Gourmet Ghetto

The Gourmet Ghetto is a colloquial name for the business district of the North Berkeley neighborhood in the city of Berkeley, California, known as the birthplace of California cuisine. Other developments that can be traced to this neighborhood include specialty coffee, the farm-to-table and local food movements, the U.S. introduction of chocolate truffles and baguettes, the popularization of the premium restaurant designed around an open kitchen, and the California pizza made with local produce. The business district, also known as Gourmet Gulch, is sometimes more formally referred to as "North Shattuck." After coalescing in the mid-1970s as a culinary destination, the neighborhood received its "Gourmet Ghetto" nickname in the late 1970s from writer Alice Kahn. Early, founding influences were Peet's Coffee, Chez Panisse and the Cheese Board Collective. Alice Medrich began her chain of Cocolat chocolate stores there.

The neighborhood, anchored by Alice Waters' Chez Panisse, became the center of farm-to-table food sourcing, using selected locally grown produce, especially naturally and sustainably grown—preferably organic ingredients. Waters and a loosely organized left-leaning coterie of friends and colleagues actively promoted the idea of socially conscious eating. Many former staff at Chez Panisse have gone on to start their own restaurants, bakeries, and food shops in the wider San Francisco Bay Area.

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