Elizabeth Falkner was born on February 12, 1966, in San Francisco. Since 1990 she has been working as a consulting chef in New York. She lives in New York nowadays. She also frequently appears as a competitor and sometimes a judge on many of the cooking competitions on television such as “The Next Iron Chef, Redemption,” 2012, as well as “Chopped All-Stars,” (Food Network) and “Top Chef Masters.” Also, she has appeared on other programs like “The Next Iron Chef, Super Chefs,” 2011 and “Top Chef,” “Top Chef: Just Desserts,” (Bravo), “Top Chef, Canada,” “Food Network Challenge,” (Food Network) on.
Falkner completed her graduation in the year 1989 from theSan Francisco Art with a BFA in fine arts. She began her cooking career in the year 1990 working as the chef at a French Bistro Cafe Claude. After working there for a time, she moved into fine French dining at Masa’s along with Chef Julian Serrano. Falkner became the pastry chef at Elka in the Miyako Hotel in 1993. In 1994 Falkner started working as the pastry chef under Chef Traci Des Jardins at Drew Nieporent`s Rubicon.
Falkner opened Citizen Cake in the year 1997 at its first location which was in the South of Market district of San Francisco. In 2000 she moved the restaurant to 399 Grove Street, in the Hayes Valley district. From the year 2001 to 2002, Falkner taught professional pastry courses in Japan. From 2002 to 2003, she was the chef on a team doing research in Italy for American/European pastries for Barilla.
In 2006, Falkner appeared in a reality show called Top Chef as a guest judge. Falkner competed on Bay Cafe, Top Chef-Pastry, Tyler`s Ultimate, Iron Chef America, $40 a day, Sugar Rush, Best Of and others in 2005. She has cooked at the Chef’s Holiday at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, James Beard House in New York City and the Masters of Food and Wine in Carmel, CA.
Falkner closed both of her San Francisco establishments which were Citizen Cake and Orson in 2010. She then moved to New York, and there she opened two short-lived Italian restaurants, Corvo Bianco on the Upper West Side and Krescendo in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn leaving each after seven months.Falkner won the First Prize at the World Pizza Championships in Naples, Italy in 2012 with her innovative “Finocchio Flower Power” pizza.
