Biography of Alice Waters

Alice Waters of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, CA is  an internationally acclaimed chef, author, activist and restaurateur.

Alice opened Chez Panisse in 1971, serving a single fixed-price menu that changes daily. The set menu format remains at the heart of Alice's philosophy of serving only the highest quality products, only when they are in season. Over the course of three decades, Chez Panisse has developed a network of mostly local farmers and ranchers whose dedication to sustainable agriculture assures Chez Panisse a steady supply of pure and fresh ingredients.

Alice is a strong advocate for farmer's markets and for sound and sustainable agriculture. In 1996, in celebration of the restaurant's twenty-fifth anniversary, she created the Chez Panisse Foundation to help underwrite cultural and educational programs such as the one at the Edible Schoolyard that demonstrate the transformative power of growing, cooking, and sharing food.

Among Alice's many board affiliations, she is the Founder and Director of the Chez Panisse Foundation, an International Governor of Slow Food, a Visiting Dean at the French Culinary Institute, an Honorary Trustee of the American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts in Napa, and Board Member of the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.

Alice is author and co-author of eight books, including Chez Panisse Vegetables, Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook, Fanny at Chez Panisse, a storybook and cookbook for children, and most recently, the encyclopedic Chez Panisse Fruit. Chez Panisse restaurant was named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine in 2001. Alice has received numerous awards, including the Bon Appetit magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and the James Beard Humanitarian Award in 1997. She was named Best Chef in America by the James Beard Foundation in 1992 and Cuisine et Vins de France listed her as one of the ten best chefs in the world in 1986.