Nancy Silverton

Silverton grew up in Sherman Oaks and Encino in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. Her mother, Doris, was a writer for the soap opera General Hospital and her father, Larry, was a lawyer. She enrolled at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, California as a political science major and decided to become a chef in her freshman year after she had what she later described as an epiphany. "I was cooking in the dorms in a stainless steel kitchen, cooking vegetarian food, and I remember this light bulb went on and I thought, 'Oh wait, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life,' " she said in a September 2013 interview with Food GPS.

Silverton dropped out of Sonoma State in her senior year, opting to train formally as a chef at Le Cordon Bleu in London. In 1979, after her graduation, she returned to Southern California, where she worked with pastry chef Jimmy Brinkeley and chef Jonathan Waxman at Michael's, a restaurant in Santa Monica. Inspired by his creativity, she attended Ecole Lenotre Culinary Institute in Plaisir, France, furthering her studies.

Spago, Campanile, LaBrea Bakery

Silverton moved to Los Angeles in 1982 and was hired by Wolfgang Puck as Spago's opening pastry chef, and in 1986, she wrote her first cookbook, Desserts.

In 1989, Silverton and her late husband, chef Mark Peel, opened Campanile with Manfred Krankl. Critic Jonathan Gold later wrote, "It is hard to overstate Campanile's contributions to American cooking." Silverton and Peel opened La Brea Bakery in a space which adjoined the main restaurant prior to the opening of Campanile. Silverton served as the head baker at the bakery and the head pastry chef at the restaurant, which was located on La Brea Avenue in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

Silverton had experience baking bread while a pastry chef at Spago, and began to experiment with recipes after she read an article about Acme, an artisan bakery in Berkeley, California. She used the natural yeast from grapes, soaking them for days in flour and water. She shaped the loaves by hand, and let them rise twice over a two-day period. After six months and "hundreds" of attempts to perfect the recipe, she was satisfied.On Thanksgiving in 1990, the line to buy bread stretched around the block and partway down a side street.

Silverton and Peel were well known through their work at Spago and Michael's. It was difficult for customers to get reservations at Campanile due to its popularity, and during their first year, annual sales exceeded $2 million. Silverton baked bread all night, slept briefly, and woke mid-morning to prepare pastries and desserts for the restaurant. Then she would nap again before dinner. In 1991, she won the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Pastry Chef award. The Los Angeles Times wrote that she had "not only given Los Angeles great bread, but through her work at Campanile, she has virtually redefined what dessert is."

In 1992, she and Krankl went back to the group of investors who had funded Campanile, and built a much larger, fully staffed, commercial bakery. At the same time, they split the bakery into a separate entity. Silverton became less involved with the bakery in 1993, serving mainly as an advisor. In 1996, her second book, Nancy Silverton's Breads from the La Brea Bakery: Recipes for the Connoisseur, was published. In 1997, Silverton appeared on PBS's Baking with Julia featuring Julia Child. Silverton prepared a crème fraîche brioche torte with fresh fruit poached in white wine that moved Child to tears. "It's a dessert to cry over," Child said. "That's a triumph.",

In 1998, Silverton began "Grilled Cheese Night" at Campanile. It became a trend, and Silverton was referred to as the "godmother of grilled cheese sandwiches" on NBC Her book Nancy Silverton's Sandwich Book: The Best Sandwiches Ever--from Thursday Nights at Campanile was published in 2005. In 2001, an Irish investment group, IAWS, purchased La Brea Bakery for a price reported to range from $56 million to $68.5 million. Silverton earned more than $5 million in the sale, and invested with Bernard Madoff; her profits were lost in 2008 with the collapse of his pyramid scheme. In 2005, she and Peel separated; Silverton left Campanile after their divorce in 2007. The restaurant closed in October 2012.

Silverton has been a member of the Macy's Culinary Council since 2003. She is involved in Meals on Wheels programs in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.