Canlis Hires Its First Female Executive Chef Aisha Ibrahim will lead the kitchen of the celebrated 70-year-old restaurant in Seattle. Aisha Ibrahim is the new executive chef of Canlis in Seattle, the first woman ever to hold the position in the 70 years the restaurant has been operating.Credit...Jeremy P. Beasley By Elizabeth G. Dunn May 3, 2021 Since closing its dining room in March 2020, Canlis has reinvented itself several times over, shape-shifting from Seattle’s loftiest fine-dining restaurant into a bagel shop, a crab shack and a drive-in movie theater. Now, the restaurant has made another, more permanent change, hiring Aisha Ibrahim as its new executive chef. Ms. Ibrahim, 35, is the seventh chef, and the first woman, to helm the Canlis kitchen in its 70-year history. She started work on April 30.