The interior of the Hedley Club at the Hotel De Anza in San Jose. It opened Wednesday.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle
Decades ago, diners strolled into San Jose’s downtown Hotel De Anza to order T-bone steaks for a dollar and six Eastern oysters for half that. Welsh rarebit went for 45 cents, and to chase it down, Jell-O with whipped cream could be added for 15 cents.
On Wednesday, Oct. 21, after a remodel and a reinvention by an acclaimed restaurant group, diners arrived at the De Anza to eat once more as its historic bar opened for business. This time around, though, the hotel’s Hedley Club dished out California bar food composed with modern flair and priced accordingly. Chefs daubed a sweet tomato sauce onto the chile-laced sausage of the butter chicken hot dog. Fries, thin and twiglike, piled high in a bird’s nest tangle.
Up above, in the intricate painted patterns crawling across the ceiling and the golden, pendulous chandelier, the hotel’s 95-year history peeked through.
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“It’s our best interpretation of what Hotel De Anza was when it first opened as the second hotel in downtown in 1931,” said Sean Curtis, the hotel’s chief operating officer. “History reimagined, I think that was our goal.”
The Hedley Club specializes in Northern California-style bistro and bar fare, including a burger.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle
At the same time, the Hedley Club’s relaunch looks to the future, announcing the arrival of restaurant group Cal-India Collective in San Jose. Sri Gopinathan and Ayesha Thapar, who built a mini empire around Bay Area-inflected Indian food, are developing three concepts at the De Anza: the art deco bar the Hedley Club, imagined in the style of a Northern California bistro; the adjacent and semi-outdoor Palm Court, which offers the same menu; and the upcoming Mexican restaurant Tejer.
When the Hotel De Anza first opened almost a century ago, it marked major news for San Jose’s central business district. The building stood 10 stories tall, designed with the striking geometric look of Zigzag Moderne Art Deco, named for Spanish colonial governor Juan Bautista de Anza.
But by the ’70s, the hotel — now on the National Register of Historic Places — had fallen into disrepair and was at risk of being torn down. The San Jose Redevelopment Agency saved it, remodeled it and re-lit the sign on the roof in 1990. Destination by Hyatt eventually took over. And in 2024, Curtis and business partner Dhaval Panchal acquired the building.
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The Hedley Club’s design includes a new tiled floor and an eclectic mix of furniture.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle
They brought Thapar and Gopinathan on board for the bar and restaurant, working together to cultivate a sense of history in the remodel, full of bold patterns and prints.
“There’s something very charming,” Thapar said, “about coming into a space that already has a certain amount of pedigree.”
Inside the De Anza, customers walk under tall arches with floral detailing to enter the Hedley Club, where pink limewashed walls and matching curtains offer an air of vintage. They lounge on a mix of chairs and couches in shades of rose and sage green, some shaped like the fan of a seashell, others spotted like cowprint. A painting of a woman dives headfirst into the fireplace, a reference to the pool that once occupied the Palm Court’s space.
On the bar menu, which includes a summary of the hotel’s history, the strawberry shrub-based Diving Lady cocktail makes that nod again. The cocktails lean fruity and botanical; the wines by the glass are California vintages.
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The Vieux Connaught served in the Hedley Club at the Hotel De Anza.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle
As for the food, Gopinathan largely left behind the Cal-Indian style that defines his other restaurants: San Francisco’s Copra and Menlo Park’s Eylan — both of which landed on the Chronicle’s Top 100 restaurants list this year — as well as Palo Alto’s Ettan and Los Altos’ Little Blue Door.
Instead, he opted for a “broader” menu at the Hedley, Thapar said, one that mixes bar classics, bistro fare and Bay Area cuisine: fried chicken with curry leaf sesame crumbs ($18), ahi tuna tostadas with salsa macha ($22), delicata-topped sourdough pizza ($22). After all, the food had to fit with a hotel that feels like, as she put it, “a piece of the yesteryear.”
One couple dining on the quiet opening night ordered Royal Miyagi oysters ($24 for a half dozen, $48 for a full) and a nest of fries ($11). Others bit into the crisped, enriched bun of the butter chicken hot dog ($19), which Gopinathan described as the combination of comfort foods from two places he’s spent his life. A sticky-spicy jaggery glaze enrobed the chicken wings ($18), cooked until some bits gleamed a crunchy dark brown. Black cod flaked silklike in a mild, creamy kimchi butter ($38).
The roasted black cod with kimchi butter at the Hedley Club, run by the Cal-India Collective.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle
It’s a far cry from the essentials of old-school American fare that the hotel once served. But the dishes still capture some of that same familiarity, that sense of classics meant to appeal to all.
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That’s what Gopinathan wanted. This menu, he said, offers “the comfort side of the story.”
The Hedley Club. 233 W. Santa Clara St., San Jose. instagram.com/thehedleyclub