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Preparing Chez Panisse starts early each day

BERKELEY, Calif. — Jennifer Sherman, general manager of Chez Panisse, gave the Teen Observer staff insight into the restaurant’s life, where the menus change daily in both the fixed-price restaurant and the more informal cafe, where diners can order a la carte.

It’s early on a Monday morning, and at 1517 Shattuck Ave here, not from the University of California, Berkeley, campus, employees at Chez Panisse are beginning their fresh food preparations before the lunch crowd arrives.

The entrance to Chez Panisse. Photo by Hannah Kinson
The exterior of Chez Panisse features handmade work and was redone after a fire in 2013. Photo by Hannah Kinson

Sherman said when Alice Waters and friends opened the restaurant in 1971, she wanted to create a place where customers could feel as if they were visiting a friend for a dinner party. Waters’ travels to France on an  exchange program in college, provided the inspiration. She fell in love with the practice of shopping locally and daily, preparing meals that were based on what was freshest that day, and lingering over long conversations.

Today, she and the staff go to markets but the food also comes to them from local ranchers and farmers. Meat arrived when we did, at 10 a.m., from a local farm; fruits were carefully picked through for the best in freshness and appearance for desserts that would be started that morning, too. Pasta was being made in the back; lettuce was being washed.

The oven fires in the open kitchens both upstairs and downstairs were lit for pizza baking as well as squid, roast and other items. And before any of these staffers came to work, a group arrived at 6 a.m. to start the day by taking inventory.

Sherman, who still thinks of herself first and foremost as a cook, said the restaurant is “a wonderful place to work because there are a lot of opinions, and everyone’s opinion matters.”

A la carte pastry dough. Photo by Hannah Kinson
A chef prepares sheets of pasta before all the lunch guests arrive. Photo by Hannah Kinson
One of the chefs prepares food for the dining room. Photo by Hannah Kinson
Preparation in both the dining room. Photo by Hannah Kinson

The restaurant and Waters, who is now vice president of Slow Food International, have gained fame for their use of local and organic produce.

“We only buy from farmers we know,” Sherman said, noting that Waters has forged connections between farmers and ranchers and the restaurant  — and along the way, she helped to change grocery stores as well.

Sherman said that while today shoppers take for granted that many stores have fresh fruit and vegetables on display, it wasn’t always that way. She said Waters used to push stores nearby to carry certain items in season and told managers if they stocked them, she’d buy them.

The restaurant will celebrate its 44th year on Aug. 28 with a special menu and live music.

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Chez Panisse: Front runner of slow-food movement

Sweet red, orange, and yellow peppers, picked fresh only a few days before. They sit in the kitchen, ready to be used in a meal.
Fresh bell peppers sit near the pizza oven
in the cafe upstairs. Photo by Jessi Carman

BERKELEY, Calif. — In 1971, after a trip to France, Alice Waters was enamored with the taste of good food, shopped for each day and prepared with what looked best at the market. She and a group of friends started a restaurant here not far from the University of California’s campus.

In 2015, as the owner of Chez Panisse, she and her restaurant remain the standard-bearers for eating local food in season.

The old house turned comfortable dinner destination is open six days a week nearly every week of the year, and follows a unique menu— one that changes daily in both the cafe and the dining room. 

Hilde Coucke was visiting the restaurant from Belgium as a member of Slow Food International to see for herself the restaurant that has moved many to embrace and aim for connecting over food, supporting small farms and eating with their health in mind.

Coucke is a manager of an organic farm, “but farmers don’t make a good living,” she says. She said Europe has a better relationship with food than the United States, but that slow food is still a necessary organization, as Europe is at a crossroads in which fast foods and slow foods are battling for dominance. Chez Panisse, like many European restaurants, buys vegetables, fruits and meats from local organic farmers, only purchasing what’s ripe and never freezing or preserving out-of-season foods to use as a constant staple of the menu.

From this healthy relationship with nature, the restaurant has developed a great appreciation for agriculture. General Manager Jennifer Sherman said, “We would absolutely not be who and where we are with out the farmers.” She added that the restaurant’s biggest achievements are supporting small farms and bringing people together. “All of her passions are about food, but it’s really about connecting people,” Sherman said.

Slow Food International, started in 1986 in Italy by Carlo Petrini after a campaign against the opening of a new McDonald’s. Alice Waters is its vice president. The organization now has an American chapter known as Slow Food USA, founded by Richard McCarthy in 2000, and a youth outreach program that teaches young people about the slow food message.

The Slow Food movement is a revolution which aims to support farming and agriculture and provide clean eating to people everywhere. It reminds the public that traditionally meals were meant as a time to come around the table to talk, joke and be with one another. Enriching food culture is a mission that is often combated by traditional fast food and the growing sentiment that food is merely to be eaten, not always enjoyed and truly tasted.

In the United States following the slow food philosophy is not only difficult, but expensive.  In 1971 the cost of a three- course meal, including a carafe of wine, was $6.25 at Chez Panisse. Today the number is upward of $100 per person for a four-course meal – excluding wine. “It’s just very expensive,” says Sherman.

Chez Panisse does its best to provide employees with livable pay, despite the high cost of operation and the high cost of living in Northern California. Sherman said the restaurant set an internal minimum wage of $15, higher than the national average of $7.75. Even then, it’s still difficult to support employees, and the restaurant essentially runs as a nonprofit, she said.  They also offer health benefits, paid vacation leave and sick days.

Numerous alumni have left and started restaurants of their own that follow the same ethical and moral principles—supporting slow food, farmers and employees. Coucke described an ideal of good eating that permeates European culture and continues to spread worldwide.