I’ll be honest: Until I was chatting with chef Andrew Zimmerman earlier this week, I had never given much thought to how important it was for restaurants to concisely describe themselves. The chef at Sepia and Proxi told me how, for the eight years that it’s been open, he’s had trouble describing exactly what Proxi does.

“All of our reviews and interactions with guests are great, and almost overwhelmingly positive,” he explains. “But our inability to explain to people in a very simple and concise way what kind of food Proxi does is confusing.” That’s part of the reason that the restaurant is undergoing a bit of a shift, changing its eclectic (but super delicious) menu of “global” dishes into a focus on what Zimmerman is calling “coastal Asian.”

When Proxi opened, the concept was basically “stuff the team thought was delicious,” at least as far as I could tell — and I was a huge fan. Memorably, Proxi is one of only a handful of restaurants where I have ever ordered the same dish twice in one sitting: a tuna collar that was so good I just had to have more. Now, rather than a broad focus on dishes from all over the world, the restaurant will focus on a single region.

“We looked at the things that we were already doing well, and that people responded to well, and also the core culinary interests that have been driving the restaurant for a while,” says Zimmerman, and most of those turned out to be influenced by the food of Southeast Asia.

Part of the impetus behind this shift is chef Jennifer Kim, who joined the restaurant a couple of years ago after a stint as head chef at the acclaimed (and since shuttered) Passerotto. “I really wanted to make sure that Jennifer had a big stage,” Zimmerman says. “They are so talented, and working with them is incredibly inspiring.” Kim’s presence doesn’t mean that the menu is suddenly Korean, but you’ll see an abundance of Korean flavors, along with Thai, Japanese, and other Asian influences. Some of this was already on the menu and will stay — for example, wagyu beef cheeks served with panang curry and a pan-roasted striped bass with green curry.

There are a lot of exciting new things coming to the menu, and a ton of them involve seafood. For example, there’s a version of a seafood tower, complete with prawns, scallop tartare, oysters, uni, and other goodies, served with accompaniments like gochujang cocktail sauce, lemongrass aioli, and house-made ponzu. A whole fried fish with turmeric and fried garlic, which Zimmerman describes as “ssam style, but not Korean,” will be served with lettuces and herbs. Thai jungle curry will incorporate homemade Thai sausage that the restaurant already features, combined with littleneck clams and pickled green peppercorns.

Proxi is also adding more steaks to the menu, including A5 wagyu served on a 700-degree rock with black truffle ponzu. A large porterhouse cooked over wood and meant for sharing will be served with a variety of accompaniments, including soy and black garlic jus, miso hollandaise, Szechuan peppercorn chimichurri, and an optional take on steak Oscar with jumbo lump crab and a sauce based on a reduction of tom yum soup.

Dishes on the new menu will feature a lot of common elements, which (perhaps unsurprisingly) are the things that Zimmerman finds most delicious. “What I really like about this kind of food are the different routes you can take to a really solid umami base, whether it’s fish sauce, shrimp paste, or miso,” Zimmerman explains. “There’s lots of acidity, heat, and a profusion of fresh herbs. That’s my favorite way to eat.”

The new menu debuts on April 16.