Top chef makes a big bet on downtown SF with new French bistro

Chef Bruno Chemel likes a challenge, and he took on a big new one Monday by opening Le Parc Bistrobar, a French restaurant in a hotel in downtown San Francisco near Union Square, an area that has been grappling with office and retail vacancies .

“I like risk,” said Chemel, a native of France who previously ran a Michelin-starred haute cuisine French restaurant in Palo Alto and later another restaurant in the same city offering less formal French fare.

“It gives you more, more edge. I don't like the easy life,” said Chemel, who with his new venture will again celebrate bistro cooking, this time from inside the Galleria Park Hotel at 185 Sutter St. in a space that sat empty for four years after the prior occupant, the French restaurant Gaspar Brasserie, closed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chemel said he was fortunate because the restaurant space, which accommodates up to 130 people on two floors, was already appropriately appointed, including with decorative ceilings and two bars. He changed out the chairs for diners and added some new artwork reflecting his time working in different cities around the world.

A product of French culinary schools and a veteran of multiple Michelin-starred establishments in France, Chemel shot to prominence in New York City as an executive chef before going to Japan to study and work and then Honolulu and Southern California.

After a time as a chef in San Francisco, Chemel opened Baumé in Palo Alto in 2010, getting a Michelin star after less than a year and two Michelin stars for the next eight years in a row. He subsequently opened the more casual Bistronomie by Baumé in 2022, saying that he intended to enjoy cooking for the happiness of his guests instead of following “the status quo,” and he sold the restaurant last year.

One reason that Chemel said he is confident about his new 25-person business is because of the Galleria Park Hotel, which enjoys consistent patronage from corporate clients.

Like Gaspar, the hotel closed completely in response to the pandemic. It reopened just over a year later in May 2021 and has largely rebounded, with corporate customers filling as many as 80 to 90% of the hotel’s 177 rooms during the week, said Sean Gazey, the general manager.

“We are fortunate. Our customers are very loyal,” Gazey said.

The hotel tends to be about 60% full on weekends, and Gazey said he is hoping the addition of Le Parc Bistro will be an “amenity” that attracts more leisure travelers.

Gazey has worked at the Galleria Park for the last two-and-a-half years, and he said he has seen significant improvement in the hotel’s immediate surroundings in terms of the number of new businesses opening and overall cleanliness, which he credited to the Downtown SF Partnership, the local community benefit district.

Gazey’s observations echoed a Downtown SF report from the spring showing that of 29 new ground-floor businesses opening within the district in 2022 and 2023, 22 were food- and beverage-serving. That was twice the number of food and beverage spots that closed during the period.

In addition to new “fast casual” restaurants and cafes, which underscored the continued presence of workers downtown, new bars and dine-in establishments illustrated the area’s transformation into a post-work destination, Downtown SF said.

Chemel said Le Parc Bistrobar’s menu will feature fresh, seasonal ingredients and classic offerings like pates, salmon tartare, braised oxtail with red wine, grilled flank steak and roasted chicken legs, with desserts like floating island, crème brûlée and chocolate mousse.

He proudly proffered a photograph on his smartphone of a “pot pie d’escargots,” the snails tucked beneath a sheet of pastry.

Le Parc Bistro will initially serve dinner Monday through Thursday from 5:00 to 9:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. Starting July 15, there will be a weekday happy hour from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Weekday lunch service is anticipated to start in the fall.