Enjoy some notable Italian wine during the “meet and greet,” followed by a brief, but beautifully meaningful service where new members to our board will be welcomed and “installed.” An informal dinner will follow, featuring offerings catering to all palates and dietary needs. (Check out the specific menu on the registration page.) Foodies and the socially conscious alike will be inspired by our guest speaker, Ruth Gresser, CEO of the uber-sucessful Pizzeria Paradiso restaurants, shatterer of glass ceilings, champion of women and minorities, and honored in 2025 with the Duke Zeibert Capital Achievement Award for “her decades of leadership, dedication, innovation, and generosity in shaping the region’s restaurant culture.”

The location (a few minutes north of Temple) and parking info will be emailed to registrants in the days leading up to the event. Carpool arrangements will be available for those needing transportation — if interested, email Gwenn Rosenthal at gwenn.rosenthal@gmail.com. Please register early as space is limited. REGISTER

Cost: $45 for Women of WHC members; $55 for WHC members; $60 for non-members

About Ruth Gresser

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 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, opening Pizzeria Paradiso, the first Neapolitan style pizza restaurant in the DC area, to critical acclaim and growing the restaurant group to four locations in 2022 – adding Birreria Paradiso and The Paradiso Game Room to the brand along the way. Now considered the matriarch of pizza in the District, Ms. Gresser has been instrumental in the opening of seven popular Washington restaurants. 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 a 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 the restaurant to become the Managing Partner as Gresser embarks on the path to retirement.