Who is the James Huffman, new Chef Executive in Canlis?

For months, Canlis Looking for next executive chef, one of the most requested gigs in Seattle's restaurant scene, otherwise the country. After interviewing candidates from around the worldMark's owner Canlis picks up someone who is smaller at home: James Huffman, the present executive sous sous chef.

Canlis want to do unexpectedly, and rent from within real count. The last two people to lead the kitchen of Canlis was Brady Ishiwata Williams, who won a James Beard Award before opening volume In the White Center, and Aisha Ibrahim, which is just a new one James Beard Semifinalist And left Canlis early this year to keep opening his own restaurant anywhere outside Seattle. Both work in michelin restaurants and moved to Seattle to get the job.

Huffman, on the contrary, a local product. He grew up in Lake Forest Park, and worked in the restaurant industry at the local restaurant since he was a 16-year-old Kidd Valley. He later obtained a gig in the famous eastside good destination at the dining room Cafe JuanitaAnd in Canlis in the past nine years, working on the kitchen ladder under Williams and Ibrahim. As found in Seattle Timethe first outlet to share the news, He was the first person born in Seattle to be the Chef Executive.

Mark Canlis, with a restaurant owner since Her sister Brian's recent leavesays this hiring is a sign for the canlis in a sense. Before hiring cycles, the brothers may feel that they need to raise the restaurant by bringing a stranger cooking some of the best kitchen in the world. But at this point, the canlis itself is probably qualified as one of the best kitchen in the world, who can live on one's own talent. “There are times in the past where we certainly need to be taken out of the input. We need voices. We need new ideas,” Canlis said. Now, he said, “The restaurant is strong enough to make people who are capable of doing work … cool without having to go to someone to bring a restaurant to Seattle.”

Jeremy Beasley

Jeremy Beasley

Since Ibrahim was left in April, Huffman led the kitchen on an interim basis, and add new items to the menu while times changed, a form of development of times. One of the dishes of particular guests are targeted, a kalble-style oxen with spring onions baked by burying it in the top of charcoal and onion. “You can pick up the beef and serving onion as a platter,” Canlis said.

Throughout this process, Canlis has been less focuses on food than leadership values; It says that not to say the canlis chef's executive should have amazing chops as a chef. “This person contains our company's values ​​- he is trustworthy and generous and other,” Catlis said.

“I stayed here for a long time because things connected to me are naturally and have already been part of who I am, who has rejected your neighbors and your community,” said Huffman.

Especially because it is a hiring from the inside, no changes to canlis changes (salad will not go anywhere). The things Huffman wants to focus on the back of the scenes, such as a flexible study of supporting local peasants and producers. “These are the people we want to approach and invest and ensure that they feel seen and that their product is respected,” Huffman said. He added that it is also important that “the cooks inside our walls and dining in the team, they all feel seen and respected and respected them in the right way.”