Ann Cashion: Biography and Background

Ann Cashion is a James Beard Award-winning chef and restaurateur in Washington D.C.

Cashion is a native of Jackson, Mississippi, and she graduated from Harvard University in 1976. She enrolled in graduate school at Stanford University for two years before dropping out to pursue a culinary career, starting in a bakery in Berkeley, California. She apprenticed in Italy and France before coming to Washington, D.C., in 1984. Cashion worked at Restaurant Nora, was head chef at Austin Grill, and was executive chef at Jaleo, where she hired José Andrés.

In 1995, she opened her own restaurant, Cashion's Eat Place, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C. The restaurant was voted "Best New Restaurant" by the readership of Gourmet and was listed in The Washington Post food columnist Phyllis Richman's 50 favorites. Eat Place had many prominent patrons, including chefs Jean-Louis Palladin and Ferran Adrià, and President Bill Clinton. In 1997, Ann Cashion was honored as the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington's "Chef of the Year," and she was invited to cook at the James Beard House.

With partner John Fulchino, Cashion opened a second restaurant, Johnny's Half Shell, in 1999. The small 35-seat restaurant in the Dupont Circle neighborhood was recognized by Gourmet as one of “America’s best new restaurants.” In 2004, Cashion won the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic.

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