TheBuzz Erika Engle

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New Wailea restaurant promises both fashion and food

FIRE DRAGON Bistro Orient and Design Shop is a new restaurant in Wailea, Maui, that will serve Chinese, Malaysian and fusion cuisine. It is also a boutique that will carry haute couture and ready-to-wear clothing for men and women.

The place, opening in December, will be way beyond a themed restaurant that sells T-shirts and mugs, said co-owner Walter Bissett.

Not that there's anything wrong with selling branded merchandise.

"Our boutique will be a first-class boutique," Bissett said.

"Our opening event will be a fashion show with some 30 models and will be a New York-style fashion show, right in front of our space."

Bissett is playing the restaurateur and real-estate-agent role in the partnership known as Fire Dragon LLC. The fashion designer and artist is Bernard Tristan Foong, who has a Web site at www.bernardfoong.com.

The two had a concept for the space at the Shops at Wailea and enlisted a design architect to make it a reality.

"I think we will make headlines with the design. We have two stories and we have a beautiful wrapped staircase and the upstairs is created to feel and sort of look like a balcony in an opera house ... it's really quite elegant," he said.

The restaurant portion is inspired by old-school Hong Kong noodle houses and will serve lunch and dinner. Appetizers will start at $6 and entrees at $11, Bissett said. His pre-Hawaii days included 15 years at the Box Tree Restaurant, a posh eatery in New York City.

On the boutique side of Fire Dragon, the off-the-rack clothing will range from $70 to $250 and the couture items will start at $2,000. A wedding dress Foong designed when he was 19 made the cover of Brides magazine long before everybody was wedding in Vera Wang.

Oh, the art on the walls, also by Foong, will be for sale.

Guests invited to the opening gala Dec. 10 are being asked to make any donations to the Maui AIDS Foundation or the Maui Food Bank.