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Culinary Life in San Francisco

The restaurants aren't quite as crowded as they were a year or so ago, nor are new ones opening at quite so rapid a clip, but San Francisco remains one of the best eating cities in America. The combination of its tradition of embracing new ideas and trends, paired with superb wines coming out of the local vineyards, has made San Francisco synonymous with culinary innovation. Two of the best new restaurants to open in the Bay Area in recent years are firmly lodged at the top of the food chain: Aqua and Gary Danko. For first-class cooking and service, they can't be beat. Postrio and Zuni are also power scenes

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Traci des Jardins — Nominated for American Express Best Chef Award: California
Jardiniére
300 Grove Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 861-5555

In 1995, Des Jardins was named "Rising Star Chef of the Year" by the James Beard Foundation and one of Food & Wine magazine's "Best New Chefs." And in 1997, the James Beard Foundation nominated Jardiniere "Best New Restaurant of the Year." So she has come full circle.

Growing up in California’s San Joaquin Valley, she was surrounded by food. Her father was a rice farmer. Her mother’s side of the family came from Mexico and her father’s father from French Acadian Louisiana. The mixture of flavors from her family along with fresh produce from their garden contributed to her natural interest in cooking.

With no professional cooking skills, but lots of determination and a helpful aunt and uncle, she got a job working for Joachin Splichal, then the chef at 7th Street Bistro in Downtown Los Angeles. Within two weeks she was running her own kitchen station. Before opening her own restaurant, Jardiniére in 1997, she apprenticed with the great French chefs: Michel and Pierre Troisgros of Troisgros, Alain Sendersens at Lucas Carton, Alain Ducasse at the Louis XV and Alain Passard at L’Arpege.

When she returned to California, she worked for Montrachet in Manhattan and as the opening chef de cuisine of Splichal’s Patina. She helped open Aqua with George Morrone in San Francisco and then Elka with Elka Gilmore. By 1993 she became the executive chef of Rubicon and became noteworthy for her signature cooking style. By the time she opened Jardinière in 1997, Des Jardins was more than ready to combine her French technique with California’s fresh ingredients. The Bay Area has an abundance of fresh produce, wines and other ingredients that help her to maintain her standard of excellence.

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Chef Anne Gingrass has been involved with the cooking and serving of food most of her life. The daughter of a caterer in Stamford, Connecticut and a father who told her she could do whatever she set her mind to, she spent her teen years trying on a number of different hats including catering with her mother, learning to fly and adventurous traveling. By twenty she decided that cooking was her primary interest and enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Upon graduation, she went back to Stamford and a job at a small, traditional French restaurant. Soon, a former classmate suggested she come to California and she ventured west to Los Angeles and applied for a job at Wolfgang Puck's Spago. Then-chef Mark Peel asked her to pick up organic tomatoes at a ranch in Irvine - a great feat for someone who was an innocent on the freeways of L.A. She returned victorious, prize in hand, and thus began a relationship with Spago that was to last for years and culminate in a position as executive chef at Postrio in San Francisco. During her years at Spago, Anne learned every position in the kitchen, often working alongside Wolfgang Puck, her biggest influence and someone she admires greatly for his talent and his generosity of spirit. He opened her eyes and palate to the delights of just-picked vegetables from the famed Chino Ranch, the use of vinaigrettes to impart flavor and the classical technique that informs his cooking. After a brief stint at Stars in San Francisco under chef Mark Franz, she returned to Spago in 1986 and became kitchen manager, co-chef with Hiro Sone, and finally Chef. In 1989, along with David Gingrass, she moved back to San Francisco and the two were co-chefs of the famed Postrio restaurant for its first five years. In 1995, she and David left Postrio to open their own restaurant, Hawthorne Lane. At Hawthorne Lane, Anne Gingrass' food has become more Northern Californian, more refined, while losing none of its punch. Moving away from the bold, scene stealing fusion cooking of her early San Francisco years, she has refined and deepened her understanding of the Asian techniques and flavors which punctuate her dishes. The Asian influences in her cooking are classic Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese. She is also inspired by the Bay Area's plethora of locally grown fruits and vegetables, particularly those she feels have not been fully explored. She regularly shops and chats with local farmers at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, and fosters relationships with a variety of growers. Each plate from Anne's kitchen is its own culinary universe of juxtapositions: very often, multiple sauces, temperatures and textures happily co-exist and co-mingle on a single dish. She is also working on the physical dishes themselves. She has begun designing ceramic dishes with good friend Cindy Pawlcyn, and participates in flower arrangements, color scheme, and every visual detail of Hawthorne Lane.

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