Chef Susan Dunn, who co-founded Pearl 6101 in the Richmond, has opened Esme, a roughly 30-seat French bistro at 311 Divisadero inside the Metro Hotel — the space the pizzeria Ragazza vacated.

Esme, a French bistro from chef Susan Dunn, is open at 311 Divisadero St., the ground-floor room of the Metro Hotel that previously housed the pizzeria Ragazza. Dunn soft-opened the room in mid-June, and it is her second San Francisco restaurant: she co-founded Pearl 6101 in the Richmond, and she has carried a few things across town with her, including a strawberry mascarpone tart she is reviving from her Pearl days.

The pitch is French technique on California ingredients — "French at heart, California in practice," as the restaurant put it in early press. The menu runs to bistro staples: rillettes, steak frites, roast chicken, linguini with clams, a potato pavé with caviar, and moelleux au chocolat to close. Starters land around $12 to $19 and entrées roughly $22 to $32, which puts Esme in the mid-to-upper casual range rather than the tasting-menu tier — a price point built for the second and third visit, not the special occasion.

The room seats about 30, with a redwood-bench patio out back for al fresco service. Dunn kept the bones of a neighborhood restaurant: art deco detailing, burgundy leather banquettes, globe pendant lights, and a salon wall hung with work by Bay Area artists. The business is registered with the City as Esme under S Dunn Hospitality Group Inc., with a business start date of Oct. 7, 2025 — the paperwork trail behind the June opening.

What Dunn is building is explicit in how she describes it: the kind of place, in the restaurant's own words, where you feel at home and know the names of the staff by the second visit. That is a harder bet than a splashy debut — a 30-seat room at a mid-range price has to fill its tables on repeat custom, not a launch-week rush. Esme is wagering that a proven Richmond operator, a small dining room, and a menu of French comfort staples can turn Divisadero walk-ins into regulars.