The Other 27 Club: Five Pioneers of the Last 50 Years and Why the Next Great American Restaurant May Never Open

By Ethan Blake

BEAR WITH ME IF I START WITH with a familiar place. You’d think that the plain fruit dessert at Chez Panisse is an overpriced gimmick. Yet according to Michael Battisto, who cooked there for five years, “The fruit is the most labor-intensive item on the menu.” First, the restaurant sources its fruit from whichever northern California farmer currently se…