Chez Panisse
Alice Waters started Chez Panisse restaurant in 1971 and the set menu format that she opened with remains today. The restaurant has gone on to become one of America’s best known and loved establishments and has become well-known for its focus on organically grown food and environmental harmony, being named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine in 2000.
As San Francisco food critic Patricia Unterman noted, “Julia [Child] set the stage for the culinary boom in America by teaching people how to cook, and then Alice Waters took everyone to the next step by teaching about ingredients.”
Although Alice is not able to travel to New Zealand for Savour New Zealand, she is sending two of her leading chefs to demonstrate and present her philosophy and style of food. These chefs and the rest of the Chez Panisse team have become convinced that the best-tasting food is organically grown and harvested in ways that are ecologically sound, by people who are taking care of the land for future generations. The quest for such ingredients has largely determined the restaurant’s cuisine, encouraging diners to partake of the immediacy and excitement of vegetables just out of the garden, fruit right off the branch, and fish straight out of the sea. In doing so, Chez Panisse has developed a network of over sixty mostly local farmers and ranchers, whose dedication to sustainable agriculture assures Chez Panisse a steady supply of pure and fresh ingredients. To America’s small, organic farmers she is, as the New York Times dubbed her “a patron saint.”
Gourmets worldwide make pilgrimages to Alice’s flagship restaurant Chez Panisse and the restaurant’s less formal upstairs café – both named for French author Marcel Pagnol’s Provençal hero Panisse. The restaurant has always offered one set menu that changes each day, driven by the food available locally and composed to show off the finest seasonal ingredients.
Alice is a strong advocate for farmer’s markets and for sound and sustainable agriculture. In 1996, in celebration of the restaurant’s 25th anniversary, she created the Chez Panisse Foundation to help underwrite cultural and educational programmes such as the Edible Schoolyard, that demonstrate the transformative power of growing, cooking, and sharing food.
Alice is author and co-author of 8 Chez Panisse cookbooks, including one cookbook for children. Her cornucopia of food awards includes the Bon Appetit magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000, the James Beard Humanitarian Award in 1997, and Alice was listed as one of the 10 best chefs in the world by Cuisine et Vins de France in 1986.
Kelsie Kerr
 Kelsie Kerr has cooked in the Bay Area for nearly two decades. In 1987 she began as sous-chef at the celebrated Zuni Café in San Francisco where she remained for five years. In 1993, Kelsie came to Chez Panisse where she cooked in the Restaurant kitchen for another five years. In 1997, Kelsie struck out on her own and started Café Rouge, a café and meat market in Berkeley, where she caught the attention of Food and Wine magazine. Food and Wine named her one of “America’s Best New Chefs” for 1997. She returned to Chez Panisse in 2001 as the co-Chef of the Restaurant. Chez Panisse Restaurant was voted best restaurant of the year in 2001 by Gourmet magazine. Kelsie lives in Oakland with her partner and daughter.
Brian Leitner
 Brian Leitner began cooking in the Bay Area in 1996. As sous-chef, he helped open the notorious dot-com era restaurant, Gordon’s House of Fine Eats, in San Francisco. In 2000, Brian came to Chez Panisse to work in the Café kitchen. Under the influence of Alice Waters and the Chez Panisse family, 
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