The second restaurant on our Best Restaurant in San Francisco list can be found in the Gourmet Ghetto of the university town of Berkeley. The co-founder and Chez Panisse Executive Chef, Alice Waters, is credited with the founding of the California cuisine movement. The mainstays of California cuisine are regional and seasonal, high-quality ingredients, and repeatable preparation methods with a focus on improvisation and experimentation and matched to simple yet elegant presentations typically on white porcelain china which represent artists’ canvass rather than mere plates.
The Chez Panisse restaurant comprises an elegant reservation-only dining room that focuses on the epitome of fine California cuisine in a degustation format, and the Chez Panisse café offers an informal menu, an equally casual ambience but adhering to the exacting standards and quality of Alice Waters. An experience at the Michelin one-star Chez Panisse is a pilgrimage to the Mecca of California cuisine and re-calibrates our senses to the vision of Alice Waters and the best restaurants in San Francisco.
