Buttery light bounces through a bustling dining room Monday night, reflected in decorative mirrors and framed art lining each wall. The warmth contrasts the black-and-white exterior, snow against the charcoal building on the corner of Main Street and Heber Avenue.
It’s been years since this kind of energy has filled the historic Depot building, and with the opening of Le Depot Brasserie on Feb. 8 and its patisserie counterpart, Union, on Feb. 12, Katie and Galen Zamarra are finally able to bring their restaurateur visions to life.
The husband and wife aren’t the owners, exactly, but their business, Galen Hospitality Group, was hired to create the brands and manage all things food and beverage.
“We really created the identity of the restaurants, the concept, the names and all of that,” said Galen.
The way it happened was almost serendipitous, Katie said. Galen had been the executive chef at The Lodge at Blue Sky when the couple thought it was time for a change, and they knew they wanted to stay in Park City. They started to look for a place to open a French brasserie in town.
The Depot building seemed like the perfect space. But the Zamarras found out Reef Capital Partners bought the space before they could act. The couple planned to reach out to see if a partnership was possible, yet Reef found them first.
That was the easy part. Then began two-and-a-half years of permitting, construction and design work, delay after delay. The building, the old Union Pacific Train Depot, was built in the 1880s, and most recently home to the restaurant Zoom. Over the years, it had been poorly maintained, Galen said.
“No one had any actual record of what was where. We don’t know where the pipes are. We don’t know what condition they’re in, electrical, any of that sort of stuff,” Galen said. “Every time you took a piece of sheetrock off the wall, we found a new horror story. And every time you lifted the floors up, all of sudden there was foundation work that needed to be done. So it took a lot longer than anyone really anticipated. It cost a lot more than anyone anticipated.”
But it was important for them to honor the building’s history, both in the concept and the design, so the couple took their time. Old wooden railroad ties were reused as outdoor tables, benches and plates at Union, and old silver scale was displayed in the Le Depot dining room.
Husband-and-wife Galen and Katie Zamarra have finally brought their French restaurant concepts to life with Le Depot brasserie and Union patisserie on Main Street. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
Both Katie and Galen have worked in the restaurant and hospitality business since the beginning: Galen’s first restaurant job was at 13; Katie was 15 when she started as a hostess. Eventually their careers led them to complementary roles in the industry as Galen became a chef and managed restaurant operations, while Katie focused on the hospitality and marketing side.
After graduating high school, Galen moved from California to New York to attend the Culinary Institute of America. He began working in New York City, staying for 25 years, earning Rising Star Chef of the Year from the James Beard Foundation in 2001, then in 2004 opening Mas (farmhouse), a French-American restaurant in Greenwich Village, at 24.
Galen later transitioned to consulting work, eventually leaving New York to accept a job with The Lodge at Blue Sky in 2019.
“I’ve spent 30 something years as a chef in the kitchen, and I love doing that, but I also love the overall curation of hospitality more than just cooking in the restaurant,” he said.
Katie became connected to the world of hospitality growing up outside of New Orleans.
“Looking back on it, I was embedded in that culture,” she said. “It’s a unique one with the food. It’s a unique one with the characters of the people.”
She attended hotel and restaurant school, spending several years working in the industry, before starting her own public relations company.
The couple met through a mutual friend, a mixologist who was opening a bar in New York City. Galen was creating the bar menu and Katie worked on a press release, which had misspelled her future last name.
“It was 2003, so it wasn’t like you were doing Google search or anything like that,” Katie said. “I felt so bad, and he was nice about it. But then I met him in person at the opening, and I was like, ‘Oh, he’s kinda cute.’ He was shucking oysters for us and pouring us good champagne and drinks and all that.”
Their shared passion for the hospitality industry connected them easily.
“Having the understanding of how important your guests are, how important your team is, too, and really just building that and having positive culture, I feel like we’re both very, very passionate and strongly believe in that,” she said.
Those values are the same ones they’re bringing to Le Depot and Union, projects inspired by Galen’s two years working in top restaurants in France. It’s always been a dream for him to open a French brasserie in a town like Park City.
Galen sees two things as key in a brasserie: the familiarity of classic French dishes — steak frites, tartare de boeuf and moules frites — and a connection with community.
The menu at Le Depot, created by Galen Zamarra, includes classic French dishes at reasonable prices. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
“A brasserie really should be a place that locals call their own, and they make the brasserie what it is. They bring the energy and the fun and the liveliness,” Galen said. “The vibrancy and the atmosphere that is in it is brought by the guests, is brought by the customers.”
French brasserie Balthazar in New York City is also an inspiration, Katie said. It’s where they always celebrated Valentine’s Day.
“If you go in there on Friday night, people are just singing and dancing and having fun. (The owner) didn’t create that necessarily, but that’s what makes it so special,” Galen said.
One way they’re hoping to foster that roaring energy at Le Depot is through the space’s design, heavily inspired by the 1920s. Mirrors and wallpaper, stone textures, golden accents and ornate details hark back to the extravagance of the time in a Gatsby-like ambiance, an almost-full dining room of conversations layered over soft French music. And that’s just on a Monday night.
Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
From a culinary standpoint, capturing that era in cuisine looks like a return to authenticity, Galen said.
“Simplicity in food is important to me. And with simplicity, it’s choosing good ingredients and having good technique, and the dish is very good, even if it’s simple. When you fall away from those things, when you’re using bad ingredients and your technique is not solid, not based on tradition, especially in French, your simple dishes become boring very easily,” he said. “So if you go back to tradition, simple dishes are really a wow moment without having to reinvent the wheel.”
The main way to capture that is to have a French chef, Galen said, someone who knows French cuisine “in their soul.” So, Executive Chef Thomas Bernard, who is originally from Avignon, joined the team.
Most of the menu is in French with translations. It features Fruits de Mer selection of oysters, mussels and shellfish, with hors d’euvres and “plat principal” options ranging from a classic soupe soufflé to a canard rôti. A rotating special is set for every day of the week under “plat du jour,” like a côte de boeuf made with a local 32 ounce bone-in ribeye and a poulet rôti, a whole roast chicken dish.
“When we want to make dishes, we don’t want the American version of a French dish. We want the French dish, and I want people to taste that,” said Galen.
Executive Pastry Chef Cassidy Cabel’s dessert options at Le Depot are also traditional. The menu has a macaron citron, a banana crème brûlée and a mille-feuille. Dessert wines such as ports, sherries and sauternes are also available for order along with non-alcoholic teas and coffee drinks.
Union, the patisserie side, is where Cabel’s work really shines. There, traditional French croissants, kouign-amanns, crêpes, unique macarons and quiches are available for order. The Union is similar to a high-end coffee shop, open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with future plans to have bar options like wine.
A kouign-amann and a passion fruit citrus cake are some of the pastries sold at Union, now open daily from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
Le Depot is currently just open for dinner from 5:30 to 10 p.m. daily. Brunch, lunch and aprés will eventually be available on the outdoor patio throughout a phased opening.
It’s not just another place to grab a burger and a beer and a bowl of chili, he said, but is meant to expand the options for locals and visitors alike with a “come as you may” mentality.
“After you’ve skied all day and you’ve had a good time, you want to continue that with the meal,” Katie said. “Come and enjoy yourselves and just carry on the excitement that you had from the day.”
The Zamarras said they love living in Park City, and are excited to bring their talents to Main Street.
“We’re not trying to change anything or revolutionize anything,” said Galen. “Ultimately, (we) just want to be a part of the history in Old Town.”
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