Landmark 'Garden' courts locals, business diners

Nation's Restaurant News, April 17, 1995 by Alan Liddle

SAN FRANCISCO -- At first blush the situation at the Garden Court restaurant in the Sheraton Palace seems great.

The dining room is the city's only officially designated interior landmark and a classic example of the belle epoque style, featuring a stained-glass ceiling, crystal chandeliers, marble columns and gold sconces. What's more, as part of a 120-year-old hotel considered by many to be the grand dame of San Francisco lodgings, the restaurant has a place in the hearts of several generations of San Franciscans and regular visitors.

But on closer inspection it becomes clear that great describes the challenges as well as the opportunities at the 180-seat restaurant and lounge. Much to the chagrin of management, two of the Garden Court's key assets -- its grand style and role in the family traditions of many -- mark it as a special-occasion restaurant in the minds of many diners.

"We've always had one of the most beautiful rooms in the city. However, looks alone don't fill dining tables," Sheraton Palace general manager and vice president Donald Timbie said recently in a written statement intended to introduce the Garden Court's new chef de cuisine, Kerry Heffernan. "With Kerry at the helm, we now have cuisine which befits the Garden Court."

Heffernan, 34, and manager Robert Faure, 47, are key players in a Garden Court repositioning drama.

"The general idea is to position the Garden Court as a restaurant that is recognized apart from the hotel," Faure (pronounced "four" said. "What we did was to hire a chef of good reputation in a move to upgrade not only the quality of the food but the style as well."

"We rock and roll during the holiday seasons, but we have slower months," Heffernan remarked. The way to build off-season traffic, she added, 'is to approach the local market, position ourselves as an alternative to the other big restaurants in the neighborhood."

While it has not produced startling increases in traffic, the repositioning has yielded respectable gains, Faure and Heffernan indicated.

"We're seeing more of a business crowd than we used to in the evening," Faure said.

Heffernan said the Garden Court is averaging about 200 lunches and 100 dinners daily, which translates into a 10-percent-to-12-percent gain in sales since she began work at the 550-room hotel late last year.

Faure, who was previously general manager of Michel Richard's award-wining Citrus restaurant in Los Angeles, said Garden Court menus of the past featured traditional fare "without a modern touch."

There can be little doubt that the traditional menus referred to by Faure resulted from a backlash to the wildly eclectic menu introduced when the hotel and restaurant reopened in 1991 after a lengthy renovation. The East-West overtones of that 1991 menu left bewildered looks on the faces of many of the older patrons who streamed back to the hotel during reopening celebrations.

Heffernan describes her dishes as 'classically inspired American foods prepared using some French technique." To provide an example of her approach to cooking, she said that in her kitchen the traditional French dish of sole with duxelle is reworked into John Dory with roasted mushrooms and caramelized pearl onions.

"It's seasonally inspired but simple," Heffernan said of her cooking. "If part of the dish is going to be rich, I'll probably include something acidic. If something has a crunch to it, I might throw in something soft and succulent."

Heffernan said she is finding that game sells as well as seafood, with high demand for venison and quail. "In such an elegant space people feel adventuresome," she said.

A recent Heffernan-engineered menu included squash soup with smoked ham and sage, $5; late harvest green beans with spicy greens, goat cheese, roasted beets and citrus vinalgrette, $7.50; duck confit with hand-cut herbed noodles, $8.50; grilled salmon with roasted fennel and lemon-grass cream, $22; venison scaloppine with red lentils and sauteed arugula, $24; and potato-wrapped lobster with savory cabbage and vegetable salpicon, $29.

That assortment compares with previous menu items, such as lobster cocktail with sturgeon caviar and papaya; $12.50; smoked salmon and trout terrine with green-herb-black-ink mayonnaise, $7.75; spicy red lentil bisque with smoked eel and prunes, $5.75; sauteed duck breast with red cabbage broth sauce and apple-currant stew, $21.50; and sauteed filet of beef on potato pancake, chanterelles and pickled walnuts, $24.50.

Faure reported that the Garden Court's average tickets are about $18 at lunch and $42 at dinner. He said the restaurant, which is situated near the financial and shopping districts, serves breakfast, lunch, high tea and dinner and should realize sales of about $4 million in 1995, up from about $3.7 million in the past.

Beverage sales contribute about 24 percent of the Garden Court gross, Faure said, noting that the restaurant's service staff has been doing more wine tasting and undergoing more wine-service training in recent months. The manager said combined food and beverage costs are running about 34 percent of sales, while labor expenses run closer to 37 percent.