Duskie Estes and John Stewart are the chefs, farmers, and ranchers behind Black Pig Meat Co. They are known for their award winning pasture raised bacon, snout-to-tail products, and farm-to-table food truck, the Black Piglet.
They lost their beloved restaurant, ZAZU Kitchen+Farm, in Sonoma County in a flood in 2019 after 19 years of raking in the awards: TOP 10 best new restaurants and TOP 100 restaurants in San Francisco Chronicle, Top 50 Restaurants in the Bay Area by SF Magazine, Michelin Recommended in the SF Guide for over a decade, Rising Star Chef Awards for Sustainability, Slow Food Snail Awards, King and Queen of Pork at Aspen Food & Wine, and multiple Good Food Awards. They have been featured on Food Network’s Next Iron Chef, Guy’s Grocery Games, Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, Guy’s Ranch Kitchen, Beat Bobby Flay, and Alex v. America as well as on PBS, OWN, and Discovery+. They raise pigs, goats, chicken, and sheep on their farm.
Estes and Stewart met in Seattle. There, Duskie was voted Seattle City Search’s Best Chef and Palace Kitchen was awarded the nation’s top 50 restaurants by Gourmet Magazine under her leadership. She co-authored Tom Douglas’s Seattle Kitchen, receiving the 2001 James Beard Award. Stewart was the sous chef of Cafe Lago and Lisa Dupar Catering.
She is vice chair of the James Beard Foundation Awards Committee and on the Board of Sonoma County FarmTrails. They have both riden over 1,500 miles for Chefs Cycle | No Kid Hungry over the past 5 years. Duskie is a lifelong food justice warrior, previously running the kitchen at Glide Memorial, launching a national cooking program for Share Our Strength, and directing produce food rescue for her community with Farm-to-Pantry, where she received NorCal Media Farm-to-Community Leader Award and CVNL Heart of Sonoma County Leadership Excellence Award.
