MAURA KILPATRICK
PASTRY CHEF

After receiving a graduate certificate in baking at the California Culinary Academy,  Maura Kilpatrick moved back to her home town of Boston and worked in the kitchens of the city’s top chefs, including Lydia Shire, Moncef Medeb, Rene Michelena, and Ana Sortun. In 1999, Kilpatrick opened two bakeries: High-Rise Bread Company and High-Rise Pie Company, where some of her recipes are still used today. In 2001, she and James-Beard-Award-winning chef Sortun reunited to develop the concept for the much-anticipated Oleana Restaurant; it was then that Kilpatrick fell in love with the exotic flavors and spices for which she is known. Since then, Kilpatrick has garnered raves by the press and was voted Boston’s Best Pastry Chef in 2002 and 2007.  
At Oleana, Kilpatrick’s multi-sensory, Arabesque ice cream desserts and pastries perfectly compliment Sortun’s Eastern Mediterranean food. Alison Arnett of the Boston Globe writes, “Maura Kilpatrick’s creations are dazzling, and often reflect the origins of the dishes on the savory side.” Using Middle Eastern ingredients such as orange blossoms, rose petals, kaymek, and kadayifi, Kilpatrick creates luscious contemporary interpretations of traditional eastern Mediterranean desserts.
Oleana’s tremendous success has spawned another Kilpatrick/Sortun collaboration: in the spring of 2008, Cambridge will welcome Sofra, a Middle Eastern bakery and café. Sofra comes from an ancient Arabic word meaning dining table, picnic, or kilim; it is also a synonym for generosity and hospitality. Inspired by the cuisine of Turkey, Lebanon, and Greece, Sofra will offer up a modern Eastern Mediterranean twist on traditional mezze, with flat bread sandwiches called gozleme and a hummus bar. And for the sweets, Kilpatrick will create such favorites as Egyptian palace bread, kunefe, molasses cookies, and sticky toffee pudding.