Irit Ishai

I'm an entrepreneur and award-winning pastry chef, with more than 20 years of experience in the areas of baking, pastry art and cake decoration.

I worked at several fine-dining restaurants, designing innovative recipes and plated desserts. Most notably, I've been head pastry chef at the famed Manresa Restaurant (currently 3 Michelin stars), named one of the world’s 50 best restaurants By Restaurant Magazine. At Manresa I collaborated with renowned chef David Kinch, winner of the Iron Chef competition. 

I perfected my chocolate-making skills working under master pastry chef Pascal Janvier, who was named one of the top 10 pastry chefs in America in 1998 and 1999 by Chocolatier Magazine.

Building on my extensive fine-dining experience, in 2004 I founded "Sugar Butter Flour", a European-style pastry shop and bakery, which specializes in high end custom cakes, desserts, chocolates and wedding cakes. It became one of the most successful and widely recognized bakeries in the Silicon Valley, with 2 retail stores and dozens of large high-end wholesale customers.

In 2011, after 8 long and fulfilling years, I sold Sugar Butter Flour and established CakeNuvo, an online school for pastry art, where I'm lead instructor and course designer.