Café de La Presse, the French restaurant just outside the Chinatown gates on Grant Avenue, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. As part of the festivities, it will feature $39 three-course menus created by six French guest chefs, showcasing the cuisines of their home regions.
The regular menu—created by chef Patrick Albert—features "classic bistro dishes you’d find in Paris," said partner Laurent Manrique. Those include onion soup, escargot, and beef bourguignon. But for this special occasion, Manrique asked six of his friends to develop three-course menus based on their childhood cuisines, with a new menu each week for six weeks. "Luckily, all of my friends are from a different specific region of France," he said.
Chef Patrick Albert.
The festivities kick off from Feb. 22nd–Feb. 28th with dishes from Savoie, created byXavier Salomon of the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay. After that, Hubert Keller of Fleur/Burger Bar has created a menu from Alsace for Feb. 29th–March 6, while Roland Passot of La Folie is offering a Lyonnaise menu from March 7th–13th. A Basque menu by Gerald Hirigoyen of Piperade and Bocadillos runs March 14th–20th, a Provence menu by Fabrice Marcon of Left Bank Brasserie runs April 4th-10th, and a Bretagne menu by Dominique Crenn of Atelier Crenn, Petit Crenn and Antoinette runs April 11th-17th. All of the menus are online.
Café de la Presse has existed for more than a decade (Manrique himself wasn't exactly sure when it first opened), but this marks the 10th year it's been in the hands of himself and his partners, Steve Mayer, Jean Claude Persais, Lilyan Wong, and the late Charles Condy. When they acquired it, it was a place to have coffee and read European newspapers, but it didn't have the feel of a truly French café, he told us, so they renovated it and changed the menu.
Laurent Manrique.
When he and his partners acquired the cafe in 2006, Manrique was also busy making a name for the former Aqua, earning it two Michelin stars in the guide's first year in the Bay Area. Though Aqua is gone (it's now Michael Mina), Manrique has plenty of other restaurants still in play: he also owns two wine bars, Rouge et Blanc (at 334 Grant, right up the street from Café de la Presse) and Blanc et Rouge (2 Embarcadero Center), and two restaurants, Aquitaine Wine Bistro (175 Sutter St.) and NYC's Millésime.
Photo: Cafe de la Presse/Facebook
When Manrique and his partners bought Cafe de la Presse, their goal was to make it more authentic. "We wanted to give it a typical French brasserie look, with big murals, antique lights above the bar, bistro chairs," he said. They also added high ceilings and wood banquettes, like you would see in Paris in the early 1900s. "It became a true Parisian cafe."
Profiteroles.
Although the restaurant is a beacon for tourists, thanks to its prime location and inviting patio, Manrique said locals have embraced it as well. "A lot of local customers come two, three times a week for lunch," he said. "That’s very rewarding for a restaurant owner."
