Two Phoenix Chefs Recall Julia Child's Mentorship as AZ Science Center Exhibit Runs

Two of Phoenix's most decorated chefs didn't just admire Julia Child from afar — she wrote them letters, gave them cooking advice, and in one case nearly saved a dessert disaster live on national television. Christopher Gross and Barbara Fenzl both toured the traveling exhibition Julia Child: A Recipe for Life at the Arizona Science Center, where it remains on display through September 20.

The exhibition, produced internationally by Flying Fish Exhibits in collaboration with the Napa Valley Museum Yountville, is supported by The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts and Harvard University's Schlesinger Library, according to the Arizona Science Center. As reported by KJZZ, the exhibit opens with a quote from Child herself and honors her life and legacy, with Gross and Fenzl among the local chefs who walked through it this summer.

Barbara Fenzl was Julia Child's friend and mentor for more than 30 years, per the KJZZ report. Their bond began in the early 1980s when Fenzl chaired a Phoenix Art Museum fundraiser featuring Child, an origin story detailed by 24-7PressRelease. Child later spent a week with Fenzl in 1982 and personally recommended she pursue professional training and open her own cooking school.

From Letters to Le Cordon Bleu

Child answered Fenzl's letters when she sought help, encouraging her to become a trained chef and entrepreneur, KJZZ reports. Following that encouragement, Fenzl earned diplomas from Le Cordon Bleu in London and École Lenôtre in Paris, and Child also recommended Fenzl join the International Association of Culinary Professionals, where Fenzl later served as national president from 1993 to 1994, per the same account.

Fenzl went on to found and run Phoenix's Les Gourmettes Cooking School for 36 years, from 1983 until its 2019 closure, while also writing for Bon Appétit magazine for a decade and publishing several Southwestern cookbooks, the press release notes. Child occasionally guest-taught at Les Gourmettes, and Fenzl hosted the PBS series Savor the Southwest, which ran for 13 weeks in 1999. Fenzl told KJZZ that Julia Child made French cooking fun.

Fenzl also hosted the PBS series Savor the Southwest for 13 weeks in 1999. Chef Christopher Gross, meanwhile, credits Child with a different kind of legacy — cracking open the American market for French technique. Gross said Julia Child opened the door for French cooking in the United States, according to KJZZ.

A Mousse Disaster and Career-Long Advice

Gross's own brush with Child came ahead of a 1993 appearance on Cooking with Master Chefs, when he received her advice on preparing egg whites in chocolate mousse. The dessert nearly didn't survive production: wax paper and Scotch tape failed to hold the mousse tube together, rendering it unusable, per the KJZZ report. Child appeared on the same program that year.

Gross earned the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 1995 and was named one of Food & Wine magazine's “10 Best New Chefs” in 1989, according to VoyagePhoenix. He started working in kitchens at age 14 before training in Europe. In late 2025, Gross received the Antonin Carême Medal, one of the highest accolades in the culinary world, joining a list of prior honorees that includes Julia Child herself and Gross's early mentor, Chef Walter Roth, per Wrigley Mansion.

Gross is head chef of Christopher's at Wrigley Mansion, a modern French restaurant in Phoenix that opened in 2021 inside a glass-and-steel pavilion with cantilevered walls and a retractable roof. The restaurant earned a James Beard Outstanding Chef nomination in 2022, according to Wrigley Mansion, and its tasting menu centers around a wood-fired grill.

Spy Work, Sole Meunière, and a Bestseller Nobody Wanted at First

The exhibition itself traces Child's improbable path to becoming America's first television chef. Born in Pasadena, California, in 1912, Child joined the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA, working as a spy during World War II — where, per Fenzl, she met her husband, Paul Cushing Child, whose love of food awakened her own passion for cooking. Julia Child ate sole meunière at La Couronne in Rouen, an experience often cited as the meal that turned her toward French cuisine.

She spent 12 years writing and testing recipes for Mastering the Art of French Cooking, co-created with Simone Beck, and the manuscript was rejected by its first publisher before editor Judith Jones revived it. It went on to become an immediate bestseller. The French Chef premiered on GBH Boston public television in 1963, demystifying French cooking for American audiences and making Child the first woman to have a television show, according to KJZZ.

Julia Child died in 2004 at age 91. Sari Custer, chief of science and curiosity at Arizona Science Center, and Tammy Stewart, the center's president and CEO, are both cited in KJZZ's coverage of the exhibit's local run. The show's interactive features include a replica of The French Chef television studio with vintage video cameras, a photo opportunity recreating a Valentine's Day card of Julia and Paul Child in a bathtub, and an oversized interactive volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, according to footage shared by Flying Fish Exhibits.

Wine Nights and a Bigger Culinary Legacy

To complement the exhibition, the Arizona Science Center scheduled a “Beyond the Exhibition” adult programming series this summer, featuring French wine tastings on July 25 and August 22 alongside craft workshops for etching wine glasses and embroidering aprons. The science center previously used its space for other after-hours draws, including an electronic music weekend covered by Tesla coils and DJs and a Bad Bunny performance inside the Dorrance Dome.

Child taught others to embrace mistakes and stay bold in their passions, a lesson she summed up in her own words: find something you are passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it, per KJZZ. That philosophy still echoes through Phoenix's dining scene. Chef Yotaka Martin of Lom Wong won the 2025 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest, three decades after Gross won the same award, according to Visit Phoenix — a throughline from Child's mentorship of Fenzl and Gross in the 1980s and 1990s to the city's continued run of nationally recognized French and regional cooking today.