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Now that the restaurant is in its sixth year, have things settled down for you and your team? We pinch ourselves every day. The restaurant is fully booked two months in advance, and we have a healthy queue [for walk- ins] every night for dinner service. Our small team continues to grow—and it's actually the reason we opened up our second restaurant [The Progress] next door. What was your vision for The Progress, which you opened in 2015? We tried to create a really beautiful dining room. The style of service is different from SBP. Instead of small plates served dim sum-style, we offer larger family-style platters for sharing. Some guests say it's more formal, but we try to keep it informal and accessible with a less dynamic form of service. P astry chef and restaurateur Nicole Krasinski, half of the winning husband-and-wife team of San Francisco's highly celebrated State Bird Provisions, shares her thoughts on opening a second restaurant, writ- ing a cookbook, and what it's like to have one of the most sought-after reservations in the Bay Area. Since it opened in 2011, SBP has received countless accolades, including a James Beard Best New Restaurant Award in 2013, and a Bon Appétit magazine honor as America's Best New Restaurant in 2012. Tanya Henry is a food writer who has been reviewing restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 15 years. As an owner, mother, and pastry chef, do you still have time to be in the kitchen? Luckily, as an owner I can make my own hours. I don't work all day and through service like I did in my earlier days, but I'm still able to create new recipes and work a couple of nights a week through service. Our son is now six and in school, so that has also allowed me to be back in the kitchen more. What advice would you give to chefs—espe- cially women chefs—who want to open their own restaurants? I've been working with the James Beard Foundation's Women in Culinary Leadership program and the main thing I would say is that having mentors and advisors along the way is criti- cal to success. We had a lot of support when we opened SBP, but if chefs looking to go out on their own don't have the tools, advisors, or mentors, they have to be very savvy to make it in this industry—especially in the Bay Area. What's next? Both Stuart [Brioza, Krasinski's husband] and I have been collecting cookbooks for years, and we both hoped that some- day we would write our own. So we're excited about sharing our restaurant experience with a broader audience through our first cookbook, "State Bird Provisions: A Cookbook," which will launch in October. It has everything in it from the restaurant, including the secret of our sauerkraut pancakes. "Having mentors and advisors along the way is critical to success … If chefs looking to go out on their own don't have the tools, advisors, or mentors, they have to be very savvy to make it in this industry— especially in the Bay Area." SPRING 2017 55