Sally Schmitt (February 28, 1932 – March 5, 2022) was an American restaurateur who helped launch California's

farm to table Farm-to-table (or farm-to-fork, and in some cases farm-to-school) is a social movement which promotes serving local food at restaurants and school cafeterias, preferably through direct acquisition from the producer (which might be a winery, brewer ...

movement. She was the original chef and co-founder of

the French Laundry The French Laundry is a three-Michelin star French and Californian cuisine restaurant located in Yountville, California, in the Napa Valley. Sally Schmitt opened The French Laundry in 1978 and designed her menus around local, seasonal ingredie ...

Biography

Sally Schmitt was born Sarah Elizabeth Kelsoe in Roseville, California. She grew up on a farm and initially learned to cook from her mother. Sally studied Home Economics at the University of California, Davis and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1952. The following year she married banker Donald Schmitt. Together the couple had five children. The couple relocated to

Yountville, California Yountville ( or ) is a city in Napa County, in the Wine Country of California, United States. Located in the North Bay region of the Bay Area, the population was 3,436 at the 2020 census. Almost a third of the town's population lives at the Ve ...

in 1967, where Don managed the Vintage 1870 shopping center (today V Marketplace). While Don managed the shopping center, Sally took charge of the Vintage Cafe, a burger joint with soda fountain and Napa Valley's first and only espresso machine. Within three years, she had opened The Chutney Kitchen restaurant in a vacant corner of Vintage 1870, designing her own kitchen to use for the restaurant and for making

chutney A chutney is a spread in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. Chutneys are made in a wide variety of forms, such as a tomato relish, a ground peanut garnish, yogurt or curd, cucumber, spicy coconut, spicy onion or mint dipping sauce. ...

to sell to her customers. The Schmitts opened the

French Laundry The French Laundry is a three-Michelin star French and Californian cuisine restaurant located in Yountville, California, in the Napa Valley. Sally Schmitt opened The French Laundry in 1978 and designed her menus around local, seasonal ingredie ...

restaurant on February 7, 1978. The restaurant served one prix fixe dinner a night, and every day there was a different menu: a choice of three starters, a soup, an entree, a green salad with cheese and a choice of three desserts. Both the food and wine were locally sourced. The menu featured rustic French fare. Former San Francisco Chronicle critic Michael Bauer called Sally "a true pioneer" not only for being a female chef in a male-dominated sphere, but also for offering an all-California wine list. The tables were booked months in advance. The restaurant was so popular that even culinary luminaries such as

Julia Child Julia Carolyn Child (née McWilliams; August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American cooking teacher, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, '' ...

and

Jeremiah Tower Jeremiah Tower (born 1942) is an American celebrity chef who, along with Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck, has been credited with pioneering the culinary style known as California cuisine. A food lover from childhood, he had no formal culinary edu ...

had to pull strings to get a table. The couple sold the restaurant to chef

Thomas Keller Thomas Aloysius Keller (born October 14, 1955) is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Founda ...

in 1994. Keller kept the name of Schmitt's restaurant and continued Sally's tradition of inviting guests into the kitchen after a meal. He also pays tribute to her annually by serving one of her prix fixe menus. Keller also marks The French Laundry's birthday on February 9 — the day the Schmitts first opened its doors to the public, not the day he opened his iteration of the establishment. The Schmitts later helped operate the Apple Farm in Philo, California with their daughter Karen Bates. Grandson Perry Hoffman also worked at Apple Farm and is now a Michelin starred chef. Don Schmitt died in 2017. Sally Schmitt died on March 5, 2022, at the age of 90. Her cookbook, ''Six California Kitchens'', was released posthumously in April 2022.

References

External links

Six California Kitchens

"I Sold the French Laundry. Then It Became "The Best Restaurant in the World." ''New York Times'' Op-Docs.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmitt, Sally 1930s births 2022 deaths Year of birth missing 20th-century American women 21st-century American women American women restaurateurs American restaurateurs Businesspeople from California