Staff Blog
PARC: Stephen Starr gives us the grand tour
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| Photo | Scott D. Weiner |
After the jump, A.D. Amorosi talks Parc with Stephen Starr and restaurant designer Shawn Hausman. Starr's highly anticipated French bistro opens on Mon., July 14 — Bastille Day — at the corner of 18th and Locust.
All photos by Scott D. Weiner.
It's funny what a difference a week makes. When photog Scott Weiner and I stopped at Parc, Stephen Starr's bistro on Rittenhouse Square, on the first night of July, there were men mudding mosaic tiles onto the floor, tapping plaster detailing into the ceiling and buffing the reclaimed millwork designer Shawn Hausman found on trips to Paris. With material from shuttered Parisian restaurants and French thrift stores, Hausman — the designer of the Standard hotels in Miami and downtown L.A., as well as Starr's Continental Mid-town — created a look of effortless aging.
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| Photo | Scott D. Weiner |
Seven days later, there are bodies milling through the glow — servers serving servers on its first "soft" opening. Watching the sun strike the open windows of Parc — the shimmering of the tiles at just the right time — is one of those beyond-elegant moments that make you glad to live in Philly. There's an energy at that corner that's long been ignored until now.
When Starr found out that the corner location would be open, he had to have it. "A space overlooking that park?" he questions. "It was a must. And the only thing you could do there was a big, high-energy bistro where you can eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it be timeless, literally and figuratively."
So you could see this place, on this corner, 20 years from now and it would still be relevant.
"It's true," notes Starr. "Because doing a nuevo Latino or Japanese, there's a particular lifespan and a narrowness of the audience. Here, it's everything for everybody any time of day — hamburgers, fish, fresh bread being baked on the premises."
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| Photo | Scott D. Weiner |
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| Photo | Scott D. Weiner |
Timeless because you lose track of time being inside the space. And timeless, too, in the way Hausman mixed and matched new creations, like the 50-foot hand-crafted solid zinc bar and café chairs, with vintage fans, aged woodwork and small touches like old photos. Even a brass mirror fixture from the recent past — what GM Michael Palermo pulled from Blue Angel, Starr's first experiment in French food — sticks out as part of the blending process.
"Creating a fictitious narrative of what a place is, in a layered way, is what defines what I do," says the soft-spoken Hausman about what he's brought to Parc. "I like to have different elements from different passages of time and such."
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| Photo | Scott D. Weiner |
French café culture and its romance appealed to both Starr and Hausman. The rich, dark brown-red leather banquettes, frosted glass and worn-down bistro tables offer a subtle intimacy. Nobody wants to call it a dining area. "You'll have to ask Stephen about what he's decided on [calling it]," says Hausman. "Stephen doesn't want to call it a ‘dining room on the Locust Street side.'"
Ask Starr and he laughs that Hausman said as much. "I didn't want to differentiate, because if you call the dining room the dining room and the cafe side a café, people stereotypically thinks of the café as the fun part and the dining room as the serious part," notes Starr. "The whole space is a fun and open dining room. We don't want it to be serious or make any differentiations. We want it to be casual so that you can go there three, four times a week."
Hausman was enamored with the opportunity to lean up against Rittenhouse's greenery. "With that exposure and some open windows — it's win-win," he adds. When the idea of a French bistro came into play, the designer thought first of how to deal with the American vernacular of a brick building. "If we want to evoke the feeling of France, how do you deal with the façade?" he wondered. Both men thought of the tile floor — the ecru, amber, green and eggshell blend — as a perfect way in, along with the park and the open windows.
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| Photo | Scott D. Weiner |
While Starr thought of Balthazar in Manhattan, Hausman used points of reference like Polidor in Paris for its wide, long room that seats more than 185 patrons. Café Charbon and Chardenaux, too. Mention that Starr's Blue Angel shares a certain twinkle with Parc, however, and Hausman doesn't seem to dig the comparison.
Starr does.
"I don't know how," he says, "but they share a similar beauty. I like your word 'twinkle.' But Blue Angel was confined and confining. This is not." Here, it is free and open and full of high energy, with tile and glass that radiates the comfort Starr intended.
Parc | 227 S. 18th St., 215-545-2262, parc-restaurant.com
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Hi, my name is Pastis and somebody really seems to like me.
lovely and boring… perfect for the self-satisfied strivers that will be the patrons of yet another theme park SRO project. wait till the servers get to know their “three or four” times a week patrons. bonne chance, mon petit choux!
Does Start have original thought? Buddhakhan/bhuddabar NYC? Parc/Pastis?
Sure it’s a take on a French bistro but the idea that Pastis is somehow unique is a joke. Pastis is no more original than Parc, which is to say not at all. (oh, and the bhudah bar reference is also pretty weak. Buddakhan in Philly predates bhudda bar by several years.) Maybe this will be less douche-y than most Starr places. There’s a place for good old fashioned bistro food in any town. Good luck.
I cannot understand all this star-bashing. For chrissakes, look at all his restaurants… you can’t even get through the door. Obviously LOTS of people don’t think they’re boring.
Is this jealousy perhaps?
People crowd into Starrs bars and restaurants because he keeps an element of class by keeping the music as low as possible. Smart people know…the louder the music, the lower the class, and places with no class all die sooner than the rest.
Look at what happened to The Monte Carlo…they brought in garbage low class hip-hop and the crowd turned into twenty-something sludge. The big spenders never came back and they closed. PARC had a wonderful crowd of “over thirty” patrons. I also noticed that the later PARC stayed open, the crowd got younger and dumber. I hope they don’t fall into the same trap as Monte Carlo and succumb to calls of “we can’t hear the music, man!!!!!”.
Hats off to Hausman for a first rate job on creating a beautifully detailed space, from materials to lighting to layout. Big thanks to Starr for injecting so much energy into the Philly restaurant scene with artistic projects.
BUT this is where it goes a little flat…and leans to being a facade instead of an authentic destination…Product Integrity. For example, a place that looks this good should have the ability to make the best cappuccino in the city. The beautiful two head hand pull espresso machine, acting as a prop, should be restored and running. Hire a skilled barista and when the cappuccino’s are better than La Colombe, I will have a Real reason to pay a visit.
[...] begun, and tipping has been rampant from all corners. So Foxx and Butler have been spied at Parc for lunch, with Foxx at the Bellevue’s Sporting Club later that night. That same evening, Butler [...]
[...] Citizen mode, they began to work into overtime, catching him eating mussels at Stephen Starr’s Parc for lunch. Anyone who thinks that’s a hefty snack that would’ve weighed him down will marvel at [...]
Starr benchmarks. There is nothing wrong with taking a concept or idea and making it better. Go Mr Starr!! Parc is amazing!