Celebrity chef Jeremiah Tower shares, along with Alice Waters, responsibility for the California Cuisine Revolution, originating in the 1970s at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. From 1973 to 1978, Tower crafted artisanal menus from locally-sourced ingredients that transformed not only the restaurant itself, but the public image of what a chef was, and arguably the trajectory of American cuisine as a whole.
Menus by Chez Panisse January 3 - December 31, 1977 (Berkeley) 1977. Box m511. Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive. University of Michigan Special Collections Library.
In Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent, Emmy-award winning Director Lydia Tenaglia explores Tower’s life from his unusual childhood, through his days at Chez Panisse, to his subsequent culinary adventures and misadventures, including opening Stars in San Francisco and Peak Cafe in Hong Kong, and more recently, his brief tenure at Tavern on the Green in New York City.
Jeremiah's menu for Julia Child by Stars (San Francisco) 1991. Box m503. Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive. University of Michigan Special Collections Library.
The Michigan Theater will be showing Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent next Tuesday, May 30 (4:15pm, 7:00pm, 9:15pm) and Wednesday, May 31 (4:15pm, 7:00pm, 9:15pm). Arrive early, and you may catch a peek at a slideshow of menus from Jeremiah Tower’s personal menu collection, housed here at the University of Michigan Special Collections Library in the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive.