6:30pm Thursday, October 17
Join us for a spectacular Champagne dinner benefitting Wine Unify, a nonprofit organization championing and promoting diversity in the wine industry
MYERS + CHANG
Owners Christopher Myers & James Beard Award Winning Chef, Joanne Chang
Dinner paired with Champagne, including grower Champagnes to the some of the most coveted tête de cuvées!
Hosted by Alicia Towns Franken, Executive Director, Wine Unify
Alicia Towns Franken began her career as the Wine Director for Boston’s famed Grill 23 & Bar, where she worked for over a decade to build one of the city’s most respected wine programs. During her tenure as Wine Director, she earned numerous accolades from organizations and magazines including Boston Magazine, The Boston Globe, Les Dames d’Escoffier and Wine Spectator.
Ultimately, though, her passion for building community, working to champion a more diverse wine industry, and innate talent for mentoring young wine professionals led her to take on the role of Executive Director for Wine Unify, an organization who’s mission is to welcome, elevate, and amplify the voices of underrepresented minorities in the wine industry. In her current role as the Executive Director of Wine Unify, Alicia's dedication to driving positive change shines through. As a champion for diversity in the wine industry, she actively advocates for greater representation and inclusivity. Through Wine Unify, Alicia is fostering a more equitable and welcoming environment, creating opportunities for underrepresented voices and celebrating the diversity of cultures and experiences that enrich the world of wine.
As a personal extension of her work with Wine Unify, Alicia Cofounded Towns Wine Co, with her husband Michael Franken. Towns Wine Co. is a wine company that aims to amplify underrepresented voices in the wine industry. They partner with female winemakers of color to help tell their stories and showcase their talent and regions. They reinvest the profits back into their partner winemakers to not only promote diversity and representation but also: economic empowerment, encourage entrepreneurship, cultural diversity in winemaking, changing industry norms, customer preferences.
Alicia lives in Boston with her husband and their two children. She is actively engaged in her community serving on the boards of The Esplanade Association, Board of Advisors of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Leadership Council of The Posse Foundation.
Welcome from Alicia Towns Franken, Executive Director, Wine Unify
It is our absolute pleasure to host a phenomenal evening of food, Champagne, and equity at our second UNIFY dinner — this year in Boston! We are grateful to both Joanne Chang and Christopher Myers for their generosity and thoughtful design of this unique culinary experience. It is also a distinct pleasure to feature the ultimate category of celebration — Champagne — throughout the meal. From grower Champagnes to some of the most coveted tête de cuvées, we are certain that our selections will surprise and delight everyone’s tastebuds. Just as importantly, we hope to inspire all guests by our mission: To foster a more diverse community of wine lovers and professionals. To date, Wine Unify has provided over 180 awards to Black, Indigenous, People of Color. We boast a mentor team of nearly 30 of the best and brightest in the industry, all of whom give back their time to help foster a brighter future. Your contribution and attendance allows us to forge ahead — we are so grateful to have you join us for what will be a memorable and impactful evening!
Joanne Chang, James Beard award-winning chef in 2016, started as garde-manger cook at Boston’s renowned Biba restaurant, then worked as a pastry cook at Bentonwood Bakery in Newton, and in 1995 was hired as Pastry Chef at Rialto restaurant in Cambridge.
Joanne moved to New York City in 1997 to work in the cake department of the critically acclaimed Payard Patisserie and Bistro. Returning to Boston a year later with dreams of opening up her own pastry shop, she brought her French and American training to Mistral where she was the Pastry Chef until summer of 2000.
In 2000, she opened Flour, a bakery and café, in Boston’s South End. In 2007 she and her husband and business partner Christopher Myers opened a second branch of Flour in the Fort Point Channel. They now operate 9 Flour bakeries in Boston/Cambridge in addition to a sister restaurant Myers+Chang, which earned 4 stars in the Boston Globe.
Flour and Myers+Chang have been featured in Gourmet, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Inc. Magazine, O Magazine, and Boston Magazine and have received numerous Best of Boston awards. Flour was also featured on Throwdown with Bobby Flay on the Food Network in which Joanne’s sticky buns won over Chef Flay’s.
Joanne’s energetic commitment to excellence extends beyond the kitchen. She writes pastry articles and reviews cookbooks for Fine Cooking magazine. She teaches classes and advises pastry cooks both within the bakery and at area cooking schools. She hosts an Instagram Live series Flour Love (#flourlove) featuring weekly baking kits and baking chats. An avid runner, she competed in every Boston Marathon from 1991 – 2006. In 2016 she was awarded the James Beard Award for Outstanding Baker. She serves on the Board of Directors for Share our Strength, a national organization dedicated to ending childhood hunger in America.
She is the author of five cookbooks: Flour, Spectacular Recipes from Boston’s Flour Bakery+Cafe and Flour Too, Indispensable Recipes for the Cafe’s Most Loved Sweets and Savories, Baking with Less Sugar: Recipes for Dessert using Natural Sweeteners and Little-to-No White Sugar, Myers+Chang at Home: Recipes from the Beloved Boston Eatery, and most recently, Pastry Love, All my Favorite Recipes, which earned an International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Award in 2020.
Joanne Chang
Christopher Myers is the co-owner of Myers + Chang restaurant and Flour Bakery + Cafe with his wife and business partner, Joanne Chang.
Christopher has been in and out of the hospitality business for 40 years, in LA, NYC, and Boston. Prior to opening Myers+Chang in 2007, he created and co-owned 4 iconic and award-winning Boston area restaurants: Rialto, Radius, Via Matta, and Great Bay. Rialto and Radius both earned rare 4-Star reviews for excellence from The Boston Globe, and all four received Best New Restaurants of the Year awards from Esquire magazine. Myers remains grateful to Esti Parsons, Michela Larson, Jody Adams, and Michael Schlow for their partnerships in these enterprises.
Myers’s education in restaurants began at 18, traveling from Boston to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. The timing of this pursuit coincided, luckily, with the early days of the California cuisine explosion. The “explosion” part suited his personality perfectly and the career path took hold. Stints at Charmer’s Market, Michael’s, Mr. Chow, and Central Park embedded an unexpected but lifelong vocation. “There’s one thing that can be said about my acting career, I was one helluva maitre d.”
In 1985, attempting another escape from the industry, while pursuing a doctorate in literature at Harvard University, Myers discovered that a well-stacked shelf in Widener Library just doesn’t compare to a well-stocked wine cellar. A birthday lunch at Michela Larson’s restaurant Michela’s led to a lengthy chat with Michela, and a friendship and eventual partnership with Larson and chef Jody Adams was created. He left academia for the third and last time. At last check, academia, like Hollywood, has been doing just fine.
Christopher began a partnership with Joanne Chang in 2006 and they created a second Flour Bakery. What wasn’t expected was Myers+Chang, as they were both committed to leaving behind restaurant nightlife. However, one night at home, Joanne made dinner inspired by her mother’s Taiwanese cooking. It was a simple salmon dish; slightly sweet, delicately seasoned, with a subtle chili heat off-set by cooling cucumbers and cilantro. Christopher loved it. They decided that Boston might adopt a restaurant that offered a fresh and personal style of Asian cuisine. In 2007, Myers + Chang opened its doors.
Myers has always derived his greatest satisfaction in providing an atmosphere for his guests that possesses a sense of wonder, theater, and originality. “The best part of this life is in choosing a team that works to actively inspire hospitality. Creating a hospitable culture is an entirely proactive and creative process, one that makes for great dining and, often, lasting friendships. It’s not so much a serious endeavor as it is a curious lark.”
Myers has been involved with many local and national charities including Lovin’ Spoonfuls, Share our Strength and No Kid Hungry, The Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Sister, Big Brother, YMCA, Room to Grow, The Pine Street Inn, Community Servings, and Project Place. His opinions on hospitality and business management have been featured in Time, Inc., Business Week, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Restaurant Hospitality, Santé, Food and Wine, the American Express Manual for Restaurateurs, and Fast Company.
