Gale Gand

Gale Gand is a Chicago-based pastry chef, cookbook author, television personality, and winner of the 2001 James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef. Gand was the host of the Food Network show Sweet Dreams. She was the Chef-in-Residence at Elawa Farm, in Lake Forest, Illinois. Gand is a partner and was the founding Executive Pastry Chef at Tru, a contemporary fine-dining restaurant affiliated with Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. Gand and her partners at Tru won the 2007 James Beard Foundation Award for Service. She has blogged for the Huffington Post, was a contestant on Iron Chef America in the 2006-2007 season, and was a judge on Bravo's Top Chef in 2008 for the episode Wedding Wars. Gand was also featured on the Great Chefs television program.

A native of Deerfield, Illinois, Gand began her restaurant career in 1976 working as a line cook and waitress in Cleveland, Ohio, and then as a pastry chef in Rochester, New York. She later did pastry in New York City at The Gotham Bar and Grill and in England at Stapleford Park.

In 1993, Gand opened Trio with culinary partner and ex-husband Rick Tramonto and Henry Adaniya in Evanston, Illinois and was named among Food and Wine Magazine's Top Ten Best New Chefs in 1994. In 1999, she opened Tru with Tramonto and Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises's Rich Melman.