When owner Rowena Wu and chef/partners Jody Denton and Marc Valiani began the search for a chef de cuisine for their hot new Palo Alto restaurant, Zibibbo, they had some tough requirements. The new top toque would have to possess a distinctly cosmopolitan sensibility-after all, Zibibbo, with its striking decor and serious French-Italian fare, is "the most urban-feeling restaurant on the Peninsula," according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The winning candidate would also need to bring to the kitchen a feel for contem-porary California cuisine. The owners wanted someone with a style at once sophisticated and laid-back, utterly regional yet judiciously influenced by worldwide culinary trends. And, of course, this individual would have to have impressive credentials. The trio turned to California-born Donnie Masterton, a chef who has attracted attention in some of the best kitchens on both coasts.

Masterton started his career in New York in 1986, doing pretty much what all beginning chefs do-"chopping onions and punching dough" (as he put it). He worked at Montrachet and Bouley, then signed on at Metro with the late, Patrick Clark. In 1990 he went west, working at Patina with Joachim Splichal, Traci Des Jardins, and Octavio Becerra. He served as sous-chef with Clark at Bice in Beverly Hills; then the pair moved to D.C., where Masterton served as chef de cuisine at the Hay-Adams Hotel. The twosome moved back to the Big Apple, where Masterton served again as Clark's chef de cuisine at Tavern on the Green, helping to reinvent this venerable New York institution.

Last May, Masterton signed on with Zibibbo. Back on his home turf, this smart, skilled chef is wowing food-obsessed Californians with his imaginative New American cuisine, touched with the flavors of the Mediterranean. Like Zibibbo grapes, Masterton's cooking is complex, full-bodied, and a favorite with people who appreciate the finest.