A graduate of Johnson & Wales University and former sous-pastry chef at TRU, Karen Urie Shields now co-owns Smyth and The Loyalist. Her seamless shift from desserts to operations helped Smyth secure three Michelin stars and earned her a James Beard Outstanding Chef nomination in 2024.
Born in Massachusetts, Shields earned her degree at Johnson & Wales University before relocating to Chicago, where she became sous-pastry chef under Gale Gand at TRU, refining sugar work and extreme-temperature techniques for desserts of disarming lightness.
In 2004 she joined Charlie Trotter’s, rising to head pastry chef within three years and meeting chef John Shields. There she crafted the minimalist dessert “Merlot, buttermilk & shiso” (2006) and began viewing pastry as a conversation with savory cooking.
The pair declined an offer to open a Trotter-branded venue in Las Vegas and, in 2008, moved to rural Chilhowie, Virginia, to lead Town House and the adjacent Riverstead Inn. Their foraged, locality-driven menus drew praise from The New York Times (June 2009) and won her a StarChefs Rising Star award in 2010.
Returning to Chicago’s West Loop, they launched Smyth and The Loyalist in 2016. Menus rely on produce from a biodynamic Illinois plot known simply as “The Farm,” visited weekly. Smyth earned its first Michelin star within six months, a second the next year, and the coveted third star in November 2023—a milestone Shields calls “a promise never to lower our threshold of care.”
While John directs the savory line, she optimizes costs, grower relationships, and staff culture, still revisiting a signature like “Fermented milk, farm honey & pollen” (2022). This evolution from pastry chef to restaurateur led to her James Beard Outstanding Chef 2024 nomination, acknowledging her role in sustaining Smyth’s coherence and fiscal resilience.
The ethical drive traces back to her grandmother Flora, a “quiet leader” who cooked well past her centenary. “If she could make dinner with one hand,” Shields reflects, “we have no excuse not to give our best.”
