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• This is a week for romance but how about something sexy and sleek instead — like a zinc bar top.

“It’s not going to be Maximilien, obviously, but it will, of course, be French,” Willy Boutillier tells CHS about his new Capitol Hill venture, Le Zinc.

The casual French restaurant — thinks mussels and frites — with a big bar — think big — is planned for the large ground-floor restaurant space in the under-construction Vox Apartments at 15th and Pine.

Boutillier says think mussels and frites (Image: Maximilien)

Boutillier says Maximilien was born 15 years ago above the Pike Place Market in a space that had already been long established with a restaurant. With Le Zinc, he and Christian Potvin business partner Axel Mace are setting in from scratch. (UPDATE: Maximilien chef Potvin will not be part of Le Zinc. CHS apologizes for the error!)

“That’s new for us,” Boutillier said. “We can build it the exact way we want.”

They’ve brought in some big guns to help, however, as Graham Baba Architects have designed the new space. It’s so early in the project that elements like the logo, above, are still in draft mode.

Le Zinc is the first new project for Boutillier beyond his Maximilien original. He says he strategized a lot about where his venture should call home and decided the vibrant culture and sheer numbers of people moving to the area were what he needed to make the new restaurant and bar successful.

Along with the more casual food, visitors to Le Zinc should expect a more casual, comfortably worn experience — maybe a little like a zinc-toped bar?

“In France, when you say you’re going to the zinc, back in the day, it meant you were going to the bar,” Boutillier said. “We have a zinc-topped bar at Maximilien. If feels nice, warm and gets a patina — not too shiny, antique, very subdued.”

With construction of the apartment building still wrapping up, the buildout of the project is in the earliest of stages so you’ll have a bit of a wait before you, too, can go to Le Zinc. The target is a mid-May opening.

Le Zinc wasn’t even a twinkle when we compiled this list of 20 new Capitol Hill restaurants and bars to look forward to in 2013, by the way. Make it 21.

The future Vox building

• Anchovies & Olives’ new little brother has a door. Surely this indicates Bar Cotto — directly across the street from the coming-soon Le Zinc, will open… soon. And people will be able to enter. Through the door.

  (Image: CHS door cam)

• Torteria Barriga Llena is open on Broadway. La Cocina de Oaxaca is coming soon to Melrose and Pine. More on both here.
• Here are several thousand photos of the new 12th Ave bier hall, Von Trapp’s. Have you gone? What did you think?

  (Image: Suzi Pratt for CHS)

• Bluebird now features its own dessert-focused beers and craft sodas.
• A brief update here with good news for 12th Ave’s Scratch Deli.
• Sprudge giveth and Sprudge taketh away. And, hey, the Bitter Barista lives on Capitol Hill.
• There’s a new sports bar — with Ethiopian food — in the Central District.
• Looking for an amazing old Capitol Hill auto row building for your restaurant project?

• Here’s an interesting liquor license application. Amazon Fresh has applied for a spirits retailer provision allowing it to deliver hard booze. To your doorstep.
• “Early reports indicate that the decor is very familiar and the food is not so great“
• “Two steamy glass teacups of peppery red-lentil soup, smooth and thick as jarred gravy, quickly convey that Mamnoon intends to welcome its guests, not just divert or dazzle them.“
• “Built-Out Restaurant with Equipment at Harvard Market”
• A good question — why isn’t Sushi Maki more popular?
• Juicebox kicking around food ideas:
• Where should you eat on Valentine’s Day? We don’t know. But Capitol Hill’s own Dan Savage gives pretty good advice: