I'm a sucker for a gimmicky meal, whether it's sushi delivered by conveyor belt, a cook-your-own-meat grill house, or an unlikely fusion. Soon the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood will host another of these fine establishments, the buzz-generating Colborne Lane.

Opening in February, Colborne Lane will feature cuisine by Claudio Aprile (formerly of Senses). The restaurant is already generating a fair amount of buzz because of its chef's unique approach to cooking, which is as much a laboratory exercise as it is a culinary one. While most chefs are content to mix and match their ingredients, Aprile works at molecular level to create unheard of concoctions like frozen soy sauce powder and mozzarella foam. The opening of the restaurant was just listed on buzz-news site Six New Things as one of the top twelve things to look out for in 2007. Will be food be as good as the gimmick? We'll have to wait a little bit longer to find out, but if there are others out there as susceptible to a good gimmick as me, I'm sure it'll generate more than enough business to get by.

Image from Colborne Lane's website.