Emily Luchetti / Pastry Chef, Writer, Owner of SweetQueen Fruit Spreads and Caramels, Bolinas, CA

The Sweet Side of Life

If just 100 people read James Beard Award-winning pastry chef Emily Luchetti’s upcoming culinary memoir, she’ll be happy. There’s no doubt her memoir will reach many more people, but these days that’s not the point.

During the pandemic, Emily traded the high-pressure role of an executive pastry chef for consulting. She started her book of prose and poetry about her life with food, her favorite ingredients, and the people who inspired her. She also began developing her line of Sweet Queen fruit spreads and caramels, which launched in 2025 with nationwide online and wholesale distribution. Her focus shifted as she began to define herself differently. “I was making sense of my past and present and what I was going to move on to,” says Emily, one of the most influential pastry chefs of her generation. “I realized I’d rather hit 100 people deeply than 10,000 people randomly.”

Emily’s early career at San Francisco’s legendary Stars restaurant coincided with the 1980s American culinary revolution, when chefs began combining local and regional ingredients with classic European techniques. That approach complemented Emily’s fresh, natural style as she rose to become executive pastry chef at Farallon and Waterbar in San Francisco. She later helmed pastry operations at Big Night Restaurant Group, where, until the pandemic, she oversaw pastry operations at five upscale restaurants. Along the way, Emily collected numerous awards, including the Women Chefs & Restaurateurs Golden Whisk Award, the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef, and the James Beard Foundation Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America. She even has a room named after her at The Inn at Little Washington, which has been recognizing American culinary icons since 2008.

The Perfect Purée has been one of Emily’s pastry station staples from the start. “I never remember not knowing about it in my pastry career,” Emily said in an earlier profile. She included The Perfect Purée in her cookbook “A Passion for Desserts” (2003) and featured it in the cover recipe for Passion Fruit Meringue Tartlets in “Four Star Desserts” (1995). Now, The Perfect Purée is part of her line of signature caramels, including Sweet Ginger Caramel.

Emily says she’s always appreciated the California connection. “People say, ‘You always have to use fresh,’ but if you catch [produce] at its peak and freeze it, you’re locking in all that flavor versus shipping fresh across the country and losing flavor and nutrients,” Emily says. “If you can take advantage of the location where the produce is growing, you’re able to maximize all that flavor.”

Designed to be Devoured

Emily’s handmade jams and caramels with fresh seasonal fruit have been selling out at local markets and holiday pop-ups for years. When she decided to produce them on a larger scale, a high-quality frozen product like The Perfect Purée made sense. Emily believes the best flavor comes from simple, honest ingredients, which can be hard to find at scale. “I really like how true the flavors are across the board,” she says of The Perfect Purée.

As Sweet Queen’s Chief Jam Officer (CJO) and Chief Chocolate Officer (CCO), Emily excels at experimentation. SweetQueen’s fruit spreads and caramels are delicious on toast, swirled into yogurt or drizzled over ice cream. Emily’s more cheffy recommendations include using them as glossy toppings for panna cotta or cheesecake, adding to layer cakes and folding into whipped cream. They complement a range of cheeses and give warm drinks a burst of fruit flavor. “They add depth and a touch of surprise,” Emily says

All SweetQueen’s caramels are made the traditional way with heavy cream, but at home, Emily experiments with clear (dairy-free) caramels, swapping The Perfect Purée Pear and Blackberry for cream. “Instead of a caramel sauce with the cream at the end, I add the pear or blackberry itself. It has a clearness and an intensity that mixed in drinks is delicious,” she says.

She mixes clear caramels in shrubs and mocktails and a Pear Manhattan that’s redolent of fall. “The recipe for pear caramel can be used for both savory and sweet applications,” Emily says. “A friend of mine was saying it would be really good on pork, over ice cream, or over olive oil cake. Or, as we say, you can eat it with a spoon out of the jar as well.”

The Recipe for a Lasting Career

A dedicated mentor, Emily has been the chairperson of Women Chefs & Restaurateurs and the dean of the International Culinary Center in New York and California. Before she moved to California and joined Stars, she worked on the line in restaurants in New York and France. At the time, it was restaurants or nothing for a culinary school graduate, she says. “Now there are so many ways you can be involved in the culinary world.”

Emily encourages young culinary professionals to explore all facets of the industry and tells them, whatever they decide to do, they should be ready for hard work. “Commit yourself fully because when you commit yourself fully to something, anything, you’re going to get the most rewards out of it,” she says. “Be curious, be adventurous, and always push yourself to do things that you don’t think you can do.”