Learn From the Best
Learn with Award-Winning Pastry Chef Irit Ishai! Discover How She Combines Traditional Baking With Stunning Modern Pastry Art
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Former head pastry chef – Manresa Restaurant (3 Michelin Stars)
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Founder and former head pastry chef – award winning Sugar Butter Flour Bakeries, California
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Awarded “Best Dessert Designer”, Silicon Valley
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Awarded “Best Silicon Valley Bakery”
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Taught at Draeger’s Cooking School, published at Fine Cooking Magazine
Born to Israeli professors in Ann Arbor, Mich., Irit spent her formative years in Israel, Paris, New York, Copenhagen and South America. Her extensive traveling greatly affected her personality, contributed to her openness to other cultures and lifestyles, and helped her to become the multidisciplinary and artistic person she is today. Irit’s long career as a pastry chef and cake artist started at Orna & Ella, one of most famous establishments in Tel Aviv, Israel.
At Orna & Ella Irit spent four years as a head pastry chef making traditional French desserts, pastries and cakes. There she mastered the scientific aspects and precision of baking, and got solid service experience in a high volume environment.
“I Am Passionate About Bringing the Worlds of Baking & Art Together“
In 2000, Irit moved to California to become a head pastry chef for Sent Sovi restaurant in Saratoga, which was ran by renowned chef David Kinch, a winner of the Iron Chef competition. Concurrent with her job at Sent Sovi, Irit spent a year perfecting her chocolate-making skills at Fleur De Cocoa in Los Gatos, working under master pastry chef Pascal Janvier, who was named one of the top 10 pastry chefs in America in 1998 and 1999 by Chocolatier Magazine. During her work at Sent Sovi, Irit was recognized as Best Dessert Designer of Silicon Valley by the San Jose Metro magazine.
Irit’s collaboration with David Kinch continued when she became the head pastry chef for the famed Manresa Restaurant, a three Michelin stars restaurant in Los Gatos, California. Manresa has been named one of the world’s 50 best restaurants By Restaurant Magazine. Building on her Sent Sovi success and inspired by David’s cooking style, she was able to fully express her creativity and culinary prowess. At Manresa Irit explored new frontiers in fine-dining desserts, by matching contrasting textures, flavors and temperatures and achieved fascinating and artistic results, which often left the restaurant’s patrons in awe.
"In My Work I Strive To Merge Old and New, Traditional & Modern"
Under Irit’s leadership, Sugar Butter Flour won many awards, including Best Silicon Valley Bakery and Desserts Shop, and Best Bay Area Cupcakery. The bakery was also commissioned for high profile projects, such as custom cakes for DreamWork’s “Shrek Forever After” and “Monsters vs Aliens”, and had many of the Bay Area’s most successful companies, such as Apple, Google and Yahoo as regular customers. In 2007 Irit was recognized by the San Jose Mercury News magazine as one of the South Bay top four pastry chefs. In 2011, after 8 long and fulfilling years, Irit sold Sugar Butter Flour in order to completely dedicate herself to CakeNuvo, her next big adventure.
In 2004 Irit left Manresa to pursue her dream of establishing her own business, and founded Sugar Butter Flour, a European-style bakery, which specializes in high end custom cakes, desserts, chocolates and wedding cakes.
Irit’s talent, dedication and incredible work ethics quickly propelled the bakery from its modest start as a small wholesale outfit into one of the most successful and widely recognized bakeries in the Silicon Valley, with 2 retail stores and dozens of large high-end wholesale customers.