Chandler pastry chef: Skill set not a sidelight at local restaurant
Courtesy of Cheeky Concepts
Lisa Graf is the pastry chef at the Tipsy Egg in downtown Chandler. She honed her skills in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado before gaining experience in Maui, Portland and Scottsdale.
Lisa Graf says she was in the right place at the right time to break into the pastry chef business.
That doesn’t mean anyone who works hard enough and long enough at a specialty couldn’t become a chef in a niche.
“Growing up in Santa Fe, it was a good food-saturated city, with a lot of fine dining,” Graf said. “But I feel if you create your focus, like butchery or sushi or pastry, and really hone in on one thing, and want to be just that, if you hone in on it, you can break into it.”
Graf has been the pastry chef at The Tipsy Egg in downtown Chandler for about three months. She said it helps a restaurant tell customers about its focus if it has a pastry chef.
“I feel like a lot of restaurants put pastries on the back burner,” Graf said. “If you do want to highlight that element of your restaurant, it’s great to have a pastry chef.”
Graf said the definition of what’s a pastry can be debated in the chef world, but for her, it’s fairly expansive.
Lisa Graf arranges pastries on a plate on a January morning at the Tipsy Egg in downtown Chandler. The pastry chef said it helps for restaurants to have specialists and advertise what they do well.
Independent Newsmedia/Jason W. Brooks
“To me, I consider sweets as pastries, all across the board,” she said. “Sopaipillas are a pastry. So are bizcochitos.”
Graf said she’s not part of any trade associations but knows there are outstanding pastry chefs in the Valley. She said shows like “The Bear,” which portray a cutthroat, intense and mostly hostile environment, aren’t entirely up-to-date portrayals of pastry chefs, though shows that show kitchen work is difficult is a clear and resounding message.
“The restaurant industry has changed so much over the past 10 years,” Graf said. “The quality of life in the kitchen has gotten a lot better.”
Graf, her husband, David Mora, and their children now live in Maricopa; she said Mora’s the corporate chef for Cheeky Concepts, the ownership group that runs the Tipsy Egg, The Uncommon that’s next door and Recreo Cantina on the other side of Arizona Avenue.
Graf said back in Santa Fe, she’d become bored as a teen restaurant hostess and asked if she could take over for a departing pastry chef. A year and a condensed seven-month community college culinary course later, she helped an owner open a new restaurant in Santa Fe as its pastry chef.
Lisa Graf points to toppings on a pastry she created. The pastry chef said it helps restaurants to emphasize its specialties if there's a specialist, like a pastry chef, on staff.
Courtesy of Cheeky Concepts
After sharpening her skills further, she headed to Maui, followed by Portland and then Phoenix. Her recent experience in the Valley includes a stint as the pastry chef at ZuZu in Scottsdale and Ghost Ranch in Tempe.
Graf said part of her move to the Tipsy Egg was driven by being at a place that highlights pastries.
“A good pastry chef can bring a different level of quality — even to baked goods,” she said.
Jason W. Brooks News Editor | Chandler Independent
Jason W. Brooks joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in July 2021 as an associate editor. After a year covering Buckeye, he has covered Chandler since the fall of 2022, in addition to assisting the Daily Independent throughout his time at INI.
Education: University of New Mexico, bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, print emphasis, English minor.
Random Fact: He and his siblings witnessed a Space Shuttle launch and landing in the same year in person, on opposite coasts.
Hobbies: Karaoke, bicycling and American Sign Language.
By 
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here