San Francisco Proper Hotel's Lorenz Maurer on Swiss hotels & steak tartare
Lorenz Maurer (photo credit: NJFPR)
Before coming to the San Francisco Proper Hotel, Lorenz Maurer most served as Area Managing Director for Commune Hospitality, where he oversaw three San Francisco hotels, including the iconic Phoenix hotel in the Tenderloin, while simultaneously holding the General Manager position at The Epiphany Hotel in Palo Alto, a Joie de Vivre hotel operated by Commune.
On his ideal Sunday:
I take Sundays off, and most of time I drive up to the city from Los Gatos, where I live with my wife and daughters. Our first stop is Rapha Cycle Club in the Marina. They have a little parklet out front where they park a “broom truck” (translated from German) - the van they use to sweep up the riders in the back during a bike race.
Then I’ll stop by the Aesop Store in the Marina. (Editor's Note: Aesop is the beloved amenity brand also showcased in the bathrooms at San Francisco Proper Hotel.) It has the best architectural design. Beautiful concrete floor, chestnut walls. You can feel the pride from the staff that work there. I like the Aesop cleansing scrub in the green tube (you can find the Aesop Geranium Leaf Body Scrub here). I swim every morning at 5:30am and I’ll use it after that.
My other latest find is the Isaia - it’s a beautiful store in the Frank Lloyd Wright building on Maiden Lane. They have a beautiful stairwell and beautiful architecture.
San Francisco Proper Hotel
On staying analog DURING the weekend:
On the weekends, I like to go completely analog - I stay off screens and on paper. I love a good news stand. Smoke Signal on Polk has all of the great foreign magazines that I love, including Kinfolk and Monocle. It is run by a man named Fadi Berbery and has been there for 20 years. I’ll spend some time magazine shopping, but always walk out with the New York Times and Sunday Magazine. IAfterwards, I might stop by St. Frank Coffee for a cappuccino or an espresso. I’m so happy they just opened one near the hotel in SOMA.
On his relationship with steak tartare:
The first time I had steak tartare was at a hotel I worked at in Geneva. I thought they were crazy to serve raw meat! And then I loved it. But I never found a steak tartare I loved again until I had it again here at Villon!
On eating GERMAN FOOD IN The Bay:
I love Naschmarkt in Campbell for nostalgic reasons. It makes both my wife and I homesick for good German Food.
On his favorite European hotels:
On my last vacation, I stayed at the beautiful Cervo Mountain Lodge in Zermatt, Switzerland. (The Cervo Mountain Lodge and the San Francisco Proper Hotel are part of the same hotel group, called Design Hotels.)
There’s this other hotel in Andermatt, Switzerland that I love called Chedi. Andermatt is a military town and the town itself is very rugged, but this beautiful five star hotel brings in a different vibe. It's just a magical place.
In the South of France, there’s a beautiful hotel called Hotel Les Roche Rouges. It’s directly on the rocks, about a 4-hour drive from Cannes and St. Tropez.
On my next trip, I would like to go back to the Cortiina in Munich. It has an A-frame room that I love. I've stayed there 3 or 4 times and they always put me in the same room. I’m not sure if it’s on purpose. There’s an espresso machine in the room with Italian coffee. It’s lovely.
On pizza in sf:
For pizza, I love Montesacro on Stevenson. While we were opening the San Francisco Proper, our office was in a WeWork office near there so we frequented that place.
Room at San Francisco Proper Hotel
On the development on Market street:
There is so much happening on Market Street. I love Waystone Wine Bar between 5th and 6th. It’s brand new, and it feels symbolic of the evolution of hospitality on Market.
On his favorite RECENT PURCHASE:
My favorite things lately are my Master Dynamic headphones. The maker’s son is a musician and they are just beautiful headphones. They are like Beats headphones for adults.
What San Francisco Proper does well:
One thing we do well here at The Proper Hotel is that we treat the staff like guests. We have this beautiful building, but it starts with the staff - they are the ones who bring it alive. I always make sure to walk through and say good morning to everyone. Especially the morning cook! He has one of the hardest jobs - he gets in very early and feeds people who haven’t had their breakfast yet.
It’s important to me that we see people’s unrecognized needs. For example, with my family, I have a wife, a son, and two daughters. The women all have very long hair. The little bottles of shampoo don’t cut it for us! So when a Front Desk agent recognizes that; that’s cool.
On cocktails & roof hot dogs:
At Charmaine’s (on the roof of The San Francisco Proper Hotel), make sure you order a Charmaine Dog and Aperol Spritz. The Aperol Spritz is a great afternoon drink for me - light enough but still fun. I usually have to drive home at some point so I can’t go crazy.
On his American hotel memories:
People will always associate specific memories with hotels. When I first moved to the Bay Area, my family and I stayed at the Hotel Del Sol near Fisherman’s Wharf and watched the Cars movie. That hotel is now the Cars hotel to my entire family.
After I got married, we stayed at Ian Schrager’s Hudson Hotel in New York. It was like a 200 square foot room, but it was near the park and it was perfect.
