Aquitaine, the six-year-old wine bar and bistro from chef Laurent Manrique in the Financial District, is closing Friday and will be quickly reborn in a new neighborhood uptown, the Castro.
And the space it will be taking looks to be the long-shuttered former Crepevine space — Manrique tells the Chronicle that he signed a lease for an 1,800-square-foot space at "210 Church Street," but that's the address of the apartment building up above. He can only be talking about the Crepevine space at 216 Church, which had been slated earlier this year to become "Gramercy Park" from the guys who owned Cook Shoppe across the street, but we all know how that ended.
Manrique explains that his lease at 175 Sutter Street included a provision that the restaurant would have to close at some point to make way for construction. Now, Manrique says, he's looking forward to serving customers in a new part of town, and he plans to bring all the interior elements from Aquitaine, wholesale, to the new space.
The menu at Aquitaine focuses on classics from the southwest of France, the region of Gascony. In addition to the all-French wine list, with two dozen wines by the glass, Manrique serves things like duck confit, steak frites, and Coquilles St-Jacques.
Look for the new Aquitaine to debut in March.