made some hires already and is fine-tuning the menu — which had a bit of a preview of sorts last February via a pop-up at Central Kitchen. And, ideally, he still needs to raise another $200,000 from investors to complete the project.

We'll update you as soon as an opening date is announced.

Previously: The 13 Most Exciting Restaurants Arriving In 2015 (spoiler: It's not making it before the end of 2015)