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, 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…