On a blustery evening last weekend, cold winds pushed white-capped waves across Lake Tahoe, but inside Savoie, a buzzy new restaurant in Tahoe City, the feeling was all warmth and merriment.
A crowd filed in through Savoie’s giant front door to get their first glimpse of the new restaurant at a soft opening on Saturday. An antler chandelier was the first thing to see in the entryway, before guests walked up a staircase and stepped past a stone fireplace into the spacious bar. Staff were fast at work in the open kitchen, sending out plates of confit salmon on baguettes and pommes rosti with crème fraiche and golden Ossetra caviar. Vases of wildflowers and white linens adorned the tables in the dining room. Guests sat on mid-century French barstools, sipping glasses of crisp white wine, taking it all in. Above the bustle, a huge taxidermied moose kept a silent watch.
Savoie is the creation of celebrated chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan, who sold their home in San Francisco and moved to Tahoe several years ago. They brought two decades of experience opening Michelin-starred restaurants in the Bay Area, including the Village Pub in Woodside. Mark is a chef-partner with Bacchus Restaurant Group. Alison is a pastry chef who has worked in France and the Bay Area. They’ve now pivoted to focus on Savoie, a project that’s described as a family endeavor.
Article continues below this ad
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1. Savoie’s menu is inspired by cuisine made in the villages perched high in the Alps of France and Italy.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
Savoie’s menu is inspired by cuisine made in the villages perched high in the Alps of France and Italy. A spread on Saturday presented a look into the menu’s highlights: Wagyu beef sliders with a nutty Comté cheese and flat bread called épogne, oeufs mayonnaise, a casserole dish with bubbling melted cheese, caramelized onions and potatoes called tartiflette Savoyard, a platter of crudites from the Tahoe City farmers market, cloud-like gougères, poached giant prawns assorted in a semicircle around a bowl of classic cocktail sauce.
Article continues below this ad
When it came to developing the menu, Mark and Alison researched the history of the Savoie, an alpine duchy that encompassed parts of France, Switzerland and Italy. The couple described driving around Mont Blanc and passing through all three countries in quick succession.
“The historic footprint of Savoie really includes the alpine parts of Italy, down into Piedmont, Tuscany and, for a period of time, part of Sicily. And so we embraced the historic footprint of the Savoie for inspiration,” Alison said, noting they were leaning into that history to give themselves plenty of range in the menu.
Savoie opens officially on July 1. It’s already generating plenty of buzz: Food and Wine named Savoie one of the “most anticipated” restaurants of the summer.
Article continues below this ad
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
That kind of recognition is almost unheard of in Tahoe, which is largely overlooked by food critics. But it’s a hopeful sign of a culinary renaissance that’s underway in the Sierra Nevada and the Tahoe Basin. Savoie is the latest fine dining restaurant to open here, making Tahoe a foodie destination with options to choose from, including the long-standing Wolfdale’s, Christy Hill and Trokay and relative newcomers Smoke Door and Sylva. Mark and Alison have spent many summers and winters visiting Tahoe. (Mark also began his career in Tahoe, as the executive chef at PlumpJack in Olympic Valley, in the 1990s.) Savoie is their way of embracing this place with open arms.
Getting to Savoie’s grand opening has been nothing short of a herculean effort. It took them seven years.
Article continues below this ad
Savoie stands on the footprint of the old Pfeifer House, a landmark in Tahoe City for more than 90 years. The original building was a cabin, built in 1935 as a residence near the Truckee River, but the owners soon turned it into a restaurant and built a half dozen more cabins on the hillside, accommodations for “ladies of the night,” according to the Gatekeeper’s Museum in Tahoe City. In 1940, a new owner brought the property mostly above-board (it was well-known for gambling) and renamed it the Lake Inn.
A historic photo of the Lake Inn, the original building at what is now Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City.
Courtesy of the Gatekeeper’s Museum
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
The first iteration of the Pfeifer House opened in 1950, when Ric Giannini acquired the property and hired his cousin, Lois Pfeifer, to run the restaurant. The Pfeifer House thrived. It was part of a generation of Tahoe restaurants owned by European immigrants who brought their recipes overseas, alongside Swiss Lakewood, which opened in 1920 and continues to serve its traditional wienerschnitzel on Tahoe’s west shore, and Bacchi’s, a family-owned Italian institution that closed in 2022 after 90 years of business.
Article continues below this ad
The Pfeifer House was a favorite spot for skiers who were coming from the slopes at Palisades or Alpine Meadows, looking for a place to celebrate the convivial happy hour skiers call après ski. During the 1960 Winter Olympics, it was the unofficial Olympic headquarters for European competitors and officials, according to a 1963 article in the Berkeley Gazette. After a day of skiing, the Berkeley Gazette writer found “the warmth of a cafe where the lights are soft, the food good, the diners charming.”
The iteration of the Pfeifer House that most people remember started in 1972, when it was acquired by two chefs who had worked at Swiss Lakewood, Franz Fassbender and Henry Obermuller. Fassbender and his wife, Ute, became the sole owners in the mid-1990s. The Fassbenders’ Pfeifer House was iconic with its Swiss-German architecture, stone fireplace, a menu that served escargot — and yes, the taxidermy, which is one of several details that Savoie kept as an homage to the Pfeifer House. (There’s also a cocktail on the menu named after Franz and Ute.)
A historic photo of the Pfeifer House, a landmark in Tahoe City for decades. The property has been renovated and is now the home of Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City.
Courtesy of the Gatekeeper’s Museum
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1. Savoie’s menu is inspired by cuisine made in the villages perched high in the Alps of France and Italy.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1. Savoie’s menu is inspired by cuisine made in the villages perched high in the Alps of France and Italy.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
After a long run, the Pfeifer House closed in 2019. By then, Franz had died and Ute kept going those last years with the help of her son. The restaurant needed work and a new vision. After it closed, a longtime patron of the Pfeifer House named Maureen Sullivan was driving by when she saw the for sale sign out front.
Article continues below this ad
Maureen knew exactly who to call next: her stepson Mark and his wife, Alison. Maureen had lots of memories of going to the Pfeifer House with her family, and she wanted her stepson and his wife to help her resurrect the restaurant. She purchased the restaurant soon after, while Mark and Alison sold their house in San Francisco during the pandemic and moved to the mountains with their two boys.
Both Mark and Alison give credit to Maureen for the original vision that led to Savoie. Maureen has since died, but her family carried her vision forward, with Mark and Alison’s siblings and in-laws playing major roles alongside the two chefs, steering the restaurant’s renovation and design.
The Sullivans set out to honor what people loved about the Pfeifer house: “We did everything we could to keep the soul of the building,” Mark said.
But to do so, they wound up having to essentially rebuild the entire restaurant, down to its foundation and on up. The job of renovating an old building — in Lake Tahoe, no less, with its extra layers of environmental oversight and permitting — was extensive.
Article continues below this ad
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
“Every single part of this building was failing,” Mark said. He was standing in the basement of the new restaurant, between the office and the wine cellar, telling a story of what they found down here when construction first began: “When we started digging back in here, there were literally trees. Literally branches and trees.”
A plan to open the restaurant in 2022 was abandoned, as the years sailed by and the work continued. At one point, they questioned their decisions: “We had a moment when we were like, ‘Oh god, we’re already invested. We’ve already moved up here,’” Mark said. Granted, it wasn’t all hard: Living in Tahoe, Mark said he’s skied a lot over the past few winters. He’s perfected the 90-minute lunch break at the ski resort.
Article continues below this ad
On the eve of Savoie’s soft opening, the smell of fresh wood stain lingered in the walls of the newly renovated restaurant. Bartenders spritzed peels of citrus over pastel-colored cocktails. Friends and VIP guests arrived, filling up the tables and bar seats.
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1. Savoie’s menu includes craft cocktails.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
Chefs Mark and Alison Sullivan opened Savoie, a new fine dining restaurant in Tahoe City, on July 1. Savoie’s menu is inspired by cuisine made in the villages perched high in the Alps of France and Italy.
Julie Brown Davis/SFGATE
It is a gorgeous building, inspired by European chalets with wooden beams, fireplaces and cozy nooks. The 7,800-square-foot restaurant seats 118 people, with spaces for intimate date nights, family gatherings and private parties, the owners said. A spiral staircase leads to a hidden room with stone walls, next to the wine cellar, for a private dinner.
Article continues below this ad
Stay informed, and entertained.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy.
The open kitchen is adjacent to a four-sided bar, with a floating shelf of liquor at its center. Printed curtains adorn Crittall-style windows. Corner booths are upholstered in forest-green leather. The Sullivans also commissioned an artist, an extended family member, to travel to the Savoie region in France and paint landscapes. The whimsical paintings are the chef’s kiss of Savoie’s decor.
“We just wanted it to feel really simple and elegant and try to achieve something that would keep some of the historical feeling of the original property,” Mark said.
Article continues below this ad
Dining and Cooking