As I walked through the crowd at Johann Sfaellos' new club, the first thing that caught my attention was the half-naked guy laid out on a table with sushi covering his sculpted chest. Hard to miss.

In Japan, the tradition of body sushi usually calls for a woman. Sfaellos thought it would be more fun with a man. After 15 years in the downtown Minneapolis club scene, Sfaellos still likes to do things a little differently.

The club, 400 Soundbar, is actually a sequel to his 414 Soundbar, which closed in November. It is twice the size, which means he has twice the space to fill with his idiosyncratic tendencies.

There are Siamese fighting fish in the VIP booths. The walls are filled with original art (a portrait of a nude redhead is priced at $2,500). No food will be served, but there's a glass dining-room table by the dance floor. I guess it's all in the details.

Sfaellos, 44, has been involved with three clubs on this block, across the street from Target Field. After selling the Lounge in 2005, he helped open Visage here. He left soon afterward, and opened 414 Soundbar a couple of doors down. Last fall, his landlord took Sfaellos to court for unpaid rent. A lot of finger-pointing followed. Now he and partner Enrique Delgado are back on the block.

A couple of days later, Sfaellos sat at that dining room table and surveyed what he had created -- red columns with stencil art outlined the dance floor, glistening chandeliers overhead, heavy drapery everywhere.

"This is sexy," he said in his thick Greek accent.

To create some intimacy in the 10,000-square-foot space, he's cut Soundbar into three distinct rooms, two with Russian and Asian themes. "I call it the Silk Crossroads," he said, referring to the network of trade routes that once crisscrossed Asia.

The walls of the Russian room have been painted a lime green and are covered with gaudy portraits. "I'm going back to more of a lounge feel so people can talk in the club," Sfaellos said. "And if the conversation is boring, you have things to look at."

As with Visage, the dance floor is outlined with VIP booths for people who want bottle service. One is so massive that I counted 25 leopard-print pillows just waiting to have $200 bottles of vodka spilled on them.

Sfaellos routinely brings in an eclectic crowd that zigzags across racial lines, and includes gay and straight, young and old. He hopes to persuade his regulars to go one step further by joining a social club that would give them bar tabs and access to special parties -- a concept that's more in tune with New York clubs. If anyone could get Twin Cities clubgoers to bite at this concept, it's Sfaellos.