Tom Douglas

Chef-owner, Dahlia Lounge, Palace Kitchen, Etta’s, and nine
other restaurants; and cookbook author
Seattle, Washington

On a typical night in Seattle, twelve hundred people eat at a Tom

Douglas restaurant. This is not an accident. The man who may

very well be Seattle’s most famous chef (“You’re cooking with

Tom Douglas?!” was the awed reaction I’d get in the days leading

up to my meeting him at Palace Kitchen) is a consummate

businessman. “I’m as motivated by the business side of things as I

am by the food side,” he told me at the beginning of our time

together.

It’s rare to meet a chef so candid about his or her motivations.

Most chefs these days prefer to think of themselves as tortured

artists, hoping that their single scallop with truffle foam puts them

on the level of a Picasso while simultaneously charging you thirty-

two dollars. Douglas has no patience for this. “My taste gets

simpler by the day. I don’t need to go to a three-star Michelin

restaurant ever again.”

Yet make no mistake: Douglas takes his food seriously. He just

doesn’t put his ego before customer satisfaction; he wants to make

people happy. And as we cook several dishes together, there’s no

doubt that the food we’re cooking is the kind of food that puts