Chef Mourad Lahlou’s eponymous fine-dining Moroccan gem will close for good after a decade in downtown San Francisco.
“It is with a heavy heart that I wanted to share with you the closure of Mourad Restaurant,” Lahlou wrote on Instagram Saturday afternoon. “This evening’s service will be our last.”
The restaurateur cited the post-Covid economy and a “bitter dispute” with city officials for hastening the demise of a Michelin-starred institution — the one he was most known for.
“This decision was not an easy one,” Lahlou wrote. “Despite the crippling effects of the pandemic on the hospitality industry, and our city in general, especially our area, we have worked harder than ever and managed, not just to save the restaurant, but even strive.”
While businesses around the restaurant shuttered, he said Mourad persisted as long as it did because of a dedicated team.
“But despite all our efforts and determination, many challenges including a bitter dispute with city officials over the last year, details of which I will share when the time is appropriate, have forced us to close our doors and say goodbye for now,” Lahlou went on to say.
Often celebrated as one of the most beautiful restaurants in the city, Mourad showcased Lahlou’s unique brand of elegant California-influenced Moroccan cuisine with dishes such as a flaky, duck-and-apricot-stuffed basteeya, and the eggshuka, composed of a golden yolk in a pool of smoked potato sauce.
The restaurant, located in the Pacific Telephone Building on Montgomery Street a few blocks south of Salesforce Park, is the latest in a series of fine-dining establishments to shutter in downtown San Francisco.
Aphotic — a tasting-menu restaurant in the South of Market neighborhood, about a half-mile from Mourad — is expected to close by the year’s end, according to chef and owner Peter Hemsley.
“If I could have found a better location, I would have,” he told The Standard earlier this month. “But it’s expensive and hard, and, for those who can’t, the lesson is: Don’t invest in San Francisco, because you won’t make it.”
A handful of other longstanding downtown restaurants have closed since the pandemic, many citing the lack of customers since so many people now work from home.
Aphotic’s next-door neighbor, pizzeria Zero Zero, ended its 12-year run in 2022. And like Hemsley, Zero Zero owner Bruce Hill blamed SoMa for its demise.
“I truly feel if Zero Zero was in a neighborhood location, we’d be fine,” he said.
Barbacco, a popular 14-year-old Italian restaurant, shuttered its doors in September 2023 citing a lack of foot traffic. In April this year, chef Michael Mina closed Estiatorio Ornos less than three years after opening the Greek establishment in the city’s Financial District.
Lahlou — who has yet to respond to phone calls for comment — was raised in Marrakesh, moved to the United States at 17 and opened his first Bay Area restaurant, Kasbah, in 1996.
Aziza, which he opened in 2010, became the first Moroccan restaurant to earn a Michelin star. His magnum opus, Mourad, earned a star of its own the same year it opened in 2015 and held the distinction until the Michelin Guide yanked it in 2022.
The chef’s other Bay Area restaurants — Aziza in San Francisco’s Richmond District and Moro, a counter-service restaurant inside Oxbow Public Market in Napa — remain open.
Scott Chilcutt, Mourad’s former operations director, told The Standard he doesn’t have much to say since he parted ways with the restaurant earlier this year.
“I do not know the future of Mourad Restaurant,” he wrote in a text. “I stepped away from operations several months ago due to serious disagreements with Chef Mourad about business decisions.”