Chef Kelsey Brito

The Dutchess marks Kelsey’s first foray as a Partner, in addition to her Pastry Chef role overseeing the creation and execution of the bread program, pastries and desserts. This all-day bakery, café and Burmese restaurant in the heart of Ojai is a fun and eclectic collaboration with partners Zoe Nathan and Executive Chef Saw Naing.

By day, the eight-foot-long pastry case is piled high with Kelsey’s sourdough loaves and farmer’s market driven pastries – an abundance of pies, croissants, tarts, cakes, scones, danishes, and cookies which change with the seasons and are baked fresh daily beginning at 4am each morning. By night, diners round out Naing’s flavorful, inventive Burmese-Californian fare with Kelsey’s play on South Asian-influenced desserts, such as Passion Fruit-Lime Pie inspired by Mango Lassi, Corn Kulfi that nod to the Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake Bars of her childhood, and her homage to Falooda – a staple of Chef Saw’s most cherished childhood desserts.

Prior to The Dutchess, Kelsey was part of the team at  Huckleberry Bakery & Café, starting in 2012 as a morning baker and moving her way up to lead baker and pastry sous by the time she was 21. After five years at Huckleberry, she headed north to the Bay Area to join San Francisco’s Tartine, where she again started as a baker and worked her way up to Pastry Sous in 2016. She took over as Pastry Chef at Tartine Manufactory in September 2017, helping them set up and run their commissary kitchen which oversaw production for multiple of their Bay Area locations. Some of Kelsey’s recipes are also included in the re-issue of the first Tartine cookbook (October 2019).

When the opportunity arose in June 2019 to take over bakery operations at Milo + Olive, which also serves as the bread baking hub for the Rustic Canyon Family, Kelsey returned to Santa Monica as Pastry Chef and Director of Bakery Operations, ultimately relocating to Ventura in 2021 to open The Dutchess