Citrus chef Richard launches SF Bistro M

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

Augmenting the current offering of four or six cheese selections, Richard said he plans to offer individual cheeses a la carte in pairings with wines from the restaurant's sizable list.

In addition to lunch and dinner, Bistro M's 1,500-square-foot kitchen - run by chef de cuisine Anthony Pels Jr., a three-year veteran of Citrus and the opening chef of Richard's CapStar restaurants - also does breakfast and provides room service to the 108-room Milano.

Of course, Richard - who launched his career in America as a patissier after a seven-year stint in France under pastry master Gaston Lenotre - is introducing San Franciscans and hotel guests to his famed dessert creations. All of the pastry offerings at Bistro M and Richard's other CapStar operations are adapted from Richard's repertoire at Citrus, he said.

Although not directly related to his business involvement with CapStar, Citrus is providing Richard with a practical culinary base for his hotel venture.

An example of that role is the three-day convention of CapStar chefs that Richard scheduled for this month at Citrus "to come up with new idas."

On the road 10 days each month to oversee his CapStar operations, Richard has been living almost continuously for several months in San Francisco to launch Bistro N. Because of his CapStar duties and his desire to ensure the continuity of Citrus' lofty reputation, Richard has made Citrus's chef de cuisine Alain Giraud a partner in the Los Angeles restaurant.

Meanwhile, Richard and CapStar vice president Shupnick recently finished buying out the last of the limited partners in Citrus, whose co-founder, Marvin Zeidler, traded his general-partner equity in the restaurant for Richard's stake in the upscale Broadway Deli in Santa Monica.

Richard may soon get to spend more time in his flagship as well as at Bistro M and the Santa Barbara Citronelle as the result of his planned appointment of Karim Lakhani, chef at the Baltimore Citronelle, to fill an additional post as regional culinary supervisor of CapStar's Eastern states restaurants.

But a reduction in Richard's travel schedule may only buy him needed time to prepare for his planned debut in New York. Looking beyond CapStar's planned openings there and in Chicago, the company is negotiating for entry into the Boston and Atlanta markets. Coincidentally, CapStar also is looking at a "possible acquisition of an offshore company that has four hotels in those cities, one in each," Shupnick explained.

Such an acquisition could be a prelude to a possible initial public offering of CapStar stock in a few years. "We'd like to go public," said Richard, who declined to divulge his partnership stake in the firm.

Currently, the owners of CapStar reportedly derive annual income from management and equity of about $6 million from their 43-hotel group's managed volumes of $170 million.

But the firm's share of that total would rise as a consequence of its effort to boost its equity stakes in the managed properties while adding prestigious Richard-style restaurants to more of the hotels.