Friday Food: Female Chefs Prepare Sunday's Tower Bridge Dinner

Listen: Chefs Suzette Gresham and Allyson Harvie.

The 2019 Tower Bridge Dinner will feature a star-studded cast of women who have made their mark on the culinary scene led by Suzette Gresham of San Francisco’s Acquerello, who has held a two-star rating from Michelin since 2015. Joining her will be Sacramento chefs Allyson Harvie of Ella Dining Room and Bar, Casey Shideler of Taylor’s Kitchen, Molly Hawks of Hawks Restaurant, and Tokiko Sawada of Binchoyaki.

The annual Tower Bridge Dinner remains one of the hottest tickets in town as it heads into its seventh year, and it serves not only as a marquee event that showcases what Sacramento’s culinary community can produce, but it also serves as the major fundraiser for the free two-day street festival that leads up to it and welcomed more than 100,000 people in 2018.

Suzette Gresham became only the third American woman to be honored with two Michelin stars in 2015, and her work in San Francisco’s Acquerello has seen it land a spot in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 Bay Area Restaurant List for the past 22 years. Ingredients are one of the central pillars in her kitchen, and she seeks to provide diners with an experience. Additionally, she has long focused on providing a workplace free of fear and intimidation, regardless of gender, and focuses on passing on her knowledge to the next generation, including passing 63 interns through her kitchen.

Allyson Harvie spent more than a decade honing her craft in San Francisco at restaurants including Absinthe, Ragazza and Salt House before coming to Sacramento and working as chef de cuisine at The Kitchen in 2017. She became chef de cuisine at Ella Dining Room and Bar in 2018 and continues to value her authentic relationships with farmers to bring quality seasonal meals to her restaurant. Ella Dining Room and Bar was one of 10 Sacramento restaurants honored with Michelin Plate awards in 2019.