Traci Des Jardins

Traci Des Jardins is an American chef and restaurateur who previously owned Jardinière, a French influenced California fine-dining restaurant in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, California. She is also chef and partner of Public House, a sports pub serving local, sustainable classic pub food in Oracle Park in San Francisco, School Night in San Francisco, and El Alto in Los Altos. Des Jardins was raised on a farm in Firebaugh, California, near Fresno. Her father is of French Acadian descent, and her mother's family is from the Mexican state of Sonora. Her maternal grandparents, Angela and Miguel Salazar, lived in a small house nearby, and Des Jardins has many strong childhood memories of her grandmother preparing flour tortillas. The Des Jardins' dinner table featured produce from the garden and game from the land in dishes which reflected her family's Mexican and Louisianan-French Acadian heritage.

Des Jardins apprenticed at several three-star French restaurants, including La Maison Troisgros, and was executive chef at Joachim Splichal's Patina in Los Angeles. Later, she worked at notable San Francisco restaurants Aqua, Elka, and Rubicon before opening Jardinière in 1997.She is openly lesbian.