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Walking into the newest fine-dining concept from the highly acclaimed Bacchus Management Group feels nothing short of grandiose. Located in a historic, Art Deco-style former post office, the Burlingame restaurant’s 90-seat dining room is one long hallway with 25-foot tall ceilings and original terrazzo floors, marble walls, crown molding, brass teller windows and post boxes.
The Old Post Office is a big, dramatic restaurant that could feel serious or intimidating, admitted owner Tim Stannard.
But that’s where the floral plates come in. Sitting atop the pressed white tablecloths are colorful, floral-patterned plates, each one unique from the rest.
“How do you look at that plate and not smile?” Stannard said.
The detail may seem small, but it’s just one choice of many Stannard hopes will help him achieve his ultimate goal: for his restaurants to serve and fit the needs of their communities.
“My hope is The Old Post Office becomes for Burlingame and Hillsborough what The Village Pub is for Woodside, or Selby’s is for Atherton,” the James Beard semifinalist said.
Opening Oct. 1, The Old Post Office is the newest addition to Bacchus’ 10-restaurant portfolio, which includes two one-Michelin-starred restaurants: The Village Pub and Selby’s. A two-course prix-fixe lunch menu ($50) and a three-course prix-fixe brunch menu ($70) will be introduced in October.
The dining room offers a three-course prix-fixe dinner menu ($120), while the Postmaster’s Bar – the former office space of the postmaster – offers an a la carte menu in a cozier environment. Inspired by the 1930s building, which opened as a post office in 1941, the restaurant offers modern takes on dishes found in 1940s restaurants and hotels.
“We don’t want to do a Xerox version of those menus, but how do we take those dishes and begin to think about them?” Stannard said.
That’s where executive chef Jonathan Granada, who joined Bacchus in 2025, comes in.
“Since this is my first project with the group, a part of me wanted to black out and go crazy,” he said. “But then to show restraint, I think, shows maturity.”
Old-school dishes reimagined
Taking inspiration from trips to Taiwan and France, as well as old-school French chefs such as Auguste Escoffier, Jean-Louis Palladin and Bernard Loiseau, Granada developed a menu using techniques and plating from the 1940s. The opening menu features more familiar favorites like white polenta tortellini with Iberico ham consomme, as well as harder-to-find dishes such as crispy pig’s tail with parsley root aligot, a French cheesy potato recipe.
The restaurant’s standout dish is the tableside duck, inspired by Granada’s experience dining at three-Michelin-starred restaurant Le Palais in Taiwan. Not explicitly listed on the menu, the duck dish must be ordered ahead of time, serves two and is a $40 per person supplement. The Old Post Office will initially serve only six ducks a night.
Granada fondly recalls Le Palais’ 24-week-old duck skewered on a spit and prepared tableside with fire poured over it. But perfecting Peking-style duck has been more challenging than he expected, Granada said.
“I think I’ve cooked over 200 ducks already trying to figure this out,” he said. “I’m gonna get a tattoo of a duck when it’s done.”
Granada designed a custom reverse rotisserie to cook the duck. Six ducks, hanging from hooks and rotating vertically, can be cooked at a time inside an oven that resembles a pizza oven. Bowls underneath each duck catch the duck fat, which is then used to roast potatoes.
Not only was the oven custom built, the cart for the tableside duck service was as well. RCP Design, which also makes carts for three-Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park, created the cart for The Old Post Office.
The process for making the Peking-style duck is painstaking, Granada explained. It starts with ducks from Pennsylvania farm Joe Jurgielewicz & Son, which he’s found to have the best fat-to-meat ratio. Chefs remove the heart, liver and gizzards before sewing up the cavity and pumping it full of air, releasing the skin from the meat so that when cooked, the fat underneath the skin can render. After removing the head, wings and feet, the duck is dipped in a maltose solution and aged for 10 days, then cooked in the custom duck oven.
The duck is carved tableside and served in four rounds. The first dish features the duck breast accompanied by a sauce made tableside with plum brandy and a dramatic flambé presentation. A duck liver mousse comes next, served on toasted brioche and topped with a clear sugar tule with freeze-dried olives and raspberries. After that, grilled duck legs are sauteed with three vinegars, served on a castelfranco leaf and garnished with mustard seeds. Finally, duck bone broth arrives, made with matsutake mushrooms, charred scallion oil and dry sherry.
Dessert highlights include the tipsy cake and the Point Reyes quinta flambe, Granada said. Executive pastry chef Kyle Caporicci created a boozy cake made with brioche dough rolled in butter and sugar, soaked in brandy cream and topped with vanilla gelato made with the vanilla pod’s seeds and burnt vanilla pod.
“It’s the most amazing vanilla ice cream you’ve ever had in your life,” Stannard said.
For those who prefer savory over sweet, Stannard put fondue on the menu for a $20 supplement. Inspired by Mont d’Or, an exclusive and seasonal French cheese wrapped in a strip of spruce bark, Stannard’s take is made with Point Reyes quinta cheese, which is also wrapped in spruce bark. The cheese is topped with white wine and fleur de sel, then baked until oozing over the edges before it’s topped with garlic confit and served with garlic crostini.
Wine and whiskey
Like the food, the bar program is inspired by the 1940s, focusing on cocktails rooted in the past but with an elevated, modern twist, Stannard said. Hanging above the entryway to the Postmaster’s Bar is the original sign for the postmaster’s office.
“We spent a lot of time thinking about our postmaster friend and what he might like to drink, and so we designed a special martini for him,” Stannard said.
At the far end of the main dining room is a whiskey bar with around 300 spirits.
Not only are the whiskey options abundant, the wine program is also massive, with thousands of wines being stored in approximately 1,000 square feet of space. The Old Post Office houses an operational cellar for quicker access and two huge cellars in the basement, plus two off-site cellars in San Francisco.
“It will be one of the largest, most honed collections of wine on the planet, certainly in the United States … which is why there’s a small army of sommeliers running around the dining room to help you with any question you could possibly have,” Stannard said.
Stannard is gunning for another Wine Spectator Grand Award, a distinction given to the world’s most exceptional restaurant wine programs that only 99 restaurants worldwide currently have.
“I have three of the Grand Awards, so I have more than anybody in the world,” Stannard said with a grin. “But I want a fourth one.”
The wine list is organized differently from the norm, Stannard explained, with an emphasis on the producers instead of the region. For example, if you navigate to France, then to Burgundy, instead of seeing wine by regions (such as Margaux or Chablis), you’ll see wine by producers.
“I’m excited to have conversations with guests about these particular winemakers because we think we’ve curated the best small family-owned wineries and winemakers on the planet,” Stannard said.
A community-first approach
Stannard admitted he also has “Michelin on the brain,” but maintained “what’s more important to me is that the community feels like this is a place for them.”
The Old Post Office was a long time in the making. Stannard said he’s wanted to open a restaurant in Burlingame for two decades, but the buildings never quite appealed to him. In 2022, a friend insisted Stannard check out a boarded up and abandoned building in Burlingame.
“Within two minutes of walking in, I knew I wanted to do the restaurant,” Stannard said.
Sifting through rubble, Stannard collected a sizable amount of marble, which had been quarried in the Santa Cruz Mountains, as well as an abandoned eagle, which is now attached to the host stand. The eagle emblem also stands above the entryway to The Old Post Office, and butter served with the bread course is molded into the same shape. Stannard also found the door to the original safe, which has been placed near the restrooms.
In addition to the Postmaster’s Bar, which will offer an a la carte menu featuring dishes such as duck confit, roast chicken, salads and a burger ($9-$45), a 24-seat private dining room is attached to the main dining room. In April, Stannard hopes to open an additional private patio dining area. It will be a fully enclosed, air-conditioned, 1,200-square-foot greenhouse with all glass walls and a steel roof.
Stannard hopes that offering a more casual a la carte dining option as well as an upscale prix-fixe menu will enable The Old Post Office to embrace all types of experiences the community would want to have.
“We think all of our restaurants, whether they’re casual pizza places or whether they’re one-star Michelin restaurants, should be reflections of the community and deeply embedded in the community, and that’s our highest aspiration,” he said.
The Old Post Office, 222 Park Road, Burlingame; Instagram: @oldpostofficeburlingame. Beginning Oct. 1, dinner daily from 5-10 p.m. Beginning Oct. 12, lunch Monday to Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Beginning Oct. 17, brunch Saturday and Sunday from 11 a .m. to 2 p.m.
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