Sarah Betcher / Virginia Beach, VA

The Ladder of Success

Layers of textures, a play of sweet and savory flavors, bright colors and artful garnish define Pastry Chef Sarah Betcher’s gorgeous desserts.

Her career choice isn’t surprising — Sarah is a born baker whose early memories include using a step ladder to bake cookies for her brothers. She diligently climbed the ladder in her career, working every station in the kitchen and attending culinary school. She also owned a cake shop in Germany for several years. She now consults for restaurants in the Virginia Beach area where she lives. One of them, Zoe’s, which she helped open, is among Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s 100 Best Wine Restaurants in America. Zoe’s also won Wine Spectator’s Best Of award seven years in a row.

“Most of my recipe development is in my home kitchen now,” Sarah says. “Then I go teach the various restaurant teams a seasonal menu.”

Making Mentors

In 2022, Sarah won the Chef’s Roll Center Stage program for up-and-coming chefs and attended the women’s mentoring and advocacy (MAPP) Restaurant Reset Conference in Fort Lauderdale. There for the first time she connected with female mentors including Chef Emma Bengtsson of Aquavit in New York.

She counts two influential men — Chef Travis Brust, executive chef at The Williamsburg Inn where she apprenticed and Chef Kevin Dubel — as important mentors. But as she said in an interview about the conference for Uncommon Chef, she’d worked her entire career in male-dominated kitchens with few women.

In 2023, Chef’s Roll invited Sarah to be the guest pastry chef at its Anti-Convention in San Diego and later made her a MAPP Ambassador so she can empower other women to lead.

Fresh Takes on Flavor

Sarah spent four years as an American Culinary Federation-certified apprentice at The Williamsburg Inn & Lodge, where she said high standards required quality products like The Perfect Purée. She now uses The Perfect Purée in everything from sorbets, sauces, custards and mousses to glazes, curds and fruit-based ganache.

“Sometimes the area you live in doesn’t have certain produce items easily accessible,” she says. “The Perfect Puree is always available and is equal to making your own [purées] with perfectly ripe fruits, minimal labor and zero waste.”

Bright color and fresh, often foraged ingredients are central to Sarah’s style. For a private wine dinner, she developed Burnt Honey Panna Cotta & Apricot Gelée with Spruce Tip Ice Cream, Sablé Breton & Compressed Moon Gold Apricot. It’s inspired by a cheese board she had in Holland with spruce honey and dried apricots.

Spring is the ideal time to forage tender spruce tips for ice cream that has a woodsy, slightly lemony flavor. She places the ice cream on top of crumbled Sablé Breton and arranges fresh apricot next to it. Sarah garnishes the bright orange apricot gelée with Wood Sorrel, also known by the fancier name Oxalis. The delicate bright green leaves resemble four-leaf clovers. “When I was a kid, I called it sour clover. The little flowers are called Bittercress. Both are just wild weeds that are edible!”

Apricot is a favorite spring flavor. At other times Sarah loves using Carmelized Pineapple, El Corazon and Yuzu Luxe Sour. She yearns for Pandan, Calamansi and Pawpaw purées.