New Restaurant

Virginia Beach continues to grow, adding restaurants, retail, meeting space and other improvements. The Laskin Road Gateway's $100 million development continues with the goal of transforming the surrounding 31st Street and oceanfront area into a pedestrian-friendly corridor with high-end dining, retail and entertainment. Virginia Beach What's new Todd Jurich's 21st Century BurgerBar, 530 Winston Salem Ave., 757-351-0488, toddsburgerbar.com. For one of the best views of Virginia Beach's Rudee Inlet, head to newly opened BurgerBar, which features 100 percent grass-fed beef, nitrogen shakes and parmesan truffle fries.

Grillfire, the new restaurant at Arundel Preserve, itself a new mixed-use development near Arundel Mills, was the subject of the Sunday review. The review is not very positive. I received a courteous and genuinely concerned response about it from George Korten, the owner of Grillfire, and I let a representative of his know that Mr. Korten was welcome to post a response to the review in the comments below, as are all of the Baltimore Sun's readers.

So how did the new Heavy Seas Ale House happen? After all, Hugh Sisson, the Heavy Seas founder, had resisted businesses outside his brewery for years after he sold his shares in Sisson's, his first brewpub. Well, the new restaurant, which is expected to open sometime this Spring, has a new venue to thank for its creation: Leinenkugel's Beer Garden . Patrick Dahlgren, who'll be running the new pub, said that if out-of-state breweries, like Leinenkugel's, can license their name and open up a store-front in Baltimore, then it was time for a local like Heavy Seas to do the same.

Denise Whiting will be watching Friday night's "Kitchen Nightmares" episode featuring her restaurant in the cozy confines of Cafe Hon - in the attached Hon Bar, to be specific. Cafe Hon is bringing in a big-screen TV for the viewing, which is open to the public but booked solid, Whiting says. Whiting said she hasn't seen the show yet but has seen the promos for the episode that have been running on the local Fox affiliate. "I'm really grateful to Gordon Ramsay and his team for dealing with everyone here so graciously.

Comparing the new Victor's Cafe to the old one doesn't make much sense. Though they have the same name and similar menus, the two restaurants are two totally different animals. The old Victor's Cafe, overlooking the Inner Harbor on Lancaster Street, was widely considered to have one of the best waterside dining views in the city. The new restaurant is suburban and quick-casual, located in a strip shopping center in Timonium. Poor:]

The winter version of Baltimore County Restaurant Week will be held Jan. 11-27. More than 35 Baltimore County restaurants are participating, offering special menus at discounted fixed prices. Menus range from $10.13 to $35.13 for one, two or three courses. Participating restaurants, along with links to menus and websites, are listed on the Baltimore County Restaurant Week website , and the promotion will be accompanied this year by a Facebook page . New participants this year include McFaul's IronHorse Tavern ; Kooper's North ; Yasou Greek Bistro ; University Club , the new restaurant in the Towson University Marriott Conference Hotel; and Fountainside , the new resaurant in the Pikesville Hilton.

Call it Langermann's Junior. The same team behind Langermann's in Canton - chef Neal Langermann and partners David McGill and Mark Lasker - have opened a new restaurant in South Baltimore. The location, 1542 Light St., was recently the home to 1542 Gastropub and before that, the Reserve. Langermann's on Light, as it's known, was open on Monday for bar service. Dining service was to begin on Tuesday. What's on the menu at Langermann's on Light? Pretty much the same fare, we've been told, as at the original Langermann's: Southern-inspired cuisines like Charleston shrimp and grits, maple smokehouse-rubbed Duroc pork chops, Cape Fear scallops and Miss Ellie's fried green tomatoes.

Call it manifest restaurant destiny. In 2012, Baltimore-based restaurateurs set about expanding their empires, or at least their brands. Clementine opened a second location in the Creative Alliance in Highlandtown, the team behind Langermann's in Canton opened a second location in South Baltimore, and the owners of Mo's opened a new restaurant in Towson, in the old Hersh's Orchard Inn. And, in December, a version of Baltimore's estimable Prime...

As Ted Stelzenmuller was getting ready to open his new restaurant in Canton last year, he met with a lawyer to go over paperwork. The lawyer offered a story about his own restaurant experience. "The first thing he said was, `I grew up in restaurants. My family started a business together, and now they don't speak,' " Stelzenmuller said. The lawyer's story was a cautionary tale. Stelzenmuller's mother, Michele Jackson, was sitting next to him in the lawyer's office, looking at the prospect of becoming co-owner of Jack's Bistro in Canton and partly responsible for a hefty loan to get her son's restaurant up and running.

Henry Pertman and Jeff Pressman, formerly of Henry & Jeff's and J. P. Henry's, have landed at a new restaurant in Columbia, the Tavern at Centre Park (8808 Centre Park Drive, formerly the site of McAllister's). Pertman, who developed the eclectic menu, is the executive chef; Pressman is the food and beverage director. Besides salads and sandwiches, the tavern offers entrees such as baked smoked duckling, a mixed grill of Mediterranean quail and pork, and trout stuffed with crab mousse.Owner J. P. Buldoc is planning for this to be the first of a chain of "upscale neighborhood restaurants."