Barbara Lynch (restaurateur)


Barbara Lynch is a restaurateur. In 2017 she was included in Time magazine's "Top 100 Most Influential People of the Year" for her pioneering contributions in the culinary world and her focus on local wealth creation through agronomy. In 2014 she was the second woman to be awarded the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurateur, which honors "a working restaurateur who sets high national standards in restaurant operations and ownership."

Early life

Lynch grew up in South Boston during the era of desegregation busing. It was her first kitchen job as a teenager and inspiration from a home economics teacher that led her to choose a career as a chef. Lynch did not complete high school.

Career

Lynch worked with Todd English for several years before leaving to tour Italy. When she returned to Boston, she was appointed Executive chef at the trattoria Galleria Italiana, and subsequently won Food & Wine's “Ten Best New Chefs in America” award.
In 1998, she opened her first restaurant, No. 9 Park, near the Boston Common and Massachusetts State House.
Her business Barbara Lynch Gruppo now has 220 employees and grosses about $20 million annually. She oversees a catering company and several popular restaurants: No. 9 Park, Sportello, Drink, B&G Oysters, the Butcher Shop, Menton and Stir. The Barbara Lynch Gruppo includes the Boston restaurants No. 9 Park, B&G Oysters, and Menton.
Lynch also dedicates time and resources to several neighborhood organizations around Boston. An initiative by Lynch and her employees in 2011 promoted healthy and sustainable eating habits in at-risk schools in Boston.

Awards and honors

Besides the aforementioned Outstanding Restaurateur award, she has won James Beard Awards for who’s who of food & beverage in America in 2013, the award for outstanding wine program in 2012, and best chef in the Northeast in 2003.
After opening No. 9 Park, Lynch's restaurant was named one of the “Top 25 New Restaurants in America” by Bon Appétit and “Best New Restaurant” by Food & Wine.
She is the sole female Relais & Châteaux grand chef in North America.
In 2009, she won the Amelia Earhart Award.
Her first cookbook, Stir: Mixing It Up in The Italian Tradition, received a Gourmand Award for Best Chef Cookbook in the USA in 2009. Lynch made the 2017 Time magazine's "Top 100 Most Influential People of the Year." In April 2017, Lynch released a memoir titled "Out of Line, A Life playing with Fire," in the memoir Lynch opens up about her personal life.