Waters, Alice

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Corporate History

When Alice Waters and a small band of friends founded a neighborhood bistro called Chez Panisse in 1971, they named it after one of the characters in Marcel Pagnol's 1930s film trilogy about two generations of families in the small town Provencal atmosphere of the Marseilles waterfront - an act of homage to the genial comedy, sentiment, and informality of the classic movies in which so much is centered around eating and drinking. Alice Waters has said that from the very beginning that she and her partners tried to do things the way they would like to have them done at a dinner party at home.

The downstairs dining room has always offered only one fixed-price menu, of three to five courses, but a different one every night, each designed to be appropriate to the season and each composed so as to show off the very finest ingredients obtainable. The upstairs café opened in 1980 with an open kitchen, a wood-burning pizza oven, and an a la carte menu. Café Fanny, a stand-up café that serves breakfast and lunch, was opened a few miles away in 1984.

Alice Waters and Chez Panisse are convinced that the best-tasting food is organically grown and harvested in ways that are ecologically sound, by people who are taking care of the land for future generations. The quest for such ingredients has largely determined the restaurant's cuisine. Chez Panisse endeavors to make dining there partake of the immediacy and excitement of vegetables just out of the garden, fruit right off the branch, and fish straight out of the sea.

Chez Panisse has long been in the vanguard of the movement for local farmers' markets. For several years, it actively supported the Garden Project, a model program that changes lives by teaching organic gardening skills to former San Francisco County Jail inmates. The restaurant also works developing an edible schoolyard at Berkeley's Martin Luther King Junior High School, a project that will involve students directly in planting, gardening, harvesting, cooking, and eating, with the goal of teaching them respect for one another and responsibility for the planet by illuminating the vital relationship of food to their lives.

- Excerpted from press releases issued by Chez Panisse.

From the guide to the Chez Panisse, Inc. records, 1966-2007, (The Bancroft Library)

Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
referencedIn Black Stone Press : papers and ephemera, 1974-1996 Stanford University. Department of Special Collections and University Archives
referencedIn Voices from the Food Revolution: People Who Changed The Way Americans Eat, An oral history project conducted by Judith Weinraub, 2009-2011 Fales Library & Special Collections
creatorOf Waters, Alice. Chez Panisse Inc. sound recordings [sound recording]. UC Berkeley Libraries
referencedIn Papers of M.F.K. Fisher, 1860-1995 (inclusive) 1929-1992 (bulk) Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
creatorOf Chez Panisse, Inc. records, 1966-2007 Bancroft Library
referencedIn Chez Panisse. Chez Panisse, Inc. pictorial collection [graphic]. UC Berkeley Libraries
creatorOf Chez Panisse. Chez Panisse records, 1966-2007. UC Berkeley Libraries
referencedIn Koch, Peter Rutledge. Black Stone Press and Peter Koch, Printer : broadsides and ephemera, 1974-2010. Stanford University. Department of Special Collections and University Archives
creatorOf Fisher, M. F. K. (Mary Frances Kennedy), 1908-1992. Typed letter signed with initials : Last House [Glen Ellen, California], to David Pleydell-Bouverie, 1981 Apr. 20. Pierpont Morgan Library.
referencedIn Papers of M.F.K. Fisher, 1860-1995 (inclusive) 1929-1992 (bulk) Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
creatorOf Fisher, M. F. K. (Mary Frances Kennedy), 1908-1992. Typed letter signed : Glen Ellen, California, to David Pleydell-Bouverie, 1984 Oct. 26. Pierpont Morgan Library.
Role Title Holding Repository
Relation Name
associatedWith Caf#e Fanny corporateBody
associatedWith Chez Panisse. corporateBody
associatedWith Chez Panisse Caf#e corporateBody
associatedWith Fisher, M. F. K. (Mary Frances Kennedy), 1908-1992. person
associatedWith Koch, Peter. person
associatedWith Koch, Peter Rutledge. person
associatedWith M. F. K. (Mary Frances Kennedy) Fisher, 1908- person
associatedWith Olney, Richard person
Place Name Admin Code Country
Subject
Occupation
Activity

Person

Birth 1944-04-28

French

English

Information

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