Chez Panisse

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox restaurant Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California, restaurant, known as one of the originators of California cuisine and the farm-to-table movement, opened and owned by Alice Waters. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has developed a supply network of direct relationships with local farmers, ranchers, and dairies.

The main restaurant, located downstairs, serves a set menu that changes daily and reflects the season's produce.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> An upstairs cafe offers an a la carte menu at lower prices.

History

The restaurateur, author, and food activist Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in 1971 with the film producer Paul Aratow, then a professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. It is named for a character in Marcel Pagnol's Template:Ill.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="McNamee">Template:Cite book</ref> They set up the restaurant and its menu on the principle that it was of primary importance to use food that was fresh and in season, grown locally, organically and sustainably.

Victoria Wise was the first chef.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Waters and the restaurant began building up their network of local producers. Many of these local farmers, ranchers, and dairies continue to provide the restaurant with the majority of its ingredients today.<ref name="McNamee" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This approach was extremely innovative.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Later chefs de cuisine were Jeremiah Tower and Paul Bertolli and Jean-Pierre Moulle. The building was remodeled twice following fires in 1982 and 2013.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Influences

File:Chez Panisse cafe kitchen.jpg

The Chez Panisse downstairs kitchen and dining room

The culinary influences for Chez Panisse were largely French, inspired by the 1920s cookbook of French cuisine bourgeoise, La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange. This book has been translated into English by Paul Aratow, who was also the first chef de cuisine at Chez Panisse. Waters, who had been an exchange student in France in the early 1960s, was influenced by French food-related values and customs, including buying local produce and frugality in avoiding waste.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Other influences included vineyard owners Lulu and Lucien Peyraud and the writings of Richard Olney and Elizabeth David.

Critical reception

In 2001, Gourmet magazine named Chez Panisse the Best Restaurant in America.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> From 2002 to 2008 it was ranked by Restaurant magazine as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world and was ranked number 12 in 2003.Template:EfnTemplate:EfnTemplate:Efn Michelin awarded the restaurant a one-star rating in its guide to San Francisco Bay Area dining from 2006 through 2009, but the restaurant lost its star in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2007, Alice Waters won Restaurant Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award, and was cited as one of the most influential figures in American cooking over the past 50 years.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Culinary innovations

• Farm-to-table and California cuisine.
• California-style pizza, baked in an in-house pizza oven and topped with a variety of local ingredients, was created at the cafe in 1980.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Goat Cheese Salad: first offered in the late 1970s, the salad contains rounds of chèvre marinated in olive oil and herbs, coated in bread crumbs, and baked, served with lightly dressed mesclun.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• In-house carbonated tap water: this filtered version of the East Bay Municipal Utility District offering first replaced conventional bottled water at the restaurant in summer 2006.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Artwork and branding

Berkeley designer and printmaker David Lance Goines has illustrated many of the Chez Panisse posters and defined the visual brand in the 1970s and 1980s.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> The aesthetic for the brand was influenced by Ukiyo-e and the German Art Nouveau movement (German: Jugendstil).<ref name=":0" />

Patricia Curtan has been the designer and artist of many of the menus and some of the cookbooks for Chez Panisse, which were created as linocut prints.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Curtan published the book Menus for Chez Panisse (2011).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Cookbooks

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See also

• Gourmet Ghetto
• Greens Restaurant
• Moosewood Restaurant

References

Notes

Citations

External links

• Template:Official website
• The Green Gourmets: The Evolution of Chez Panisse
• Guide to the Chez Panisse Records, The Bancroft Library