Jonna J. Jensen has been working in restaurants since the age of 15, in places ranging from Hemingway’s Tavern by the sea in Laguna Beach to Wolfgang Puck’s fashionable Chinois on Main in Santa Monica. Inspired by her Danish heritage, the self-taught Jensen has honed her skills both in the States and abroad where she spent time living and training in the pastry kitchens of Paris.

Jensen has also worked as a consultant, developing and creating signature desserts and recipes for the menus of many of Los Angeles’s finest restaurants.

Chef Jensen met Josie Le Balch in 1990 when they opened Remi Restaurant, the West Coast affiliate of the New York flagship, winning the title of Best New Restaurant in Los Angeles from Los Angeles Magazine in 1991.

In 1995 she was hired at I Cugini in Santa Monica where she completely restructured the dessert program. Jensen was the opening pastry chef at ll Fornaio on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, the opening pastry chef and consultant at Amadeus in Beverly Hills, and was the pastry chef at the famed Coco Pazzo in the Mondrian Hotel.

Chef Jensen and Chef Le Balch have teamed up on several renowned restaurants since working at Remi including Saddle Peak Lodge in Malibu and The Beach House in Santa Monica. Together, they have earned some of the top awards in the nation including the famed DiRoNa Award for food and service, Gourmet Magazine’s Top Ten in California and have been featured in Wine Spectator Magazine and Bon Appétit just to name a few.

Joining forces again to open Josie in January of 2001, Chef Jensen's desserts have been featured in many important publications. Chef Jensen was one of only three chefs featured in the Premiere Annual Restaurant Dining Guide by Los Angeles Magazine in August 2000, and her luscious blueberry tart graced the cover of Los Angeles Magazine’s 2004 issue, in which Josie Restaurant was named one of the top ten restaurants of L.A. Angeleno Magazine says, “The naturally gorgeous desserts that Pastry Chef Jonna J. Jensen sends out of the kitchen make people fall in love,” and they should—in 2006 the magazine named her Pastry Chef of the Year.