Executive Chef of Palo Alto’s Lure + Till Departs Bay Area

Last week, executive chef Patrick Kelly (Gitane, Angele) of Palo Alto’s Lure + Till restaurant, left the Bay Area for a new hotel venture in Denver, CO, along with his chef wife Bridget Batson (Munchery).

Kelly, who spent time in some of the Bay Area’s best kitchens, says that he and Batson are ready to start a family, something that the exceptionally expensive living conditions in San Francisco didn’t allow. Chef de cusine Jason Morales will take over the kitchen of the restaurant, which is located in The Epiphany Hotel.

Now that Kelly has departed, speculation continues to mount about the fate of Lure + Till, which is rumored to be the destination for Nobu, which is definitely headed to Palo Alto. The restaurant from chef Nobu Matsuhisa is rumored to be taking over the The Epiphany Hotel’s restaurant with an opening scheduled for summer 2017, though the Nobu team has declined to comment on its exact intended location. When asked about the possibility of Nobu taking over the restaurant, Kelly said “Lure + Till is very profitable and popular with the locals. There’s no telling what they’re planning.”

However, the move into Lure + Till’s space would make a lot of sense, considering the fact that PA Hotel Holdings, a company managed by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s Lawrence Investments, purchased the 86-room hotel (along with the ground floor commercial lease) for a record $71.6 million in September 2015, and that Ellison is already an investor and partner in Nobu Ryokan, one of Nobu’s other hotel properties in Malibu.

So, though it hasn’t been confirmed, The Epiphany is a contendor for Nobu’s next location, and with the departure of its opening chef, the beginning of the changeover could be imminent. Stay tuned for more details as they become available.

• Nobu Is Headed to Palo Alto [ESF]
• Larry Ellison Group Buys Hotel in Downtown Palo Alto [SiliconBeat]