As the chefs / owners of Border Grill and CITY restaurants in Los Angeles, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger have emerged as two of the most innovative and acclaimed forces in contemporary cooking. The authors of "City Cuisine" and the new "Mesa Mexicana" are two of only sixteen chefs worldwide to be invited to cook with the legendary Julia Child in the recent PBS series "Cooking With Master Chefs".
The first woman ever to win the California Restaurant Writers Association "Chef of the Year Award", Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger began their cooking careers while in high school, Milliken in Michigan pizza parlor and Feniger in an Ohio cafeteria. Feniger went on to study at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, while Milliken studied in the Chef's Program at Washburne Trade School and apprenticed at the Conrad Hilton Hotel kitchens in Chicago.
Their paths first crossed at Chicago's distinguished Le Perroquet--the first women ever to work in the prestigious kitchen under the demanding direction of proprietor Jovan Treboyevic. They went their separate ways, only to meet up again in France where Milliken worked at Restaurant d'Olympe in Paris, and Feniger worked at L'Oasis with Louis Outheir on the French Riviera. When they met in Paris, they vowed to one day work together in the States.
Feniger went on settle in California where she worked at Ma Maison with Wolfgang Puck by night and by day cooking on a hot plate in the tiny City Cafe on Melrose Avenue. Six months later, Milliken joined her. They soon changed the culinary landscape of Los Angeles forever with an eclectic cuisine seasoned by their formal training and influenced by their travels to Thailand, India and other exotic locales. They quickly outgrew the tiny cafe and expanded into the spacious CITY restaurant, followed by the opening of Border Grill, which was just named one of the 40 best restaurants in the big city by the Los Angeles Times. Border Grill serves a highly original cuisine blending the distinctive flavors of the Yucatan, Latin American and Mexico. Feniger and Milliken recently sold CITY and look forward to expanding their culinary horizons through the creation of new restaurants and exploring numerous teaching and cooking opportunities.
Throughout their careers, they have been actively involved with numerous charitable organizations including the spearheading of highly successful campaigns for Scleroderma Research Foundation and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. Recently, they have taken an active role in the development of the International Association of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs to foster the careers of women in restaurants, and Chef's Collaborative 2000 to advocate the use of substainably grown products in the food service industry.
