In one breath, Susanna Foo explains that she is leaving these elegant digs on Walnut Street, closing her eponymous landmark of a dining room - the wellspring of her groundbreaking style of French-Chinese fusion - because she needs to "simplify."

She is vigorous still, at 65. But she was stressed from splitting herself - sometimes it almost seemed literally - between the Center City kitchen and her sleeker, newer (since 2006) Radnor restaurant, which will remain open.

There's another reason to stay closer to her Main Line home: Her husband's health is not what it once was; a worrisome unsteadiness has crept into his gait.

She has two toddler grandchildren, too, now living closer to her one-acre spread in Radnor Township (a soothing, 15-minute walk down a wooded trail to Susanna Foo Gourmet Kitchen).

And there is, of course - and she dwells on this - her garden, festooned with white and golden and red roses and lilies, their needs requiring early-morning attention.

One recent day she walked through the garden with her 3-year-old granddaughter, encountering a nest of baby birds, beaks open wide, and branches pink with cherry blossoms, and came to a pond teeming with dark shapes.

"Nye-nye," the little girl asked, using the Chinese endearment for grandmother, "what kind of fish are they?"

"They are tadpoles."

"Nye-nye, what is a tadpole?

"It is going to be a frog."

"Nye-nye, what is a frog?"

Susanna Foo beams, a slow, broad, silent smile.

So, yes, she says, it makes sense for her to downshift, to close (as Susanna Foo, the dining room, did last Saturday evening, 200 sentimental customers dining on lobster in vodka-infused sauce and tea-smoked duck; tears staining the napkins and menus).

But it was admittedly not an easy thing, dismantling 22 years of history. She could not sign the papers to sell the building at first, her stomach churning, she says, until her sons gently told her it was OK - it was the right thing to do: The bricks are said to be worth more than $4 million more today than when the Foos bought the place, for $750,000, in 1991.

Oy, the daunting immensity of just emptying it out - hauling out the files and the books, the painted Chinese plates that patrons keep wanting to buy, the silky balloon of a lantern that hovers like a big ivory moon over the intimate Empress Room.

But in the next breath, Susanna Foo ponders more projects - a famous chef's dinner, maybe this fall? A modest dumpling and noodle house?

Simplifying can be complicated business.

It is two days before lights out, and Susanna Foo is sipping a crisp white wine (Shoofly, Buzz Cut 2007, an Australian blend) in the restaurant waiting lounge, looking out the tall, arched windows onto Walnut Street at 15th.

An old customer, looking in, catches a glimpse, reacting - palms cupped to her face - as if she'd just seen Emeril.