Alice Louise Waters (born April 28, 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, food writer, and author.

[4] Waters created the Chez Panisse Foundation in 1996 and the Edible Schoolyard program at the Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley.

[11][9] After training in London, Waters next traveled to Turkey, which she credits with influencing her approach to hospitality and deepening her respect for local communities.

Her travels solidified her love of all things food and French and inspired her to return to California and open Chez Panisse.

She also credits Richard Olney, an American authority on French food who spent much of his life living in France, with influencing her simple, rustic cuisine.

[14] Olney introduced Waters to Lucien and Lulu Peyraud, owners of the Domaine Tempier vineyard in Provence.

[19] In 1971, Waters opened Chez Panisse, which she named for a favorite character in a trilogy of Marcel Pagnol films.

In 1984, Waters opened Café Fanny, named after her daughter, between the wine shop of Kermit Lynch and Acme Bread.

Through Chez Panisse foundation, the project called Edible Schoolyard was organized in order to make an environment for the students to learn how to grow their own food and prepare it.

[5] In celebration of the restaurant's 25th anniversary in 1996, Waters founded the Chez Panisse Foundation, whose mission is to transform public education by using food to teach, nurture, and empower young people.

The primary work of the Chez Panisse Foundation has been to establish and sustain the Edible Schoolyard program at Berkeley's Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.

In 2005, the Chez Panisse Foundation provided a grant to Berkeley schools to hire Ann Cooper as the director of Nutrition Services for the district.

[5] In 2009, she appeared on the CBS television program 60 Minutes, and made a public call for President Obama to plant an organic garden at the White House to catalyze change in the US food system.

[3] Michelle Obama, in conjunction with her anti-obesity campaign Let's Move!, planted the White House organic vegetable garden that year.

[30] An article in the San Francisco Chronicle states that: Obama's Let's Move campaign, which replaced her predecessor's literacy drive, addresses much of what Waters has been preaching ... Chris Lehane, a political consultant who has worked for Al Gore and Bill Clinton, sees Waters as "the George Washington of the movement and Northern California as the 13 colonies ...

These include Edible Schoolyards in New Orleans, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Greensboro, North Carolina.

The project maintains an on-campus organic farm and integrates organic, local products into the university's dining program [34] In 2006, Waters oversaw the creation of the Rome Sustainable Food Project at the American Academy in Rome, which aims to provide a replicable model of simple, sustainable and seasonal food for other like-minded institutions, and which operates an internship program.