Pioneering Napa restaurateur Sally Schmitt has died, aged 90

The founder of favourite Napa Valley restaurant The French Laundry died of natural causes at home on 5th March, just weeks before her first cookbook was due to be released, it has been announced.

Best-known for launching hit restaurant The French Laundry in Napa’s Yountville neighbourhood in 1978, Sally Schmitt is widely credited with having shaped the California food movement and transformed the Bay Area dining scene. Yountville is now considered one of the foremost gourmet destinations in Napa.

Schmitt’s passing came just weeks before her memoir and cookbook, “Six California Kitchens: A Collection of Recipes, Stories, and Cooking Lessons From a Pioneer of California Cuisine” was due to be published. She is rumoured to have worked on the title for 10 years.

Favouring simple, French-inspired food made using local California ingredients, Schmitt became a lifelong champion of Californian cuisine. She also made waves at the time for featuring an all-California wine list at the restaurant, eschewing the usual international drops from countries such as France, Italy and Spain.

At the height of the restaurant’s success, the likes of winemaker Robert Mondavi joined local Napa residents in making bookings months in advance to make sure they secured a table. And all at a time when few women were chefs.

Schmitt opened her first restaurant, the Chutney Kitchen, in 1970, where she began hosting Friday night dinners comprising one five-course menu paired with a selection of Napa wines, which fast became a firm favourite with California vintners.

She launched French Laundry in 1978 with her husband Don, and after a 16-year stint in the kitchen, where she demonstrated exacting standards, sold it in 1994 to Thomas Keller, who has been at the helm of the restaurant ever since.

Schmitt retired to her dream property, a 30-acre farm in the town of Philo, where she opened a B&B and ran cooking classes for 15 years, for which students travelled far and wide.

She is thought to have spent a decade working on her first cookbook, which is slated for release on 5 April 2022.

Sally Schmitt is survived by her sister, five children, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Her grandson Perry Hoffman became the youngest chef to earn a Michelin star, aged 25, and now runs the restaurant at California’s Boonville Hotel.