Chef, teacher, author, caterer and restaurateur, Geraldine Gilliland arrived in Los Angeles from Northern Ireland in 1975, and began an extraordinary career in the food industry. Today she owns and operates two distinctively different and critically acclaimed restaurants on Main Street, Santa Monica, California: Lula Cocina Mexicana and Finn McCool's Irish Pub. In addition, she is the co-author of the cookbook Grills and Greens, which was nominated for a James Beard award in 1995. (Available at Amazon.com) Since 1977 Geraldine has taught at many major cooking schools in the Southern California area including UCLA extension, Williams-Sonoma, Montana Mercantile and Bristol Farms Cooking School. With a degree in both classical French Cuisine and Home Economics, she has taught and presented cuisines as diverse as Indian, Chinese, Regional Mexican, French, Californian and of course, Irish. Indeed, one of her first jobs in this country was as a personal chef for a Chinese family.

Geraldine opened her first restaurant, Gilliland's Cafe in 1984, and almost simultaneously, began a small catering company that provided some of the restaurant's more popular items, like the Christmas Puddings to such stores as Bloomingdales, Dean & Deluca & Balducci's in New York. However, it was due to the opening of Gilliland's Cafe, a popular yet intimate upscale neighborhood restaurant, serving California and Irish cuisines that Geraldine's reputation grew from local to national prominence and won many accolades from the press and public alike. Geraldine sold Gilliland's in 1998.

In July 1991, Geraldine realized another dream and opened her second restaurant, LULA COCINA MEXICANA, a celebration of her love and fascination of the cuisines and cultures of Mexico. Named after her good friend and mentor, Lula Bertran, LULA serves the freshest and lightest of authentic Regional Mexican Cuisine in a bold Cantina-style setting.

Geraldine's entrepreneurship reached yet a new height in March 1993 with the opening of her third restaurant, JAKE AND ANNIE'S AMERICAN IRISH CAFE. Aided once again by her husband Theodore Lonsway, JAKE AND ANNIE'S was an open and airy cafe serving American-Irish cooking and located on Main Street next door to LULA.

In June of 1997, Geraldine and her husband purchased THE BLACK WHALE, a legendary restaurant in MARINA DEL REY and reopened as THE WASHINGTON STREET BAR & GRILL. This restaurant featured a wood broiler for indulging Geraldine's obsession with Santa Maria Style Grilling. That is, cooking over Red Oak Wood from the Santa Ynez Valley. Washington Street has since been sold. It was in 2002 when Geraldine Gilliland finally realized her long held wish of recreating one of her fondest childhood memories, her father's bar in Ireland. Bit by bit it was shipped through the Panama Canal to its final resting place here in Santa Monica. An Irish crew reconstructed the bar meticulously; everything was up and running by St Patrick's Day - JAKE AND ANNIE'S was reborn as FINN McCOOL'S IRISH PUB. Geraldine also maintains and operates a beautiful 40 acre Estate in Malibu, California that is a top Catered Wedding destination in the United States. Geraldine now divides her very active schedule between her two major restaurants, Rancho Chiquita Catering and Cooking School, and her large family of adopted and abused pets. Her corporate catering clients include Time Magazine, Malcolm McDowell, Gary Goldberg (Spin City Creator), Charlie Hauck (Novelist & Writer for Frazier), and advertising agency Rubin-Postaur as well as Digital Domain who created the graphics for the movie, Titanic.

She has been invited to participate as a guest chef for Cunard's exclusive Sea Goddess Cruise Line and Yosemite's Ahwahnee Hotel Master Chef's series, the famed Ballymaloe Cookery School in Cork, Ireland, and the James Beard House in New York City among others. Her television appearances include both Public Television's Cooking Lite and Easy with Laurie Burrows Grad, AM Los Angeles, Mike and Maty Show, Cooking with Robin Leach on Television's Food Network & the KTLA Morning News.

Geraldine continues to teach at food seminars such as the one she did with Lula Bertran in San Miguel De Allende, and also the IACP conferences in San Antonio Texas and Phoenix, Arizona She is a supporter of local and international charity fund raisers and participates annually in the Venice Art Walk, Humane Society in Mexico, Planned Parenthood, The Women's Law Center, KCRW's Food Fair, and the National Kidney Foundation's Great Chefs of L.A.