Dara Tesser did not set out to become a chef at Bucks County’s Carversville Inn. She graduated from George Washington University’s business school, took a job in finance, and spent her days doing everything except the work in front of her. “I stopped doing the work I was supposed to do,” she says. “I was so consumed with food and recipes.” She was cooking for her sister in a small New York apartment, gathering friends around a coffee table, and discovering that what she loved was not just the food itself but what the food made possible. Eventually she stopped fighting it, enrolled at the Institute of Culinary Education, and landed an externship at Gramercy Tavern. 

Twenty years, a stint at Prune, and one unlikely detour into tech later, she is the Executive Chef behind The Carversville Inn. The restaurant recently won Best New Restaurant in the Suburbs in Philadelphia Magazine’s Best of Philly issue and earned a Michelin Selected designation in its first year.

Dara Tesser is a 2026 Bucks County Parent Women of Influence Award Winner

Bucks County Parent’s Women of Influence Awards celebrate exceptional women making significant impacts in our community. Tesser was nominated by her husband and selected based on her achievements and dedication to creating positive change. Each Women of Influence Award Winner has committed to support Family Focus Media’s core values. Together, we are committed to fostering a sense of belonging and empowerment for all families. All backgrounds, races, genders, and sexual orientations are welcome and safe with us.

Beyond the awards, our Women of Influence Luncheon and Speed Networking Night attendees come together as our Women of Influence Network, a community fostering connections, collaboration, and mutual support.

Opening a Restaurant of Her Own

When Tesser and her family moved from New York to Bucks County two years ago, she didn’t have a job lined up. A former mentor connected her with a chef friend in the area, but that opportunity fell through shortly after the move. It was a chance conversation with a local chef doing catering work in Carversville that led her to the Inn’s owners, Milan Lint and Mitch Berlin. They were restoring the 1813 property from the ground up. “We met and it felt right,” she says. “There’s no other way to put it.” The role offered her an opportunity to open a restaurant kitchen of her own, something she had never done in her two decades of working in professional kitchens. 

The building itself came with real limitations. There is no walk-in cooler, just a series of reach-ins, which means Tesser has had to be strategic about ordering and menu planning in ways her New York kitchens never demanded. She does not describe this as a hardship, though. “This actually feels like a step up,” she laughs, humored by the idea that a historic Bucks County inn with windows counts as an upgrade after years of working in cramped city kitchens. 

What she has built inside those constraints is a menu rooted in classic French bistro cooking. From onion soup gratinée and duck leg confit to steak frites and trout amandine, all Tesser’s recipes are built around ingredients sourced from nearby farms, including Manoff Market in Solebury and several other regional producers she sought out herself when she first arrived in the area. “It’s so important to support the farmer’s market,” she says. “I did my due diligence and found the ones I really liked.”

What a Meal-Planning Startup Taught a Chef

Before she arrived at The Carversville Inn, Tesser took a detour. She spent time as the only person with culinary experience on a 40-person team at Store No. 8, Walmart’s tech incubator, where she helped build an AI meal-planning app. She walked in intimidated, surrounded by engineers and data scientists and thrust into conversations that initially felt over her head. That did not last. “I realized that my voice matters,” she says. “They can’t do what I do and they have no idea about food.” 

The experience ultimately shaped how she leads her kitchen at The Carversville Inn. “There was definitely a lack of confidence at first,” she notes. “I always try to bring confidence, which makes my team more confident, even if things go astray. Being a good leader also means showing vulnerability.”

Leading a Kitchen the Way She Leads a Table

Tesser has spent 20 years watching the restaurant industry slowly change for women, without the underlying challenges disappearing along with it. “It’s the perception of a woman in a kitchen,” she says. “People underestimate us. Can she carry the 50 pounds, the heat, the mental load of it. But we can do it all.” 

Early in her career, the few other women she worked alongside in the kitchen became something closer to family than coworkers. “We gravitated towards each other,” she reflects. “We’re still friends. We confide in each other and lift each other up.” She sees more women in professional kitchens today, and she credits some of that shift to the kind of communication she now insists on with her own team. “If one person goes down, the rest of the kitchen goes down,” she says. “Checking in with staff and line cooks is so important. Are they up for service and in the right mindframe? We lift each other up.”

That mentorship extends to individual relationships on her restaurant line. She describes one young woman on her team who is talented but constantly doubts herself. “I’m constantly telling her how incredible she is,” Tesser shares, “and how she will rise.”

A Table That Doesn’t Close at Home

Tesser has two children, ages 7 and 8, and she was pregnant with both while working in professional kitchens, something she describes as its own kind of preparation for motherhood. “Being a chef in the kitchen is similar to motherhood,” she says. “You’re going to get dirty, you’re going to have to wipe up after yourself, and you just have to push through.” 

Balancing five-day weeks and 12-hour shifts while raising two young children took years to figure out, and Tesser is candid that it is still a work in progress. “It’s taken me until now to stand up for myself and communicate what I need,” she shares. She has structured her current role around three nights a week in the restaurant, with the rest spent at home, although she is in the restaurant every day during the week. “It’s always scary to stand up for yourself and say this is what I need,” she says, “but your work can be your life, and it still doesn’t have to swallow it.”

What carries over from the kitchen to her home life is less about the food itself and more about what happens around it. “Bringing families together with quality food, that’s magical,” Tesser shares. Dinner together every night is non-negotiable in her house, for now. “I’ll take it until my son starts wrestling,” she says.

An Award for Someone Who Avoids the Spotlight

Tesser has spent her career letting the food speak rather than seeking out recognition. That’s part of why this honor means something different to her. “It means a lot to me,” she says. “I’ve worked really hard to achieve something like this.” For a young woman hoping to run her own kitchen one day, her advice is simple and unglamorous. “Constantly push yourself,” she offers. “Do the work. Ask a lot of questions. Stay true to yourself.”

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