Kanella's rebirth in Queen Village

Your restaurant is on top - full house, long lease, accolades galore.

Then you shut the doors, pending a move to a different neighborhood, adding a liquor license and bar and more seating.

Chef Konstantinos Pitsillides and his wife, Caroline Christian, did just that - shutting Kanella, their Washington Square West Cypriot/Greek BYOB at the end of May.

Kanella comes back Sept. 22 at 757 S. Front St. in Queen Village (215-644-8949), a bold revamp of the short-lived The Village Belle. (The project had been called Kanella South, but has officially reverted to its birth name.)

Pitsillides opened Kanella at 10th and Spruce Streets in spring 2008 after returning from his native Cyprus. He had been chef at the short-lived Meze in the Italian Market, but packed up his family in 2006 when the business relationship ran sour. The future of 10th and Spruce is uncertain; Pitsillides says he has more than seven years left on the lease.

Kanella's interior includes a bright, open floor plan with large windows on its two exterior walls and an open kitchen facing a wooden counter, wood oven, and charcoal grill. The bar next door, overseen by manager/beverage director Ulises Robles, has a dark coziness to it. Robles has created about a dozen cocktails reflecting the Cypriot spirit, including an ouzo daiquiri, a Keo brandy sour, and a Manhattan made with Greek rakomelo, Kinsey rye, and Carpano Antica vermouth.

Pitsillides still has the sous-chef services of Evan Butkovsky. Their menu - retaining Kanella's soulful, flavor-packed Mediterranean cooking - includes the lamb dumplings known as manti ($11 as an app); bureki filled with feta and thyme ($8 as an app); Cyprus tortelloni filled with halloumi and mint ($22 as a main); trout in saffron and almond sauce with warm potato and lobster salad ($28); braised rabbit leg served with yellow split peas and kale, feta and dill ($26); whole fish; kofta kebob with bulgur wheat pilaf and yogurt ($25); rotisserie pork shoulder ($27); and goat with a mint and fava pastou, served with potato ofti and chopped salad ($31).

Prices are similar to the previous location, Christian said.  (Here is a fairly poor photo of the menu, which management has been keeping under wraps.)

Kanella will run dinner only for the first week or two, and then will add weekend brunch.