Addison misses exactly the same points Soleil Ho did.
Alice Waters wanted the food at Chez Panisse to be akin to what you’d get at a one-star country place in France. They achieved that long ago. If the food disappoints you because it’s not “creative” or whatever, go somewhere else.
What Waters truly reimagined was the way restaurants treat their employees: health care, profit sharing, retirement plans, reasonable hours including having co-chefs that worked three days a week instead of six. Consequently the restaurants’ “graduates” weren’t burned out or broke and were far freer to pursue their own projects than is typical in the industry.