Gale Gand

Executive Pastry Chef and Partner of Tru, Chicago

Gale Gand is the executive pastry chef and partner of  Tru the one star Michelin, four-star Mobil, five-diamond AAA, Relais & Chateaux Relais-Gourmand restaurant in Chicago with  restaurateur Rich Melman. She was recognized in 2001 as Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year by The James Beard Foundation and Bon Appetite magazine and in 1994 as one of Food & Wine’s Top Ten Best New Chefs. Gand has a BFA from RIT and attended culinary school at La Varenne in Paris and is an accomplished cookbook author with seven titles to her credit, including her most recent “Gale Gand’s Brunch”, released in 2009. 

Gand was the host of the long running Food Network’s “Sweet Dreams,” the first ever all-dessert show for Food Network. She has appeared on “Martha Stewart”, “Oprah”, “Iron Chef America”, Baking With Julia (Child), Nickelodeon, judged the 2008 season of Bravo's hit series "Top Chef" and the first season of “Top Chef Just Desserts”, Food Network Challenge and Last Cake Standing. She has her own root beer company, Gale’s Root Beer producing a cinnamon-ginger-vanilla flavored root beer. In the summer of 2008 two of Gand’s desserts were featured at the USA House at the Beijing Olympics and was chosen by Mayor Daley to create the dessert for the President of China’s Welcome dinner on his 2011 visit to Chicago.

A supporter of sustainable agriculture, eating locally and the environmental movement, Gand is a member of the National Restaurant Association's Conserve Initiative Action Council and forages annually for local ramps, and mushrooms with her son for her restaurants. She is involved in many national causes including first lady, Michelle Obama’s Chef’s Move To School initiative to help fight childhood obesity, mentoring her alma matre Deerfield High school in Deerfield, Il. where her son is a freshman. She is also involved in many community causes, including Chicago’s Green City Market, Art Smith’s foundation, Common Threads. She frequently leads cooking classes and demonstrations and she teaches pastry and baking after school at her daughters’ middle school. Gale is also an executive board member of the Chicago chapter of the AIWF and a long time member of the James Beard Foundation and Les Dames D’Escoffier.

Gale is married to an environmentalist, Jimmy Seidita, has a 14 year old son  Gio and 6 year old twins, Ella and Ruby.  For more information on Gand, visit www.galegand.com and www.trurestaurant.com. 

Executive Chef Gale Gand Cooking Class > >
View Event Schedule > >