Chez Panisse

Chez Panisse is a famous restaurant in Berkeley, California. It was opened and owned by Alice Waters.

The restaurant helped start the California cuisine style of cooking and the farm-to-table way of getting food from local farms.

The main part of the restaurant is downstairs. There, guests eat a special menu that changes every day based on what fresh foods are available at that time of year. Upstairs, there is a cafe where people can choose from a menu with fixed prices that is easier on the budget.

History

The famous chef and food activist Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in 1971 with help from a film producer named Paul Aratow. The restaurant’s name comes from a book character in the Marseille Trilogy by Marcel Pagnol. They believed the most important thing was to use fresh, local food that was grown in a good way for the earth, organically and sustainably.

The first chef was Victoria Wise. Alice Waters and the restaurant worked hard to connect with local farmers, ranchers, and dairies. Many of these local suppliers still help the restaurant today by providing most of its ingredients. This way of cooking was new and exciting. Over the years, other chefs like Jeremiah Tower, Paul Bertolli, and Jean-Pierre Moulle helped make the restaurant famous. The building had to be fixed up after fires in 1982 and 2013.

Influences

Chez Panisse was inspired by French cooking, especially a book from the 1920s called La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange. Alice Waters, who opened the restaurant, studied in France and learned to value fresh, local food. She was also inspired by vineyard owners Lulu and Lucien Peyraud, as well as the writings of Richard Olney and Elizabeth David.

Critical reception

In 2001, the magazine Gourmet named Chez Panisse the best restaurant in America. From 2002 to 2008, another magazine called Restaurant put it among the top 50 restaurants in the world, and in 2003 it was ranked number 12. The Michelin guide gave the restaurant a special rating from 2006 to 2009, but lost it in 2010. In 2007, Alice Waters received a big award from Restaurant Magazine for her work.

Culinary innovations

Chez Panisse helped start the farm-to-table way of cooking and California cuisine. In 1980, the restaurant created California-style pizza using fresh local ingredients. Another famous dish was a goat cheese salad first served in the late 1970s, made with chèvre and mesclun.

The restaurant once had its own special in-house carbonated tap water, but switched to bottled water in summer 2006.

• Farm-to-table
• California cuisine
• California-style pizza

Artwork and branding

Berkeley designer and printmaker David Lance Goines made many posters for Chez Panisse. He helped make the restaurant look special in the 1970s and 1980s. His style was inspired by Ukiyo-e art and the German Art Nouveau movement.

Patricia Curtan designed many menus and some cookbooks for Chez Panisse. She used linocut prints for her designs. She also wrote a book called Menus for Chez Panisse in 2011.

Notable alumni

Many famous chefs and food writers have worked at Chez Panisse. Some of them are Andy Baraghani, Dan Barber, Paul Bertolli, April Bloomfield, Suzanne Goin, Joyce Goldstein, David Lebovitz, Deborah Madison, Samin Nosrat, Mark Peel, Jeremiah Tower, and Jonathan Waxman. They have all made big impacts in the world of cooking and food.

Cookbooks

Alice Waters has written many cookbooks about her restaurant, Chez Panisse. Some of her well-known books are The Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook from 1982 and Chez Panisse Cooking from 1994, which she wrote with Paul Bertolli. Other books are about specific foods, like vegetables, fruits, and desserts. These cookbooks teach how to use fresh, local ingredients to make tasty meals.