May 20, 2025
Greens’ Chef Katie Reicher on Her New Cookbook and Her Journey to Greens

 

By Tova Green

Katie Reicher, Executive Chef at Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, has published her first cookbook, Seasons of Greens. Katie is Greens’ fourth Executive Chef (all of them women) since it was founded in 1979.

Cooking has been an important part of Katie’s life since childhood. “I grew up in a huge, close-knit family,” she recounted. Her father is of Italian descent, her mother of Ukrainian descent. “We had thirty to seventy people at holiday dinners. I’d help my mother prepare all of the food—everything was made from scratch, even the bread. In December, in the course of a week we would make thousands of holiday cookies. We’d make pierogies before the Ukrainian Christmas Eve on January 6. My family always had a garden and cooked seasonally, and our holiday menus reflected that. Thanks to these family gatherings, I’ve been writing menus and ingredient lists for a long time.”

In high school, Katie had high grades and was athletic. She went to Cornell University to study nutrition and was recruited to the crew team. “I didn’t fit with the academically focused culture; I liked to work with my hands and create things. ” She left after her third semester and began looking for jobs while deciding what to do next. “I got a job at a bakery and within months, I was making all their wedding cakes.” This led her to apply to culinary school.

In 2015 Katie enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, not far from where she had grown up. “Between the two years of Culinary School there’s a four-month internship. I was twenty-one and had two goals: move far from home and work with vegetables. Naturally, I was drawn to California. A classmate suggested I apply to Greens Restaurant in San Francisco. I sent a long, formal letter to Greens’ Chef Annie Somerville. Annie’s reply was ‘Sure!’”

In the four months of her internship at Greens, Katie learned a lot from working in the kitchen and felt like part of a family there. During her second week in San Francisco, she met her husband-to-be. Katie returned to the Culinary Institute to complete her second year but was “itching to get back to California.” She flew back on graduation day and started working at Greens as a line cook.

After two years, Katie became a sous chef, working under Annie until her retirement, and then under Denise St. Onge.Two years later, in 2020, she was rehired after Greens’ pandemic closure to run the restaurant.

At first Katie tried not to change too much. “I wanted to feel the heart and soul of Annie Somerville’s legacy, which many who frequented Greens loved. However, I didn’t want to repeat the same seasonal menus year after year and began creating my own legacy by introducing new flavors and ways of plating the food.”

“I kept many of the classic foods, like spring rolls, griddle cakes, and tofu brochettes, but changed some of the ingredients to create new iterations of old dishes. I also expanded from purely California cuisine to include a broadened global reach.”

Inspired by the 40th Anniversary Guest Chef Series by Min Kim, Katie began her own Greens Guest Chef Series in 2022, bringing new styles of cooking to the kitchen and attracting new diners. By connecting with multiple Bay Area chefs each year, new flavors and cuisines are continually introduced through a vegetarian, seasonal lens.

Although Seasons of Greens is Katie’s first book, she has wanted to write a book since she was young. “My girl scout troop made a cookbook and I thought it was the coolest thing. Later on, when I was studying dietetics, I hoped to write a book dedicated to nutrition.

“Writing Seasons of Greens was a joy. I love how personal it is. It has all of my favorite recipes from my time as Executive Chef and some recipes inspired by my family. I like how it’s organized, not by seasons, but by different parts of a meal. Each recipe has a tag indicating what season(s) are best for the ingredients.”

“A lot of my journey feels bashert, or destined to be,” Katie reflected.

She hopes that Seasons of Greens will bring to the restaurant a new generation that hasn’t heard of Greens—Gen Z and millennials—and will also resonate with the generations that have known Greens for decades.

Katie will be at San Francisco Zen Center for a Season of Greens Book Talk and Signing on June 6, from 7:30 to 9 p.m.

Buy Season of Greens at the SFZC Bookstore.

 

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