Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California, restaurant, known as one of the originators of the style of cooking known as California cuisine, and the farm-to-table movement. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has developed a supply network of direct relationships with local farmers, ranchers and dairies. The main, downstairs restaurant serves a set menu that changes daily and reflects the season's produce. Prices vary with the day of the week, and as of 2020 range from $75 to $125. An upstairs cafe offers an a la carte menu at lower prices. History The restaurateur, author and food activist Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in 1971 with the film producer Paul Aratow, then a professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. It is named for a character in a trilogy of Marcel Pagnol films. They set up the restaurant and its menu on the principle that it was of primary importance to use food that was fresh and in season, grown locally, organically and sustainably. They deemphasized low prices and making available a variety of products unrelated to the season of the year, which is incompatible with growing food locally. Because the ingredients were procured locally in California, the food to some degree took on a very Californian character, hence helping create California cuisine. Victoria Wise was the first chef. Due to Waters' insistence on using the highest-quality ingredients available regardless of cost, coupled with her lack of experience in the restaurant business, Chez Panisse struggled financially for many years. The restaurant also gained a reputation for its staff's partying and illegal drug use. Nonetheless, Waters and the restaurant began building up their network of local producers, which continues to provide the restaurant with the majority of its ingredients today. The restaurant continues to procure its ingredients from a network of local farmers, ranchers and dairies. This approach was extremely innovative. Later chefs de cuisine were Jeremiah Tower and Paul Bertolli and Jean-Pierre Moulle. The building was remodeled twice following fires in 1982 and 2013. Influences The culinary influences for Chez Panisse were largely French, inspired by the 1920s cookbook of French cuisine bourgeoise, La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange. This book has been translated into English by Paul Aratow, who was also the first chef de cuisine at Chez Panisse. Waters, who had been an exchange student in France in the early 1960s, was