"The latest behemoth restaurant to open is Aqua, at 920 Broadway, near 20th Street in Flatiron, owned by David Yeo, who also owns Hutong. Until recently it was a furniture store. Now, shaped like a mallet, the main room sprawls around an oval bar, surmounted by massive rope sculptures that make it look like a ship without sails. A long wing with a 70-foot sushi bar shoots off perpendicularly toward a separate entrance on 21st Street. Aqua is actually a branch of a London restaurant, and it mounts two separate menus, one devoted to Italian food (“Aqua Roma”), the other to Japanese (“Aqua Kyoto”). Several dishes stand out for their novelty. One is Crystal Sushi, invented in Hong Kong at Shiro, one of the chain’s restaurants. It swaddles a core of raw fish with translucent flavored jelly instead of nori. Lobster bisque pizza is definitely worth trying, with a crust perhaps too puffy and yeasty, but with generous servings of lobster tail and claw meat." - Robert Sietsema
