Ripple pastry chef Alison Reed has parted ways with the Cleveland Park eatery and is headed to Kansas, where she plans to open a bakery of her own.

Reed grew up in Kansas but has lived in D.C. for the past nine years, working for places like Cafe Saint-Ex and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. This year she was nominated for Pastry Chef of the Year by the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington.

Reed explains that her family is still in Kansas and so are the people who want to invest in her next venture. She says the decision to leave Ripple wasn’t an easy one: “I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to work for anyone else.”

Ripple has no immediate plans to replace Reed. Instead, chef Marjorie Meek-Bradley, who worked as a pastry chef during part of culinary school and created desserts for Graffiato, will be making the sweets.

Meek-Bradley has already introduced some new fall desserts, including a hazelnut and caramelized apple cake with salted caramel and vanilla malt ice cream. Baked butterscotch pudding will remain on the menu. So will Ripple’s very popular chocolate chip cookies.

“I think I’m not allowed to touch that,” Meek-Bradley says.

Photo by Jessica Sidman.