Daisy & Greg Ryan

Chef & Restaurateur

Walking into Daisy and Greg’s intimate dining space, you immediately know they are onto something very different and, to say it plainly, cool. Like Provençal-meets-Ranchero cool. Bell’s, their ‘very Franch’ Michelin-star bistro in Los Alamos, California (about an hour north of Santa Barbara), is an exercise in pure love—as in, “I love it here” and “I love this food.” The vibe is modern French, with a pinch of rustic Provençal and mismatched vintage furniture. Daisy is head chef—a Food & Wine best chef, no less—and Greg runs front-of-house. Together, they’ve perfectly married French and Californian cuisines with whimsy and thoughtfulness. It’s a testament to the married duo’s collective spirit and vision, where community is front and center with locally sourced ingredients, and traditional French cooking is executed with a playful charm.

After meeting in New York City, where they both hustled in dining institutions such as Gramercy Tavern, Tribeca Grill and Per Se, they moved onto restaurants in Austin and Los Angeles before deciding to raise their son in Santa Ynez Valley, where Daisy was raised. Not only is their restaurant the hottest ticket in town, but their non-profit, Feed the Valley, has helped scores of local people who are struggling with food insecurity.