Chef Susan Dunn’s resume is packed with some of San Francisco’s most celebrated Cal-Italian restaurants, including Pearl 6101 and Pizzetta 911. For her first solo project, she is heading in a French direction.
Dunn calls Esme a “French-inspired neighborhood bistro” drawing on time she spent as a student in Paris. Serving classics like rillettes and steak frites, it will join a wave of French or French-style restaurants that have opened recently in San Francisco, such as Joujou, from the owners of Lazy Bear, earlier this month, and RT Bistro, from Evan and Sarah Rich of Rich Table. Though, much as the Riches insist that RT is a “San Francisco bistro,” Dunn emphasizes that Esme will be a California restaurant at heart.
“I want to channel the spirit of French cuisine using local ingredients,” Dunn said. “I want to bring the sense of ease and warmth you get from the bistro, with food that feels equally refined and comforting.”
Starters, such as artichokes with aioli, pate and charcuterie, will be in the $12 to $19 range. Entrees (around $22 to $32) will star duck and rabbit, and given the chefs’ backgrounds, include a few pastas. For dessert, Dunn plans to bring back a strawberry mascarpone tart with a graham cracker crust from Pearl. Esme will also serve galettes featuring seasonal fruit and moelleux au chocolat, which Dunn calls “the classier version of a lava cake.”
Esme will always have at least one cheese dish, in another nod to French bistros. That could be a plate of the French spiral-shaved Tête de Moine, or dishes made with cheese from local producers like Cowgirl Creamery or Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese, Dunn said.
Dunn, a chef-owner of the New Orleans Italian restaurant Paladar 511, and previously chef at San Francisco pizzerias Pizzetta 211, will be Esme’s executive chef. Nate Arnegard, formerly of San Francisco’s Flour + Water and Penny Roma, will be chef de cuisine.
Renovations to the restaurant’s 30-seat dining room inside the Metro Hotel will add art deco touches throughout, such as globe pendant lights, burgundy leather banquettes and a salon-style wall with work from Bay Area artists at San Francisco’s Lost Art Salon. The back patio, which has room for 20, is also being refinished with redwood benches.
Esme is an old French word meaning “beloved.” Dunn landed on the name because of her mother, who cooked her family of nine three meals a day. “Food has always been such a love language,” she said.
Esme will be open from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. nightly.