Living Out, Palm Springs is extremely excited to have the culinary team of Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken as the creative and operational force behind our full-service restaurant and piano bar. We want to share with you some of the reasons why:
SUSAN FENIGER & MARY SUE MILLIKEN
Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger are award-winning chefs, cookbook authors, television personalities, and entrepreneurs. The chefs may be best known for their Modern Mexican Border Grill concepts in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, effortlessly blending their classical culinary training with conscientiously-sourced ingredients, and regional recipes inspired by home cooks from Oaxaca to Mexico City, street vendors in Tijuana, and taco stands along the Yucatan and Baja coasts.
Trail blazers from the get-go, the culinary grads (Susan from Culinary Institute of America in New York and Mary Sue from Washburne Culinary Institute in Chicago) met in 1978 at Le Perroquet, one of Chicago’s best French restaurants, as the first women to break into the all-male kitchen. Serious about food and ready for new territory, they both struck out for new adventures–Feniger went on to work for Wolfgang Puck at Ma Maison in L.A. and then honed her skills at L’Oasis, a three-star restaurant on the French Riviera, and Milliken went on to chef at the woman-owned two-Michelin-star Restaurant D’Olypme in Paris–knowing even then that they would work together some day.
Some day became 1981, when Feniger and Milliken teamed up to open City Café, and changed the culinary landscape of Los Angeles forever by introducing eclectic dishes from around the world. In 1985, the pair found further acclaim with CITY Restaurant, and captured the hearts of Angelenos with the debut of Border Grill, a small, forty seat “taco stand,” evidenced by a James Beard Award the same year.
Now with multiple Border Grill locations, food trucks, and a full-service events and catering business, the chef duo continue breaking barriers as female restaurateurs in a male-dominated industry, pioneering sustainability initiatives and developing their culinary offerings into cookbooks, radio and tv shows, and quick service spin-offs BBQ Mexicana and Pacha Mamas in Las Vegas, and their newest restaurant Socalo, a California canteen and Mexican pub, in Santa Monica. Earning such accolades for Socalo as “101 Restaurants and People that Define How LA Eats in 2020” from Los Angeles Times, “15 Best New Los Angeles Restaurants of 2020” from Time Out LA, and “The 15 Best New Restaurants in Los Angeles 2020” from Eater LA. At every location from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, the chefs combine fresh, flavorful and organic ingredients with hand shaken cocktails, vibrant design, and friendly service to create an unforgettable dining experience.
Mary Sue and Susan are highly successful individuals and an irresistibly dynamic team. Their television careers began in 1993, as two of sixteen chefs invited to cook with the legendary Julia Child in her PBS series “Cooking with Master Chefs. They brought their innovative approaches to The Food Network with nearly 400 episodes of the “Too Hot Tamales” and “Tamales World Tour” cooking series, have co-authored five cookbooks together, and were also the original co-hosts of the popular food-centric radio show, KCRW’s “Good Food”. They have both competed on Bravo’s “Top Chef Masters” series, each winning money for their selected charities.
Community, connection, and giving back have always been at the core of the chefs’ values and that passion is felt throughout the company. From taking great care of guests, employees and vendors; teaching young chefs and mentoring restaurateurs; to spearheading fundraisers for local charities, LGBTQ and human rights organizations, medical research, and ending childhood hunger, the chefs have always supported giving back, giving hope, and inspiring a whole new generation to follow their passions and effect positive change in their community. In 1993, the chef duo joined a handful of colleagues to create two organizations: Women Chefs & Restaurateurs, an organization promoting women’s education and advancement in the restaurant industry, and Chefs Collaborative whose mission is to inspire, educate, and celebrate chefs and food professionals building a better food system. Both chefs work closely with the Monterey Bay Aquarium as members of the Blue Ribbon Task Force, a panel of culinary leaders committed to innovative outreach to promote sustainable seafood.
Susan is an active member of the community, serving on the boards of several organizations including the Scleroderma Research Foundation, Los Angeles LGBT Center, and Los Angeles Tourism & Conventions.
For 25 years Susan has served on the board of the Scleroderma Research Foundation (SRF), spearheading a mission to find a cure for scleroderma, a life-threatening and degenerative illness, by funding and facilitating the most promising, highest quality research, as well as placing the disease and the need for a cure in the public eye. In 1988, Susan helped start SRF’s flagship fundraising event, Cool Comedy – Hot Cuisine. The annual gala features several courses of epicurean delights and attracts some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry.
Susan is a proud member of the gay and lesbian community as well, supporting efforts to fight for equality and empowerment through various organizations like the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Outfest, and the Los Angeles LGBT Center, where she serves as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors. The Center provides many services for more LGBT people than any other organization in the world, including free and low-cost medical care, legal and education services, a transitional living program for youth who have been kicked out of their homes, and life-enriching programs for seniors. Susan also provides visionary leadership for the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Culinary Arts Training Program, a three-month training program launched in 2019 to prepare LGBTQ youth and seniors from the Center for employment in the restaurant and hospitality industries. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the program’s culinary students have prepared as many as 450 meals per day to feed the Center’s senior clients experiencing food insecurity, the 100+ homeless youth who visit the Youth Center, and senior and youth residents at multiple Center locations.
Milliken uses her platform to enact societal change, serving on the Board of Trustees for the James Beard Foundation and most recently co-founding Regarding Her, a non-profit to provide women owned restaurants in LA county business grants, mentorship and resources in response to Covid’s crippling effect on the industry. Additionally, Mary Sue served the U. S. State Department as a member of the American Chef Corps, working in Pakistan, Morocco, Jordan, U.K., India, Malta and Italy to promote diplomacy through food. She is passionate about food policy, working alongside the LA Food Policy Council, Pew Charitable Trusts, Oxfam, and others to help shape sustainable food systems. In 2018, Feniger and Milliken were named the recipients of the fourth annual Julia Child Award from The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, marking the first women to be honored. The distinction complements additional accolades, including the Elizabeth Burns Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Restaurant Association in 2013; earned induction into the Menu Masters Hall of Fame in 2014; and the 2018 Gold Award from the Los Angeles Times for culinary excellence and innovation in Southern California.
