Co-owner Stephan Outrequin Quaisser
Stephan Outrequin Quaisser, co-owner of LM Restaurant, is a third-generation restaurateur. His parents owned traditional brasseries in Normandy, where he was born and raised. His grandparents owned a small hotel-restaurant in Caen, France.
Outrequin Quaisser's vision for LM Restaurant is heavily influenced by his memories of the family's businesses. "I want LM to be the kind of place that my family would've gone to celebrate an anniversary or a birthday — elegant in the classic French style, but not stuffy: a place for serious pleasure," Outrequin Quaisser says.
As a young man, he learned the restaurant business by working through all of the roles in his family's brasseries, from dishwashing to front-of-house. He supplemented his family hospitality experience with formal training from Notre Dame de Nazareth in France and a degree in hotel and restaurant management from Oxford Brookes University in Oxford, England.
From Oxford, he was recruited into Hilton International’s prestigious fast-track management training program. He was one of a few dozen chosen from 3,000 applicants to spend a year training in Glasgow.
In 2002, Outrequin Quaisser moved to Chicago, where he began a seven-year stint at The Drake Hotel. He moved up the chain of command, starting as Food & Beverage Controller in the Cape Cod Room and eventually becoming Director of Banquet Operations, responsible for supervision and execution of The Drake’s considerable private event business.
He also supervised the creation of the Drake Bros.' Steakhouse, an experience that whetted his appetite for opening his own place. "It gave me a taste of the excitement of creating a new establishment from scratch," Outrequin Quaisser recalls. "Doing that opening drove home the importance of the people to any operation’s success — you have to have people who will embrace your project and communicate your vision to your guests." |
