Growing up among the lush fruits and vegetables her scientist father cultivated to unwind and connect with the natural world, Chef Lynn lived in the reality of fresh taste. As a child her first personal garden project was a large figure eight of mixed herbs, a celebration of foliage textures combined with an infinity of volatile aromas. Suitably inspired, having moved from east to west coasts, she graduated with honors from the California Culinary Academy before moving on to fourteen years of a high-profile career in San Francisco’s top kitchens. Her journeyman phase included positions at Stars, Masa's, Zola's, Citron, and Postrio; sous chef at Rubicon, she was opening Executive Chef at MECCA and Executive Chef/Partner at Vertigo. In addition to CCA, her structured culinary education spanned training with Madeleine Kamman at the School for American Chefs in Napa, the prestigious La Varenne Intensive Professional Program in Burgundy, France, as well as internships at Chocolaterie Valrhona in the Rhone Valley and Restaurant L'Essentiel in the French Alps.
Ready for a hands-on project that brought her passion for food, wine, and the land together in one location, Chef Sheehan found a turn-of-the-century country estate and former winery in the Monterey Bay Area. Once a well-loved extensive ranch, farm and vineyard owned by only two families in 112 years, Historic Sand Rock Farm has today been restored to its former glory.
Replete with vintage lighting, lustrous redwood milled on-site, and hand-printed wallpapers, the Bed and Breakfast at Sand Rock Farm allows guests to experience the Art of the Good Life, and the gracious pace of a bygone day. Exclusive local wine tastings, herb walks, and cooking classes based on market basket meals from the garden are some of the culinary events offered by Chef Lynn to a discriminating public. Reservations for her Winemaker Dinner Series, seasonal multi-course feasts of culinary creations paired with selected wines, are highly sought after. 2003 will feature a new series of Farm to Table Dinners showcasing the produce of local organic farms such as Ella Bella and Mariquita, partnered with local wineries.
Chef Sheehan was a featured California chef for VinExpo 2001 in Bordeaux, France. This international, biennial wine and spirits trade symposium highlighted the Slow Food Movement, an international coalition to protect and promote the farm-to-table connection. As chronicled in the LA Times, in 1999 Chef Lynn was selected to feast gourmet travellers rafting down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, deep in Idaho wilderness. The James Beard House in New York City featured Sheehan in October 1998 in the James Beard Foundation’s "Women and Wine" series with award-winning winemaker Mia Klein of Selene Winery. In 1997 Food and Wines from Spain chose Sheehan as one of six chefs nationwide to join a gastronomic and viticultural tour of Spain. Chef Sheehan has taught cooking around the Bay Area, and her clear culinary descriptions and insight have earned her both radio and television appearances. The Fungus Federation and renowned Santa Cruz Mountain wineries such as David Bruce, River Run, Burrell School, Trout Gulch, and Bonny Doon have all featured exclusive tasting dinners created by Chef Sheehan.
The cuisine of Chef Proprietor Lynn Sheehan has been hailed in the New York Times, Travel and Leisure, and the SF Chronicle, among others. Historic Sand Rock Farm has been lauded by Fodor’s, the LA Times, VIA and Travel Holiday magazines, Downtown SF, Metro Santa Cruz, and showcased in Chronicle Books "Romantic Getaways in the Wine Country" as well as "Innstyle" in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
When not in the kitchen, Chef Lynn can likely be found practicing Aikido, reading a book, riding her Ducati Monster, seeking and soaking in wild hot springs, talking with farmers at the market, training the next generation about the primacy of truly fresh taste, or out reveling in the beautiful natural world Santa Cruz County is so abundantly blessed with.
