Elka Gilmore

Elka Ruth Gilmore was born on March 17, 1960, in San Antonio, Texas.[1][2] Her first restaurant job, as a dishwasher, was at Café Camille in Austin, when she was around 12 years old.[1][3] She left home at age 16 to live with her grandmother in Madison, Wisconsin.[1][2][3] As a teenager, she worked as a prep cook at L’Étoile in Madison; when the chef quit, Gilmore was promoted to chef.[1][2]

At 18, she travelled to Boston, New York, and Provence (where she apprenticed at a restaurant in Cotignac),[3] before settling in Los Angeles in 1982.[1] There, she worked at restaurants Tumbleweed, Checkers, and Palette.[1][4] She was the co-owner of Camelion's, which served French-inspired cuisine.[1][3]

In 1991, at the age of 31, she opened her restaurant Elka in the Miyako Hotel in San Francisco's Japantown, serving a blend of Asian and French cuisine.[1][2] The restaurant was met with national acclaim.[2][5] The New York Times Magazine described the restaurant's dishes as "light and memorable" with "deep and husky flavors"; it called Gilmore "the enfant terrible of the modern California kitchen" and "an iconoclastic cook."[6] In 1994, she was nominated for the James Beard Foundation's Award for Best California Chef.[7]

In 1995, she opened Liberté, a French-American restaurant, in San Francisco.[1] It closed after a few months.[1] She was later hired by the Omni Berkshire Place Hotel in New York to open and run Kokachin, a seafood restaurant.[1]

In 1998, she returned to San Francisco and opened Oodles, an Asian fusion restaurant; it closed shortly thereafter.[1][2][8] Reviewing Oodles, Mark Bittman of The New York Times wrote that "[d]espite the angular, not-especially-attractive interior, the restaurant is comfortable and inviting, and the brazen nature of the food gives a meal here a true sense of excitement."[9]

Gilmore was recognized as a champion of women chefs.[2][5] She was also credited for her mentorship of fellow lesbian cooks.[10] In 1993, she co-founded the organization Women Chefs & Restaurateurs, along with fellow San Francisco chefs Barbara Tropp and Joyce Goldstein.[1][11]

She died on July 6, 2019, in San Francisco, of cardiac arrest due to a series of ongoing medical issues.[1][2]