Ellie Estrada | Pastry Chef | Nisei | San Francisco, California

Photo Credit: Ellie Estrada

Food as Folktale

In the legendary Japanese folktale Momotaro, a baby boy emerges from a giant peach floating down a river past a childless elderly couple. Also known as “Peach Boy,” the tale becomes a hero’s journey symbolizing bravery, loyalty, and prosperity.

Ellie Estrado-Londo, pastry chef at San Francisco’s Nisei, brings the legend to life in a peach-shaped entremet filled with fragrant white peach and jasmine ice cream and surrounded by a delicate cocoa butter velour shell, the texture of peach fuzz. Resting on a cloud of tart yogurt mousse and served with white peach mochi, peach-jasmine jelly and shimmering kanten (a Japanese seaweed gelatin), Ellie’s dessert is so expertly conceived and executed that it earned her runner-up in StarChefs’ 2025 Sweet & Savory Challenge with The Perfect Purée.

At Nisei, Chef David Yoshimura combines fine dining techniques, Japanese-American flavors and California’s finest local ingredients in an exceptional experience that earned Nisei a Michelin Star and a James Beard nomination within the first year of opening.

Ellie says Nisei is a temple to the Japanese-American experience, using food to emphasize and revere Japanese technique and tradition. The dessert program balances the evolving, seasonal menu with themes of nature, nostalgia, sentimentality and storytelling — many inspired by Ellie’s childhood trips to Japan. Besides plated desserts, she highlights the art of wagashi (Japanese confections) for the mignardise service. “My end of the tasting menu serves as a shift from the traditional side of Japanese cuisine and culture to the more abstract, fun and even outrageous side of modern Japanese culture expressed through desserts,” Ellie says. “At a restaurant where we aim to build and celebrate culture, it’s really important for me to express flavors through storytelling or sharing cultural context.”

Flavor for an ‘Off-the-Tree’ Moment

Ellie has been using The Perfect Purée since her first-ever pastry stint eight years ago and relies on White Peach to elevate summer’s bounty of fresh Californian peaches.

Ellie explains that white peaches are symbols of good fortune and prosperity in Japan, where the cultural significance of certain ingredients plays a central role in the cuisine. Considered an Asian delicacy, they have a subtle flavor, unique texture, and more floral aroma than yellow peaches. Ellie seeks to convey all that to her Western audience. “I want the supporting components to uplift the fleeting nature of the main flavor, while maybe slightly challenging it as well,” she says.

Mainly, she wants to transport guests to that right-off-the-tree moment. “Part of cooking in California is the responsibility of representing the magic of our spectacular produce,” Ellie says. “And when fruits have their respective moments in the sun, I really want the produce to shine and come through in a really pure and flavor-forward way.”

­Chef’s Advice: Don’t Choose Sides

Ellie advises pastry students to explore the entire line because the best chefs are multi-disciplinary. And vice versa, she says — savory chefs should dedicate time to the pastry station. Before she became a pastry chef, most of her career centered on cooking savory food, though she deeply admired the patisserie arts. Cross-training brings surprising benefits. “In the long run, it really expands one’s technical arsenal and opens the mind to broader ideas of what pastry can be,” Ellie says. “Creativity will come, but mastery of technique is often the catalyst for it.”

Her respect for fundamentals informs her view of current pastry trends. While she appreciates the visual possibilities offered by molds and stencils — and readily admits to using them often — she cautions against allowing tools to replace technique. She points to the growing use of molded quenelles and rocheres as an example. “I feel like we’re about to reach a point where many restaurants make using a mold the umbrella solution to covering up lapses in technique instead of encouraging practice,” Ellie says.