Anne Rosenzweig

July 19, 2026 | Updated: July 22, 2026

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Anne Rosenzweig is an American retired chef and restaurateur based in New York City, who was known as “the Greta Garbo of the food world.” Her restaurants included Arcadia (executive chef and co-owner with Ken Aretsky), the Lobster Club, and Inside. She was one of the most prominent female chefs in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, earning two New York Times three-star reviews.

Early Life and Education

Rosenzweig graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Anthropology in the late 1970s, and spent several years doing fieldwork in Africa, Nepal, and India. It was during this time that she became passionate about food, since living and working in remote areas made cooking, for the first time in this born-and-bred New Yorker’s life, a necessity. She also found that cooking was a way to communicate with people whose language she couldn’t speak. Rosenzweig recalls the awe she felt watching people with the scantiest resources create “very delicious food.”

Career

While most chefs spend their whole careers striving for one elusive New York Times three-star review, Anne Rosenzweig earned two—one for each of her East Side restaurants: the elegant Arcadia and the more casual Lobster Club.

In 1985, Rosenzweig opened Arcadia on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, serving what she identified as “innovative American” cuisine. As one of the first restaurants to combine American home cooking with haute-cuisine technique (which Rosenzweig learned after staging in classical French restaurants around the city), Arcadia became renowned for its intrepid interpretation of classic themes from American culinary traditions.

After ten successful years with Arcadia, Rosenzweig opened the Lobster Club twenty blocks north on East 80th Street. She decided to open this new restaurant because she wanted a venue where she could do things differently from the courtly and adult Arcadia.

Rosenzweig also took on the challenge of revitalizing the legendary ‘21’ Club, one of New York’s most storied dining institutions.

Awards and Recognition

Inducted into James Beard Foundation’s “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America” in 1987
Four James Beard Award nominations for “Best Chef: New York City”
Two New York Times three-star reviews (Arcadia and Lobster Club)
Nearly selected as White House executive chef during the Clinton administration

Legacy

Rosenzweig helped create the Fresh Start program for New York City prison inmates, assisted the U.S. Department of Agriculture School Lunch Program with menu development, and conducted internships at Arcadia for students from New York City public schools. She also supported City Meals on Wheels and Kids for Kids (assisting pediatric AIDS patients).

Notably, she helped the Clintons select the White House chef, and her dishes—grilled quail with rhubarb sauce, corn cakes with caviar, and her famous lobster club sandwich—gently upset the conventions framing New American cuisine.

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