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Tag: parisian

  • Chapeau!: Mom and Pop (and Son) restaurant brings a taste of Paris to San Francisco

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    SAN FRANCISCO — Since 1996, Chef Philippe Gardelle and his wife Ellen have been bringing the warmth and flavor of a Parisian bistro to San Franciscos Inner Richmond neighborhood.

    “Honestly, when I’m here, this is more my home than my real home,” Ellen said. “I meet strangers every day. Sometimes we (become) friends.”

    The menu is a love letter to traditional French cuisine, featuring classics like escargots, coq au vin, cassoulet, French onion soup and creme brule. But behind the comforting flavors lies an attention to detail that elevates every dish.

    “We try to bring the same care into the food that you would find in places that might consider themselves more upscale and fancy,” said Andrew Gardelle, chef de cuisine, and Ellen and Philippe’s son.

    From the start, it was a family effort.

    “We started with no money, and so we couldn’t hire a manager,” said Philippe. “We had a chef and a dishwasher to start and that’s it.”

    While Philippe was back of house, Ellen took care of the guests in the front of house. And everywhere and in between was Andrew.

    “A lot of memories of just being picked up from school and coming straight to the restaurant,” he said.

    For Philippe, three decades of success came not from measuring Chapeau! against San Francisco’s vaunted and competitive restaurant scene.

    “The competition is yourself yesterday,” Philippe said. “Keep it up, and it will be fine.”

    Today, the Gardelles continue to balance tradition and innovation.

    “He’s bringing newer dishes, but keeping the classics too,” Ellen said of Andrew, who expanded his culinary skills at different restaurants before returning to Chapeau! six years ago.

    “Its important to always be bringing some change,” Andrew said. “But to also maintain the identity this restaurant was built off of.”

    For the Gardelles, hospitality is as essential as the food.

    “Make sure people also get taken care of. Make them laugh. Make them enjoy the experience of Chapeau,” Ellen said. “We are very proud that we can all be here. We can be part of everybody’s lives and meals.”

    Chapeau! is located at 126 Clement Street in San Francisco, California. Learn more here.

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    CCG

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  • Las Vegas Sands Among Businesses That Met With China Premier

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    Posted on: September 27, 2025, 03:08h. 

    Last updated on: September 27, 2025, 03:09h.

    • Las Vegas Sands CEO Rob Goldstein met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang
    • The Chinese leader expressed enthusiasm for strengthening his country’s relationship with the US
    • Sands operates five casinos in China’s Macau

    Robert Goldstein, the chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands, who assumed the roles in January 2021 following the death of his longtime boss and mentor, Sheldon Adelson, was among the American business leaders who met last week with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

    Las Vegas Sands Robert Goldstein China
    The Venetian on the Cotai Strip in Macau, owned by Las Vegas Sands, is seen. Sands’ top executive, Robert Goldstein, met recently with Chinese Premier Li Qiang. (Image: Shutterstock)

    For decades, Goldstein was Adelson’s right-hand man. Adelson, the founder and longtime chair and CEO of Sands, was responsible for overhauling China’s Macau into the world’s richest gaming hub by developing the ultra-luxurious Cotai Strip.

    During his trip to the US to attend a meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, Li, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s right-hand man, who is the second most important leader in China, met with several executives from major American companies that do business with China, with LVS among them.

    Las Vegas-based Sands no longer has any resorts in Las Vegas or anywhere else in the US. The firm instead relies primarily on Macau, along with its Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

    Chinese Meeting

    Goldstein was one of at least eight business leaders who met privately with Li in New York on Thursday after the UN gathering. Goldstein’s attendance was first reported by Bloomberg.

    Looking forward, China and the US need to find the right way to get along in this new era,” Li said at the event hosted by the National Committee on US-China Relations, according to a readout posted by the Chinese government. “Economic and trade relations are an important part of our bilateral relationship.”

    Li said that the world’s two largest economies “can and should become friends and partners.”

    Those are welcome comments for Sands, which owns and operates five integrated resort casino properties in China — The Venetian, Sands, The Londoner, The Plaza & Four Seasons Hotel, and The Parisian. In 2024, Sands’ Macau operations generated net revenue of more than $7.1 billion for the company.

    President Donald Trump’s tariff war and ongoing threats to the Chinese economy have caused some concern among the three US-based gaming operators invested in Macau that they could be targeted for retaliation. Along with Sands, MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts own casinos in Macau.

    Li’s comments, however, suggest the Chinese Communist Party is seeking to strengthen its US relationship.

    Regardless of changes in the external environment, China will make every possible effort to ensure greater certainty for the growth of foreign companies,” Li added.

    The premier said the Pacific Ocean is “wide enough” to accommodate a strong bilateral relationship between the US and China, but also additional countries. Li urged both sides and parties to “strengthen cooperation.”

    Li Power

    Along with Goldstein and Sands, Li reportedly invited leaders from BlackRock, Citadel Securities, Visa, FedEx, Estee Lauder, and Amphenol.

    As premier, a position he’s held since March 2023, Li has been considered pro-business. The premier is the head of the People’s Republic of China government and leads the State Council.

    Goldstein plans to step down next year. He’s set to be replaced by Sands President and COO Patrick Dumont, the son-in-law of Sands’ largest shareholder, Dr. Miriam Adelson, the widow of the late Sheldon Adelson.

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    Devin O’Connor

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  • A Swanky French Restaurant Will Replace Ruth’s Chris This Weekend in River North

    A Swanky French Restaurant Will Replace Ruth’s Chris This Weekend in River North

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    New York City-based hospitality brand The Group continues its splashy Chicago expansion with the launch of Parisian brasserie La Grande Boucherie, a restaurant trying to channel the joie de vie of La Belle Epoque-era France parked in the prominent former two-level home of Ruth’s Chris Steak House in River North which has remained vacant for nearly three and a half years.

    Poised to open on Saturday, February 17 at 431 N. Dearborn Street, La Grande Boucherie is the second of three new restaurant projects The Group has planned for Chicago. It follows the late 2023 entrance of Olio e Più, a spacious trattoria perched just steps away from its French sister spot, and precedes the unveiling of intimate 10-seat sushi counter Omakase Room projected for the spring. That’s not to be confused with the Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises venue inside Sushi-San River North the bears the same name.

    Design renderings show off the enormous scale.
    La Grande Boucherie

    A table laid with steaks and French dishes.

    The New York restaurant made a cameo in Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That…
    La Grande Boucherie

    Boka Restaurant Group attempted to usher a new age of French dining in River North when it opened Le Select in January 2023, but it closed 10 months later. Now, a new contender has emerged where Ruth’s Chris spent nearly 28 years; it closed in October 2020, mostly due to deflated downtown traffic during the pandemic.

    As the opening approaches, here’s five things to know about La Grande Boucherie Chicago:

    • The Group invested around $1.5 million to build and install a new facade for the Dearborn Street building, replacing the steak chain’s unremarkable beige brick with a soaring, scrollwork-gilded stone exterior that’s outfitted with 25-foot windows. Despite the time and cost involved, founder Emil Stefkov feels the juice is well worth the squeeze. “It was a super ugly building that we transformed into a jewel, so I’m very happy [and] very proud of it,” he says. “[It’s] literally another landmark building in Chicago.”
    • At a whopping 10,120 square feet, La Grande Boucherie Chicago is The Group’s largest restaurant, outpacing even the New York original, which seats up to 600 and spans half the length of 6 1/2 Avenue in Manhattan. The massive construction project extended to the building’s interior, where workers gutted the structure to create a grandiose ground floor and mezzanine with curved vaulted ceilings, custom mosaic tile floors, and a century-old French glass mural featuring a scene from a Paris cafe — a collection piece that survived the Nazi bombardment of Paris during World War II.
    • Stefkov and New York-based designer Julien Legeard (Olio e Più) tapped French and Chicago crews to create the restaurant’s most prominent element — a 40-seat, 82-foot-long oval-shaped pewter bar crafted with 200-year-old metalworking techniques. That’s where bartenders will lavish special attention on absinthe, a famed symbol of Parisian decadence, served out of traditional fountains. Drinkers can expect around a dozen varieties of absinthe as well as cocktails starring the so-called Green Fairy, a drink favored by Ernest Hemingway. Even happy hour gets the absinthe treatment, as La Grande aims to resurrect the 18th-century tradition of the green hour.
    • For some local color, the team has brought in Chicago bartender Tim Williams of Pour Souls to design the cocktail and absinthe menus (he also created the drinks for Olio e Più) and partnered with modern Jewish deli Steingold’s of Chicago, which will furnish smoked salmon for La Grande’s menu.
    • The Chicago outpost’s food menu will strongly resemble that of its older sister restaurant with a focus on brasserie classics (think French onion soup and escargot) alongside a raw bar and large cuts of meat including chateaubriand for two and plateu de boucher, a “meat-lovers plate” featuring several cuts that can feed up to four. The Group sources its beef from Idaho’s Snake River Farms and ages it on-site.

    Le Grande Boucherie Chicago, 431 N. Dearborn Street, scheduled to open Saturday, February 17, Reservations available via OpenTable.

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    Naomi Waxman

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