We are delighted to welcome Community Table back for 2022. This beloved event brings a renowned chef to our farm to design an ecological meal around our four seasonal rotations (market garden, milpa, berries, cover crops). By bringing these culinary artists back to the source, we give them an opportunity to connect with new ingredients, find fresh inspiration in our bioregion's historic foodways, and discover the rewards of relationship with the land.

CHEF JESSICA ROY

Highly creative and committed to creating memorable experiences, Chef Jessica Roy leads the team at 608 Dahlia in a fresh interpretation and style of farm-to-table cuisine right inside the botanical oasis of Sherman Library and Gardens. Having taken the reins from Pascal Olhats in 2021, Chef Jessica’s ever-changing menu is built around a daily harvest from the Gardens as well as local farms to highlight the best and most flavorful ingredients of the season. Not only did Jessica spend almost 2 years with Pascal but she also spent 2 years at Alinea in Chicago which pushed her beyond her limits as well as the first 4 years of her career with Fairmont Hotels where she learned all of her cooking fundamentals from great chefs and worked her way up and all around the kitchen

Chef Jessica credits her time in the garden during the 2020 lockdown with transforming her culinary “lens” to a focus on seasonality, saying that sometimes the flowers and plants would “tell” her what to create. Her deep relationship to the vibrant colors and delicate peak-of-season flavors is evident from the first glance at her plating, which has been described as “magical” and “dancing on the plate.”