Patricia Morrissey, 49, restaurant and catering chef

Patricia Maria Teresa Morrissey, 49, of Roxborough, a chef known for her work in restaurants and catering, died at home Tuesday, June 4. The cause of death was not yet known, said John Muldoon, her brother-in-law. Her husband, Jarlath Muldoon, said she hadn’t been feeling well for the previous week.

Ms. Morrissey, known as “Trish,” was a graduate of the Restaurant School and was among the vanguard of female executive chefs in Philadelphia when she came up through the ranks in the mid-1990s.

In a 1997 article, Inquirer columnist Elaine Tait recounted calling the Ritz-Carlton Hotel to find Ms. Morrissey, then 27, in the kitchen.

“Is she a guest?'” the hotel operator asked.

“No,” Tait replied. “She’s your chef.”

Besides the Ritz-Carlton, Ms. Morrissey was chef at the old Philadelphia Fish & Co. in Old City, Jack’s Firehouse, and Places! Bistro at People’s Light & Theatre Company in Malvern.

She got her first taste of being a professional cook when she was only 14. “My mom [Marta] started teaching French in the evening, and my father [Robert] paid me to cook dinner for the [six-person] family three nights a week. I got 25 bucks a week,” she said in 2003.

The daughter of an Army colonel, Ms. Morrissey was born in Carlisle, Pa., and lived in many places as a girl: Panama, California, Germany, Italy, and Northern Virginia.

She said that living abroad and learning how to cook from her mother — an Italian raised in North Africa — and her grandmother provided her with a broad range of influences.

She studied fashion at Drexel University before enrolling at the Restaurant School. She met her husband, a contractor, as a customer at Philadelphia Fish & Co. They were married for 16 years, and had lived for many of those years in Roxborough.

In addition to her mother and husband, she is survived by a brother, Sean, and two sisters.

Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday, June 9, at Fitzpatrick Funeral Home, 425 Lyceum Ave., and from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m. Monday, June 10, at St. John the Baptist Church, 146 Rector St. Services will follow.

Donations may be made to Project HOME, 1515 Fairmount Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19130.