Gabrielle’s passion for food developed at a young age during summers spent in her grandmother’s kitchen in the Andean highlands of Ecuador. There, she would watch as maize was ground by hand into humitas; she would mimic her grandmother’s method of delicately forming empanadas de viento; and she would stir impatiently as the sugared milk slowly caramelized into dulce de leche.

Back in California, the weekends of her youth were spent exploring the various cuisines and ethnic restaurants of the greater Los Angeles area, and when she was sixteen she took her first restaurant job.

Her interests in world cultures and foods led her to pursue a major in geography at UC Berkeley, focusing on the conservation of natural resources through sustainable agriculture. Her academic studies eventually came second to her desire to cook professionally, though they did form her appreciation for “farm to table” cooking.
In 1999, Gabrielle graduated with honors from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and relocated to Napa Valley to cook under Chef Hiro Sone at Terra. There, she met Greg Denton, and they cooked their way through the restaurant’s various kitchen stations.  Greg eventually became chef de cuisine and she, sous chef.

In 2002, the couple moved to Maui where she became the sous chef at Gerard’s, a classical French restaurant in Lahaina. After a year and a half at Gerard’s, she started a small catering business and then eventually took the position as executive chef of the Lahaina Yacht Club. In 2007, Gabrielle and Greg visited Portland and fell in love with the city, its great restaurants, its farmers markets and its devotion to the culinary arts. They moved to Portland the next spring.

Gabrielle’s cooking is inspired by the local food products and wines of the Pacific Northwest as well as by the meals she has enjoyed and the people she has spent time with in her travels through Italy, France and Latin America.