Not One Month In, Maestro Loses Its Opening Chef

As mentioned last month, gargantuan Trader Vic's replacement restaurant Maestro opened for dinner on April 16th. Chef Neil Marquis was the opening chef, overseeing a very lengthy menu of American Bistro fare. Today Marquis phones in an update: as of May 1 he was no longer the chef at Maestro. He says his reason for leaving is that he "didn't see eye to eye" with Matthew Carbajal, the general manager who was hired to replace original GM Matt Murphy. The new chef at Maestro is Charles Armenta, and Marquis guesses the menu is still "90% the same" as what was being offered, although more tweaks are probably on the way. Even though it wasn't the most amicable of endings, he adds that business was starting to pick up as he was leaving. And you'll never guess what their best seller was. "One in five people ordered the Croque Monsieur or the Croque Madame."

· Maestro, fully up and running in the former Stars [ISSF]
· All Maestro Coverage [~ ESF ~]
[Photo: SF Citizen]