Name a big-name sushi chef from around these parts. Em, uh, well, there's uh. No, I can't really do it, either. I just got off the horn with James DeVito, owner of Taps in Tampa and soon-to-open Raw Bar Sushi (777 N. Ashley, right across the street from the Tampa Museum of Art). A major coup: Naohiro Higuchi has relocated from Miami to open this new hotspot at the beginning of May. Nao most recently served as executive chef at the short-lived Domo in Miami's Design District, before that he was at Nobu in the Bahamas, Restaurant le Pacifique in Monte Carlo and Sushi Samba in Miami Beach.

This new restaurant will have 76 seats for formal dining inside, with another 25 or 30 seats in the lounge (a limited menu) and another 20 to 30 outside. It will be dinner only, Tuesday to Saturday, with latenight bev and food service. The here and now for Nao has been staffing: According to DeVito "there isn't a big sushi labor pool," so the hard part will be to train and retrain a local staff to make more sophisticated Japanese-style sushi.