New York

• Rock on. SeaGrill, in Rockefeller Center, has reopened with a spruced-up look from Adam Tihany. The chef, Ed Brown, hasn't changed, nor has the focus of the menu--creative American seafood preparations. The new Rock Center Cafe is opening at the same time, in the space that used to be American Festival Cafe. In a room that looks out on the skating rink and the Prometheus fountain, chefTheo Schoenegger (ex-San Domenico) is giving the menu an Italian spin.

• Pat Cetta, the man behind one of the city's most beloved steak houses--the 30-year-old Sparks Steak House--has died of a heart attack. He was 66. The business remains in the family; his brother, Mike Cetta, is now in charge.

• Scarabee, a Mediterranean restaurant in midtown, has closed. Owners Karim El Sherif and Abraham Merchant plan to transform the space into a French bistro later this spring, to be named Montparnasse.

• Chelsea newcomer Vox has a new chef, Michael Scheiman, who previously hung his toque at Canal House and Rage.

• Famed Boston (and Connecticut and Vegas) chef Todd English is scheduled to open a branch of his popular restaurant Figs at LaGuardia Airport. Meanwhile, for legal reasons related to English's celebrated restaurants, Gus Theodoro, owner of Gus' Place in the Village, has changed the name of his new restaurant in Chelsea from Figs to Gus' Figs Bistro & Bar.

• Zagat Survey, the arbiters of restaurant popularity all over the country, have come out with a nightlife guide to New York. The book covers bars, clubs, lounges, pubs, and coffeehouses, and was produced with the help of Tim and Nina Zagat's son.

• After six years--a lifetime in the restaurant world--Rick Laakkonen has left the River Cafe in Brooklyn. He is to be the chef/owner of a new restaurant in the not-yet-opened Bryant Park Hotel. Both hotel and restaurant are scheduled to open this spring. The River Cafe has not yet named a replacement for Laakkonen.

• Della Gossett, former pastry chef of the acclaimed Trio restaurant in Evanston, Illinois, has moved to New York to work at Atlas. Gossett, a former artist, will prepare the same kinds of inventive desserts that she was known for at Trio.

• Luc Dendievel, opening chef of Bayard's in the Financial District, has left. Eberhard Müller, of Lutèce, has signed on as 'collaborative chef' to revise the menu and work with chef de cuisine and Lutèce alum Jason Hice. A simplified menu and more meat dishes are in the works.

• Veloce, an attractive new wine bar with a space-age look, has opened in the East Village. Wine bottles are ingeniously suspended on their sides along a vertical pole that is behind the bar.

• Also from the East Village, B3 has opened in a big corner space--can you guess where? Avenue B and Third Street. This is designer Janet Promesso's first restaurant project.

• Match Uptown, a sleek Upper East Side eatery, has appointed Ivy Stark to be its new chef. Her previous experience comes from Sign of the Dove and Cena in New York, and Ciudad and Border Grill in Los Angeles. The menu at Match Uptown remains American with Asian influences.

• The very short-lived Flatiron brasserie Metropole has been transformed into Italian restaurant Chat 'n' Ciao.Owner Andrew Silverman of the Flatiron Restaurant Group owns Chat 'n' Chew a couple of blocks away.

• Faux waterside dining--complete with fishing nets and buoys but minus the water--can be found at the new seafoodery Metro Fish, located in Murray Hill. The restaurant is owned by Steve Karathanos.

• Home alone. Husband-and-wife team David Page and Barbara Shinn have shuttered their restaurant, Drover's Tap Room, and their take-out shop, Home Away From Home. But Home, a cozy American restaurant that is the first venture of the Greenwich Village-based restaurateurs, remains open.

• Laight Street, in the former City Wine & Cigar Co. space, has metamorphasized into Dylan. The concept, too, has changed from fish to cow.

• Avra, the newly opened Greek seafood restaurant in Midtown, changed chefs before the first meal was even cooked. The owners, who also own Trata on the Upper East Side, gave the job to Peter Spyropulous, former chef de cuisine at Trata. The menu will feature traditional Greek specialties as well as whole grilled fish.