I am Ilana Saraf, the owner and founder of Ilana and Co., a creative studio based in the South End of Boston.
At the center of everything I make is the same simple impulse: working with my hands in the act of creation. Ilana and Co. is the umbrella under which that impulse lives — some days it takes the shape of mixing, other days of stitching. The material changes, but the absorption is the same one I first felt as a painter, and it's the thread that runs through everything I make.
My roots are in the kitchen — Ilana and Co. grew out of a career that has included being a restaurateur, caterer, artist — but the studio itself isn't defined by any one material or product. My journey has taken me from my San Francisco origins to North Carolina and now back to my urban roots here in Boston — and through it all, the constant has been this need to make things by hand, my hands.
“The stitched line is my tool — I follow the surprises that surface as I layer, cut, and piece — texture, light, color, pattern, line.”
How I Got Here …
I first learned to cook alongside my Viennese grandmother, who catered parties for San Francisco "high society." My grandmother instilled in me, as we catered, the discipline of patience and process, modesty and simplicity. She taught me how to properly sauté mushrooms until caramelized and golden; how to make the perfect blintz; how to whisk heavy cream for profiteroles and chocolate sauce; how to make duck à l'orange and osso buco. And she taught me the original meaning of "schlepping," as she would drag her cart on foot around San Francisco's Richmond neighborhood to collect all her fresh ingredients.
In 1981, after earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the University of California, Santa Cruz, I returned to the Bay Area and began my hands-on "graduate training" in the Berkeley "gourmet ghetto." After many years of learning — from Café Pastoral, to priceless advice and encouragement from Alice Waters and others at Chez Panisse, to China Moon in San Francisco — I was inspired to take a leap and open my own San Francisco restaurant in 1989, Cityblock, to immediate critical acclaim. In 1993, I left the restaurant world to relocate to Durham, North Carolina. In between raising two sons, I ran a catering business and ultimately blended my passions for food and gathering loved ones around a table into the business Sacred Table, creating locally sourced, prepared meals for people to enjoy in their homes, garnished by their own traditions and rituals.
In 2017, I moved to Boston's South End. The move gave me an opportunity to explore a new city, new artistic communities — everything was at my fingertips, and I found myself responsive to the opportunities, eager to take advantage of them. I found Shepherd & Maudsleigh, which provided an opportunity to focus deeply on my art practice, and exposure and collaboration with other artists.
