SF Embarcadero restaurant has closed after 21 years

After 21 years, Embarcadero Basque restaurant Piperade served its final customers on Thursday. Chef Gerald Hirigoyen, who owns the restaurant with his wife Cameron Hirigoyen, first disclosed the impending closure to Resy back in June, but Eater reminded us it was the restaurant’s final day with a story published Thursday. 

“I didn’t decide to close, I decided to retire,” Hirigoyen told SFGATE. “… I’m old and tired and my body cannot take it anymore.”

Hirigoyen let his loyal regulars know at the beginning of the year that Piperade was closing to give them time to bid the restaurant adieu.

“We have people coming three times a year, five times a week, three times a month, so I wanted to make sure everybody had the chance to say goodbye, and that I had the chance to say goodbye to everybody,” he said. 

Hirigoyen grew up in the Basque region of France and started his culinary career as a 13-year-old pastry apprentice. He opened his first San Francisco restaurant, a French bistro in SoMa called Fringale, in 1991 (it closed in 2020). He and his business partner Jean-Baptiste Lorda opened another French restaurant, Pastis, in 1996. According to Piperade’s website, Hirigoyen bought out Lorda in 2002 and opened a new restaurant in the same space: Piperade.

Piperade was a return to Hirogoyen’s culinary roots; he served Basque dishes like the restaurant’s namesake piperade (slow cooked onion, pepper, tomato, garlic, crispy ham and poached egg), a seafood and shellfish stew with red pepper sauce, and stuffed piquillo peppers. Hirigoyen was named one of Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs in America in 1994 and was nominated for a James Beard Award for best chef in California in 2006. 

In his retirement, Hirogoyen is looking forward to relaxing and enjoying life without the daily restaurant grind. 

“I was a pastry cook when I was 13. Now I’m 67 and I’ve never looked back,” he said. “I always wanted to have my own restaurant. It’s been very rewarding.”