$3.7 Million Makeover for Lorena Garcia's Chica

Top Chef Masters’ chef Lorena Garcia and John Kunkel's team from 50 Eggs are wasting no time in remodelling the recently departed DB Brasserie space at the Venetian and have a bounty of funds to transform the room from a French restaurant into the resort's first Latin concept, Chica.

Maintaining exactly the same 9,395-square-foot plot of restaurant row real estate, new paperwork points to an estimated $3,755,000 in construction costs to demolish and makeover the interior. Only minor modifications will be made to the kitchen. In 2013, chef Daniel Boulud's concept also spent an estimated $3.5 million to transform the room from its origins as Valentino.

Now hiring, including the post of Executive Chef, Chica is promising a spring debut, located right next door to Kunkel's Yardbird Southern Table & Bar.

Chef Garcia's early ideas for dishes are inspired by menus in Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, including a lentil and quinoa bowl featuring shrimp, cherry tomato and guayanés cheese, churrasco with Brazilian pico de gallo and grilled Padrón peppers, white chocolate raspberry pudding, flan, "alfajores," crumbly butter cookies and butternut squash soup.