Cortney Burns

The Path

Burns trained at University of Wisconsin-Madison, laying the groundwork for a career that would later unfold with both discipline and a quietly experimental edge. In San Francisco, CA, she became co-chef at Bar Tartine, where her approach found an influential stage, before stepping into the role of chef/partner at Motze in San Francisco, CA (from 2016). Across both settings, her path suggests a cook drawn not simply to the making of food, but to its transformation—how ingredients can be coaxed, redirected, and made newly vivid through time and technique.

The Work Today

Fermentation is the craft most closely associated with her work, and it is easy to see why: it requires restraint, attention, and a willingness to let flavor develop on its own terms. Burns has described the habits of the kitchen with characteristic clarity, noting, “We’ve become habituated as cooks to always add oil when roasting vegetables.” In that observation is the essence of her sensibility—an invitation to rethink routine, to strip away reflex, and to make room for nuance. Her work tends to move with the patient logic of someone who trusts process as much as instinct.

Signature

Cortney’s signature dishes include Bar Tartine, Nourish Me Home, and Parsnip Skordalia. Together, they sketch the contours of a culinary voice that has become associated with careful technique and a distinctive feel for depth, brightness, and texture. Even in a brief list, the titles carry the sense of a kitchen language both grounded and refined, one that favors substance and memory in equal measure.

In Their Words “We’ve become habituated as cooks to always add oil when roasting vegetables.”

Acclaim

Burns has built her reputation on a methodical approach rather than on trophies, with fermentation as the clearest through line. The result is a body of work that feels less like a performance than a long, deliberate conversation with ingredients—one shaped by curiosity, patience, and a refusal to settle for the obvious.