Mitchell Sjerven, Proprietor

A twenty-five year restaurant veteran, Mitchell owns bouchon Santa Barbara, a regional wine country fine dining experience. As most small restaurant operators do, Sjerven runs the business side of the restaurant out of necessity, but his passion is in the dining room, where he manages 'the floor' most nights of the week. Sjerven's training in the restaurant field is the old-fashioned kind: started as dishwasher at fifteen, then prep cook, followed by line cook, busboy, waiter, maître'd, manager, general manager and, finally, in 1996, owner.

A member of the Board of Directors for the Santa Barbara Conference and Visitors Bureau & Film Commission Mitchell is very active in promoting tourism to the Santa Barbara region. He also sits on the Greater Santa Barbara Lodging & Restaurant Association board as well as the Advisory Board for the Santa Barbara City College School of Culinary Arts program.

An Associate Member of the Santa Barbara County Vintner's Association, Mitchell has served as guest lecturer at the Association's Server Seminar, designed to educate food service professionals about the local wine industry and it's role in the restaurant business. His enthusiasm for the burgeoning Santa Barbara area wine industry is unparalleled in the local restaurant industry, earning him the unofficial title of 'Ambassador' of Santa Barbara Wine & Food. Sjerven has lectured on Santa Barbara wine, food and tourism in the UK, Germany, Canada and Australia and most recently helped coordinate the wine and food events for the week-long International Wine & Food Society annual conference in Santa Barbara, California in May '07.

Mitchell graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a degree in International Relations, Political Science. He completed his studies with a year abroad, interning at the European Parliament in 1990 under the President of the Human Rights Commission while simultaneously honing his passion for wine, food and hand-crafted Belgian ale.

With wife, Amy, daughters Madeline and Caroline, Mitchell has been a Santa Barbara resident since 1985.