Alice Waters pioneered California cuisine, opening Chez Panisse in 1971 to provide well-prepared food that changed with the seasons. She championed the use of locally grown, organic foods and authored eight cookbooks. Waters also designed the Edible Schoolyard Program to teach children about growing and preparing fresh foods. She is recognized for her humanitarian efforts and support of organic farming.
Alice Waters is a renowned chef who is credited with pioneering the California cuisine movement in the kitchen, establishing one of California’s best restaurants in Berkeley, Chez Panisse, and championing the shift towards using locally grown foods organically in its recipes. Born in 1944, Alice Waters pursued her love of French culture, earning a BA in French Cultural Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967. She then spent a year traveling through France, and notably using not only French cooking techniques, but the way the French approach food.
In 1971, Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, which featured a set menu. Her goal was to provide guests with well-prepared food that would change with the seasons as new foods became available at the time. The restaurant became an almost instant success, inspiring Alice Waters to open another café Chez Panisse in 1980. In 1984 Waters opened a breakfast and lunch restaurant, Café Fanny.
Although California Cuisine may later be derided for serving tiny portions at shockingly high prices, the restaurants opened by Alice Waters did not spearhead this movement. Instead, the focus has been on how to embrace California’s abundance of meat and eagerly produce and support sustainable farming methods. Although Chez Panisse is an expensive place to dine, the cafe located above it offers a variety of moderately priced pizzas, salads and desserts, and the portions are delightfully large, often for sharing.
Since she could not reach everyone through her restaurants, and by popular demand, Alice Waters also became a well-known cookbook author and produced eight cookbooks. Some cookbooks feature recipes from Chez Panisse and her café, while others focus on getting kids into the world of food. Fanny at Chez Panisse contains both a story and cooking recipes for children and was inspired by Waters’ daughter Fanny, born in 1983.
Her love of introducing food to children led Alice Waters to embark on a very exciting career path as a designer at the Edible Schoolyard Program in Berkeley. The program teaches children how to raise, grow and prepare their own foods using fresh ingredients. Waters’ concern with childhood obesity and also the deterioration of family meals inspired her to think about ways that the idea of eating and eating right could be incorporated into the school environment. Her pilot program has now expanded to many of Berkeley’s elementary and middle schools.
Alice Waters is recognized for her humanitarian efforts, her pioneering ideas in the world of food, and her continued support of farmers and the organic farming movement. She literally brings her own philosophical ideas to the table in her fine restaurants, cookbooks and children’s programs.
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