Chez Panisse Faces 55-Year Test as Bar Panisse Opens Next Door
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 21
Chez Panisse Faces 55-Year Test as Bar Panisse Opens Next Door
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 21
Summary
Bar Panisse, opened in December beside Berkeley institution Chez Panisse, frames the review’s central question: whether Alice Waters’s 55-year-old model still needs to evolve.
Chez Panisse is portrayed as quietly unchanged—calm service, no ideological spiel, and a menu still centered on pristine seasonal ingredients from small farms.
That consistency remains the restaurant’s strength, but also its tension: a meal can feel both timeless and oddly frozen after decades in which imitators turned its aesthetic into a cliché.
The review casts Bar Panisse as the modern counterpoint, testing how the farm-to-table ethos Chez Panisse helped define might be interpreted for a new era.