Sherry Yard
As many of you know, Sherry Yard is the award winning pastry chef at Spago Restaurant in Beverly Hills, California. What you may not know is that she also oversees pastry menu development at Wolfgang Puck restaurants throughout the world. Literally, and figuratively, Sherry Yard has come a long way from Brooklyn, New York to become a leading example and major force in the creation of some of the world’s finest desserts.
After studying at New York City’s Technical College and the Culinary Institute of America, Sherry Yard went to work at some of New York’s best known restaurants, including Tribeca Grill, the Rainbow Room, and Montrachet. It was the hospitality management program at NYC Tech that Yard said laid the strong foundation which has helped open amazing doors throughout her career, allowing her to do a variety of exciting things. Venturing to the opposite coast to run the pastry kitchen at the critically acclaimed Campton Place Restaurant in San Francisco, she also spent some time working with Jan Birnbaum at his restaurant Catahoula, before moving south to become pastry chef at Spago Hollywood in 1994.
Sherry Yard uses only the freshest, seasonal fruits, herbs, spices, and honey in her innovative desserts – simple ingredients and basic pastry techniques that she never stops trying to make more perfect. Her foundation is built on having mastered the classics and by continuing to find inspiration from expert sources as well as the world around her. The recipient of numerous awards, including Pastry Chef of the Year by the Southern California Restaurant Writers’ Association in 1999 and by Bon Appetit Magazine in 2000, and Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year for 2002 from the James Beard Foundation, Yard is a frequent guest and contributor to Good Morning America, Fox News, Access Hollywood, the Food Network, E! Entertainment Television, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, and Gourmet Magazines.
Desserts are Sherry Yards life – making them, eating them, and teaching others how to prepare them as perfectly as possible. Her first book, The Secrets of Baking: Simple Techniques for Sophisticated Desserts, published in 2003, won the James Beard Foundation’s Kitchen Aid Award for Best Baking Book. It is considered a masterpiece by established and aspiring professionals, as well as by the home chefs who strive to make upscale restaurant quality desserts in their own kitchens. Taking the fear, mystery, and guesswork out of baking by providing logical and clear explanation and examples of the fundamentals, Yard demonstrates the true cornerstones of pastry making and how to go from one basic recipe to dozens of delicious and impressive desserts.
Sherry Yard is not only a great chef in the kitchen, but is a good citizen in the community, devoting her time and skills to many charitable organizations. She’s been called spunky and straightforward, approachable and accessible – the “Queen of Tarts” in the world of professional pastry making. Bon Appetit Magazine wrote that “Yard’s creations are one step away from heaven”, and one heavenly bite of her Thumbprint Lime Meltaways, Nectarine Tarte Tatin, or Honey-Ginger Tuile, will make that deliciously and perfectly clear.
