Chef Thierry Rautureau

This four-part series features award winning Chef Thierry Rautureau of Rover’s and Luc restaurants located in Madison Valley, Seattle. Commonly known as the “Chef in the Hat,” he is a local celebrity and will appear nationally on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters in July 2012 (also previously in 2010). He co-hosts a radio and podcast series with Tom Douglas called “Seattle Kitchen” Saturdays and Sundays on KIRO 97.3 FM, and annually hosts “The Bite Cooks” at the Bite of Seattle festival previously distributed on Comcast On Demand.

Thierry Rautureau hails from the Muscadet region of France. He began his cooking career at fourteen, with a cooking apprenticeship in Anjou, France, and at sixteen went on to train in the cities of Le Mont Saint Michel in Normandy, Chamonix in the French Alps, and Hendaye in the Pays Basque. Rautureau headed for the United States at twenty, and took his professional experience to La Fontaine with Jean Claude Poilevey in Chicago. After three years in Chicago, Rautureau moved to Los Angeles where he worked at the Regency Club with Joachim Splichal, and then The Seventh Street Bistro with Laurent Quenioux. In 1987, he opened Rover’s restaurant in Seattle, and most recently in 2010 he opened Luc, a French-American café and bar.

When describing his cooking philosophy, Rautureau says, “it starts with freshness and continues with treating all ingredients with attention.” Over the twenty-five years Rautureau has owned Rover’s, the restaurant and chef have received local and national press recognition. Articles have appeared in Time Magazine, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, The Wine Spectator, Food Arts, Vancouver Magazine, Seattle Magazine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Sunset, USA Today, Seattle Times, Pacific Magazine, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Fortune, Business Week, and Art Culinaire to name a few.

Contestants on Kitchen Circus 2012

Siiri A marketing manager and food blogger. Her inspiration is to help people break down barriers about food and try things they might otherwise avoid. She’s eaten and cooked all over the world on personal travels which influences her perspective as a home cook.

Angel

A software engineer who reverse-engineers amazing dining experiences for his friends at home. He sees cooking for 45 people on Kitchen Circus as the ultimate dinner party.

Beth

Works at a specialty food business. Her friends who love her cooking encouraged her to audition for Kitchen Circus. She's a home chef taught by her mother. She’s “spent more tears on onions than she ever has on boyfriends, husbands or anything else.”

Atina

Grew up on a farm in Yakima, also lived in NYC for 10 years, literally eating from farm to table. She is a self-proclaimed “food geek” that loves to alter recipes to suit her taste.

Myrissa

A personal trainer and gym owner. She calls herself a “food tourist” because she loves to travel and discover different food cultures both at a local farmers markets and around the world.

Chris

A 3D Artist and Animator who is self-taught in modernist cuisine. Chris owns a sous vide appliance and centrifuge to concoct delicacies in his kitchen. He feels his success at home working with unconventional foods and techniques is what will make him win.

Erina

A marketing director for a real estate company, but also a local food writer and blogger. Her approach to cooking is “attainable gourmet;” to create great food with great ingredients and great people, and then just get out of the way.

Peter

A software product planner who is the ultimate food lover + food creator + engineer. He uses his ‘process oriented’ mind to plan out the meal ahead of time and work with a team to get everyone’s food on the table effortlessly.

Christine

An investigative reporter for a Seattle newspaper, and food blogger. Christine believes food is one of the most creative expressions of who we are as a people, a culture and a community.

Also watch on our YouTube channel: YouTube.com/KitchenCircus

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