Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger

Chefs, restaurateurs, cookbook authors, radio and TV personalities

Inspired by a love for bold flavors and strong statements, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger have made their mark with home cooking from all over the world. For over two decades, the chefs have transformed street foods and comfort foods into critically-acclaimed cuisine, and themselves from a couple of Midwestern gringas into two of the country's foremost authorities on the Latin kitchen. Trailblazers from the start, the classically trained culinary grads (Susan from The Culinary Institute of America and Mary Sue from Washburne Culinary Institute) met in1978 at Le Perroquet, one of Chicago's best French restaurants. They were the first women to break into the all-male kitchen. Serious about food and ready for new territory, they struck out for France, Susan for the Riviera and Mary Sue for Paris, knowing even then they would work together again some day.

That day arrived in 1981 when they opened City Cafe on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. With only 39 seats out front and just enough room in back for a 24" x 24" prep table, a hot plate, and a hibachi grill in the alley, they quickly outgrew the little space and moved to a larger site. CITY Restaurant (1985-1994) changed the culinary landscape of L.A. forever with eclectic dishes from Thailand, India, and Mexico, as well as France, Italy, and their mother's own recipe boxes. CITY wowed customers and critics alike.

In 1985, Mary Sue and Susan turned the cafe site into Border Grill, a "taco stand" serving authentic home cooking and street foods of Mexico. It too outgrew the tiny space and in 1990 moved to its current home on 4th Street in Santa Monica where it now serves upscale, modern Mexican food in an urban cantina setting. In 1998, the partners opened Ciudad in Downtown Los Angeles, presenting the bold and seductive flavors of the Latin world, from Havana to Buenos Aires to Barcelona. In 1999, the Border Grill concept grew to encompass another restaurant located at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

Natural teachers, Mary Sue and Susan share their passion for food through many media outlets. Their television careers began in 1993, as two of sixteen chefs invited to cook with the legendary Julia Child in her PBS series “Cooking with Master Chefs”. Veterans of 396 episodes of their popular “Too Hot Tamales” and “Tamales World Tour” series with Food Network (1995-1999), the duo often appear as guests on TV shows around the country. Since 1996, they have had several homes on the radio dial in Los Angeles, including KCRW, KFWB, and KFI.  Prolific writers, they have authored five cookbooks: City Cuisine, Mesa Mexicana, Cantina, Cooking with Too Hot Tamales, and Mexican Cooking for Dummies. In 2001, their Border Grill and Ciudad dishes “starred” in Samuel Goldwyn’s feature film, “Tortilla Soup”. The chefs also have a line of prepared foods under their “Border Girls” brand at Whole Foods Market and a line of signature peppermills and salt mills manufactured by Vic Firth Gourmet.

Mary Sue and Susan are also active members of the community, playing leading roles in many educational programs, culinary associations, and charities. They take time to teach students participating in C-CAP, Careers through Culinary Arts Program, a non-profit organization that prepares high school students for careers in culinary arts. They are active members of numerous culinary associations like the Chefs Collaborative and they played a founding role in Women Chefs and Restaurateurs. They contribute real leadership and time to both the Scleroderma Research Foundation (SRF) and Share Our Strength (SOS), with SRF searching to find a cure for scleroderma, a life-threatening and degenerative illness affecting over 300,000 people in the United States alone, and with SOS striving to create a hunger-free generation and mobilize industries and individuals to create community wealth and promote lasting change.

At the core, Mary Sue and Susan’s love of food shines through and is intermingled with their love of interacting with customers and staff. They still take time to teach cooking classes and work the Border Grill booth at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market as time and travel allows. Their days are spent in the kitchen, writing and testing recipes, creating menus, managing their businesses, researching their shows, and creating new products. Most nights you can still find them visiting with guests and working with staff at their restaurants. More than twenty years into their partnership, these girls keep pushing the borders.