On a trip to France in 2008 Lisa Marie was inspired to pursue her lifelong passion for baking. She enrolled in the accelerated Baking & Pastry program at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, and after the program worked as a pastry cook with Della Fattoria in Petaluma, CA. In April 2009 she was drawn back to New Orleans – a city she’d first come to know as a Red Cross Volunteer after Hurricane Katrina. Lisa Marie helped to develop pastry programs at several New Orleans  establishments, earning her recognition in 2016 as Eater NOLA’s “Chef of the Year.” In 2017 Lisa Marie relocated to Nashville to build the pastry program for the newly opened Thompson Nashville with QED Hospitality, a New Orleans-based restaurant operations management group. Lisa Marie oversees the pastry programs for flagship restaurant Marsh House, the rooftop bar & restaurant L.A. Jackson, and coffee shop Killebrew. Lisa Marie received the Nashville Scene’s 2017 award for Best Pastry Chef, and in 2018 was nominated as a semifinalist by the James Beard Foundation for Outstanding Pastry Chef. Lisa Marie serves as a board member of the Nashville chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier, and as the Food Director for Camp Conquest at Children's Harbor, AL. Lisa Marie is also a board member at The Please Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing scholarships to underprivileged children in New Orleans. She’s the proud pet parent to Millie, an English Bulldog rescue adopted following the 2016 floods in Baton Rouge.