CHEF Ruth Gresser ANNOUNCED AS THE 2025 DUKE ZEIBERT CAPITAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD HONOREE

Co-Owner and Chef Ruth Gresser learned her craft at her mother’s side, cooking for her large family and her mother’s catering company. Ms. Gresser's first hospitality job was working the fry station at McDonald's 50 years ago this summer. She then cooked her way through college before entering the professional food scene in San Francisco in the early stages of the modern American food movement. In 1987, after graduating summa cum laude from Madeleine Kamman’s Classical and Modern French Cooking School, and cooking professionally in French, American, and Italian restaurants across the country, she moved to Washington, DC.

In 1991, Chef Gresser turned her attention to pizza. She opened Pizzeria Paradiso, the first Neapolitan style pizza restaurant in the DC area, to critical acclaim and grew the restaurant group to five locations in 2020 - adding Birreria Paradiso and The Paradiso Game Room to the brand along the way. Gresser is considered the District's Matriarch of Pizza from her years of teaching and nuturing up-and-coming pizza cooks. Ms. Gresser is the author of Kitchen Workshop – Pizza: Hands-On Cooking Lessons for Making Amazing Pizza at Home. 

Chef Gresser sat on the Women’s Leadership Programs’ Advisory Board of the James Beard Foundation, is a past President of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, is one of the founders of Regarding Her Food DC, and serves on the Board of the Restaurant Association of Washington. Gresser has been profiled in The Washington Post, The Washington Post Magazine and The Washington Business Journal. She has appeared on numerous local and national TV and radio outlets including Fox Business News, Roll Call, and NPR. Gresser was a 2017 Women Who Mean Business winner, awarded by the Washington Business Journal. Gresser was named a semifinalist in the James Beard Awards in the category of Outstanding Restaurateur in 2019 and 2020. In 2024, Gresser began transitioning ownership of Pizzeria Paradiso to Carlos Gonzalez who has moved through the ranks of Pizzeria Paradiso to become the Managing Partner as Gresser embarks on a path to retirement.

The second annual RAMMYS Honors Cocktail Reception, recognizing this year’s honorees, will take place on Tuesday, July 1, at The Schuyler at Hamilton Hotel in Washington, DC. The 43rd Annual RAMMYS Awards & Gala will be held on Sunday, August 3, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Tickets, tables, and sponsorship opportunities are available. Learn more.