Chez Panisse
Front entrance.
Interactive map of Chez Panisse
Restaurant information
Established	1971 (1971)
Owner	Alice Waters
Food type	California
Location	1517 Shattuck Avenue,Berkeley,Alameda County,California, 94709, United States
Coordinates	37°52′46.49″N122°16′8.46″W / 37.8795806°N 122.2690167°W /37.8795806; -122.2690167
Website	chezpanisse.com

Chez Panisse is aBerkeley,California, restaurant, known as one of the originators ofCalifornia cuisine and thefarm-to-table movement, opened and owned byAlice 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.^[1] An upstairs cafe offers an a la carte menu at lower prices.

The restaurateur, author, and food activistAlice Waters opened Chez Panisse in 1971 with the film producer Paul Aratow, then a professor ofcomparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. It is named for a character inMarcel Pagnol'sMarseille Trilogy [fr].^[2][3] 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 andsustainably.

Victoria Wise was the first chef.^[4][5] 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.^[3][6] This approach was extremely innovative.^[7] Later chefs de cuisine wereJeremiah Tower and Paul Bertolli and Jean-Pierre Moulle. The building was remodeled twice following fires in 1982 and 2013.^[8]

The culinary influences for Chez Panisse were largely French, inspired by the 1920s cookbook of Frenchcuisine 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.^[9] Other influences included vineyard ownersLulu and Lucien Peyraud and the writings ofRichard Olney andElizabeth David.

In 2001,Gourmet magazine named Chez Panisse the Best Restaurant in America.^[10] From 2002 to 2008 it was ranked byRestaurant magazine as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world and was ranked number 12 in 2003.^[a][b][c]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.^[13][14] 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.^[15]

• Farm-to-table andCalifornia 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.^[16]
• Goat Cheese Salad: first offered in the late 1970s, the salad contains rounds ofchèvre marinated in olive oil and herbs, coated in bread crumbs, and baked, served with lightly dressedmesclun.^[17]
• In-house carbonated tap water: this filtered version of theEast Bay Municipal Utility District offering first replaced conventional bottled water at the restaurant in summer 2006.^[18]

Berkeley designer and printmakerDavid Lance Goines has illustrated many of the Chez Panisse posters and defined the visual brand in the 1970s and 1980s.^[19][20] The aesthetic for the brand was influenced byUkiyo-e and the GermanArt Nouveau movement (German: Jugendstil).^[20]

Patricia Curtan has been the designer and artist of many of the menus and some of the cookbooks for Chez Panisse, which were created aslinocut prints.^[21] Curtan published the bookMenus for Chez Panisse (2011).^[22][23]

• Waters, Alice (1982).The Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook. New York: Random House.ISBN 978-0-394-51787-2.
• Bertolli, Paul; Waters, Alice (1994).Chez Panisse Cooking. New York: Random House.ISBN 978-0-679-75535-7.
• Shere, Lindsey Remolif (1994).Chez Panisse Desserts. New York: Random House.ISBN 9780679755715.
• Waters, Alice (1996).Chez Panisse Vegetables. New York: HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-06-017147-6.
• Waters, Alice (1999).Chez Panisse Café Cookbook. New York: HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-06-017583-2.
• Waters, Alice (2002).Chez Panisse Fruit. New York: HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-06-019957-9.
• Waters, Alice; Curtan, Patricia; Labro, Martine (2011).Chez Panisse Pasta, Pizza & Calzone. New York: Random House.ISBN 978-0-394-53094-9.
• Waters, Alice (2011).40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers.ISBN 978-0-307-71826-6.

• Gourmet Ghetto
• Greens Restaurant
• Moosewood Restaurant

Notes

Citations

Wikimedia Commons has media related toChez Panisse.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide forBerkeley, California.

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

• Buildings and structures in Berkeley, California
• Companies based in Berkeley, California
• Restaurants in Berkeley, California
• Restaurants established in 1971
• Cuisine of the San Francisco Bay Area
• Culture of Berkeley, California
• 1971 establishments in California
• James Beard Foundation Award winners

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