Chez Panisse

Coordinates: 37°52′46.49″N 122°16′8.46″W / 37.8795806°N 122.2690167°W / 37.8795806; -122.2690167

Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California restaurant, known as one of the inspirations for the style of cooking known as California cuisine. Restaurateur, author, and food activist Alice Waters co-founded Chez Panisse in 1971 with film producer Paul Aratow, then professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. The restaurant focuses on ingredients rather than technique, and has developed a supply network of direct relationships with local farmers, ranchers, and dairies.

History

In 1971, Paul Aratow and Alice Waters founded Chez Panisse in an Arts and Crafts house along Shattuck Avenue, in Berkeley, California. The restaurant was designed to be intimate and comfortable. Chez Panisse is named after Honoré Panisse, a character in a trilogy of Marcel Pagnol films about working class life in Marseille, France called Marius, Fanny and César.

From the beginning, the restaurant has sourced the highest-quality food available. Today, this entails sourcing food that is locally, organically, and sustainably grown. The menu is dictated by what is fresh and in season, and the restaurant has a network of farmers, ranchers, and dairies that produce and supply the food that is then cooked and served at Chez Panisse. The Chez Panisse website contains the following statement about the philosophy of Waters and her restaurant: