Citrus chef Richard launches SF Bistro M

Nation's Restaurant News, Oct 3, 1994 by Richard Martin

SAN FRANCISCO - Furthering a national expansion strategy believed to be unique among celebrated chef-owners, Michel Richard of Citrus in Los Angeles has launched Bistro M here to extend his CapStar Hotels-based string of contemporary French restaurants.

Initially a consultant to CapStar when it launched Citronelle in 1991 in a 71-room Santa Barbara hotel, Richard is now a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based management firm, among whose 43 hotels are five boasting Richard-devised restaurants.

Additional properties are being planned for at least four cities to which CapStar is expanding, with New York next in line, followed by Chicago. Future deployments of Richard-run restaurants there and elsewhere are expected to dovetail with the company's push to expand its equity interests beyond the 22 hotels in which it has ownership.

CapStar "owns some and is buying more," said Richard, calling the prospect of launching a restaurant in New York "my dream."

In addition to the original Citronelle and the 1-month-old Bistro M, in San Francisco's new Milano Hotel, Richard has launched Citronelles in Baltimore and Washington hotels and a restaurant called Michels in the company's Philadelphia property.

CapStar expects to generate about $17 million annually from the current lineup of five Michel Richard operations, not counting the banquets and room service that bring their total to about $20 million, according to Larry Shupnick, who is CapStar's vice president of development and, separately, Richard's longtime partner in Citrus.

In the intensely competitive and restaurant-dense San Francisco market - where chefs from elsewhere are sometimes eyed with suspicion by local gourmets - the new Bistro M "should do well," Richard predicted.

He is mindfill of the city's apparently resurgent fondness for French restaurants, as exemplified by the popularity and attention accorded such newcomers as Rubicon, Alain Rondelli, Liberte, Boulevard and Fringale.

However, Richard conceded that the 170-seat Bistro M's untrumpeted "soft" opening was perhaps "a little too soft," restraining covers to one-day highs of 150 dinners and 80 lunches during the restaurant's first few weeks of business.

Despite his numerous culinary accolades and renown among connoisseurs of inventive French cuisine, Richard debuted in San Francisco as "a new kid in town." San Franciscans, he added, "love their own chefs, and I agree with them."

One of Richard's tactics for gaining recognition is immediately apparent as soon as one enters the high-ceilinged, apricot-hued bistro, whose decor includes two lifesize, black-and-white photographic cutouts of the smiling chef.

Despite its newness, the palm-bedecked Bistro M has benefited from travel to the city by regular CapStar lodgers, who know the chef from his other hotel ventures and by the patronage of gourmets who are familiar with his highly regarded Los Angeles flagship restaurant.

"They love the food, and they love the menu," the ebullient chef declared, describing Bistro M's mix of offerings as comprising about 20 percent Citrus signatures, such as smoked salmon terrine, with the balance including items from his other hotel restaurants and "a whole bunch of new stuff."

However, "I don't want to be too creative," the French-born Richard said. "I like to introduce some of the old flavors of France." One such classic, albeit with a Richard-style twist, is Bistro M's onion tart - a nearly wafer-thin, pizza-size version baked from puff pastry spread with braised onion and bits of bacon. In true bistro style, the chef said, Bistro M uses "a ton of onion. Everything is onion."

Basing his conclusions upon his reading of currently prevailing tastes among restaurant customers, Richard said: "I don't think you have to serve peasant food, but you have to serve homey food, with smell. I love the smell of food." He added that the aroma of cooking "has been missing" from restaurants.

Value is another element Richard is addressing in his San Francisco foray. "I did check around the competition, and there are lots of restaurants that are much more expensive than we are," he said, citing Bistro M's per-person average tabs of about $16 at lunch and $28 at dinner.

The chef's price consciousness is evident in his dinner offering of a "one pounder" New York steak with mashed potatoes for $24. The meat alone costs $12, Richard said.

Among Bistro M's most popular creations are a Moroccan-style lamb shank, oven-braised for six hours with an onion ragout; a hanger steak with shallot sauce; an oxtail terrine with ziti; and a veal shank for two, roasted for about five hours and finished on the rotisserie.

In a glassed-in exhibition kitchen reminiscent of Citrus' architectural signature, the cooks of Bistro M also prepare off-menu specials of Brittany-style crepes - both savor and sweet - on two circular griddles. They are mounted behind a case displaying an array of cheeses, whose varieties are listed at the top of the dessert menu in groupings by country of origin and milk type - cow, goat and sheep.