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Thierry Rautureau Seattle's Chef in the Hat

A Chef Rautureau holiday favorite

Beloved Seattle chef's rice pudding is a family tradition

In October 2023,Ā  the beloved Thierry Rautureau passed away. Below is Seattle food writer Rebekah Denn’s remembrance of Rautureau and her December 2015 article about his wife’s rice pudding recipeĀ  that was part of a Seattle’s Child series about local chefs’ favorite family holiday dishes:

Seattleā€™s famous ā€œChef in the Hat,ā€ owner of the fine-dining restaurant Roverā€™s for 25 years and then successors Luc and Loulay, died earlier this year of pulmonary fibrosis. He was loved for stellar food and expansive hospitality, for joie de vivre and generosity. But if he could save the world, Rautureau once told me, his dream would be gathering ā€œa few million dollarsā€ and giving them to Food Lifeline, the nonprofit he served for many years.

To provide meals for all the people who need food, he said, ā€œwould be my biggest achievement on this planet.ā€ Never mind the considerable donations he regularly raised for the nonprofit or the time he spent serving on its board ā€“ let alone the James Beard award, the Zagat ratings for Seattleā€™s top restaurant, the charming, playful personality he showed on TV shows like Top Chef Masters or on his long-running radio show with buddy Tom Douglas. Kindness and community contributions were baked into his way of life ā€“ through that lens of feeding people — from regularly catering the Washington Middle School auction to regularly participating in the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centerā€™s fundraising gala (one year, a private dinner catered by Rautureau outbid a golfing opportunity with Tiger Woods.)

Rautureau once called himself a ā€œCurious George,ā€ always looking to try something different, always up for a trial by fire.Ā  ā€œItā€™s what we do every day, and I think thatā€™s why weā€™re in the business. We like the challenge of being challenged,ā€ he told me. And for a man once known for the most elegant of multi-course meals, with a signature starter of caviar and softly scrambled eggs served right in the delicate eggshell ā€“ he was equally at home talking about leftover squirts of ketchup and vegetable scraps from the crisper on KUOW radio, where callers would regularly describe the sad dribs and drabs of their refrigerators and Rautureauā€™s exultant creativity would turn those random remnants into appealing meal plans.

People sometimes asked Rautureau what his last meal would be. He told me once it would ideally be the toasted, buttered country bread that he dipped in hot cocoa and ate every morning in his hometown in France, in the kitchen of his grandparentsā€™ farm. He was a restaurant chef through and through, but family and family meals remained his foundation, like his wife Kathyā€™s recipe for rice pudding, which he and his family would enjoy on Christmas Eve. He shared the recipe with Seattleā€™s Child years ago — reminding us all once more of whatā€™s important in life and delighting in the community we shared.

One of Thierry Rautureau’s Holiday Family Traditions

Thierry Rautureau ā€” of Luc, Loulay Kitchen + Bistro, and the late, great Roverā€™s ā€” recalls that his favorite memories of his childhood in France are of going with his father, Luc (for whom the chefā€™s Madison Valley bistro is named) to dig for oysters at the low equinox tide before the holidays. They would haul as many as they could carry back in an old potato sack, storing them on the dirt floor of their wine cellar for a fresh supply on the half shell all the way through New Year’s Eve.

In Seattle, with his wife, Kathy, and his own two sons, the family lunches with friends on December 24, then stays home in the evening with treats like rice pudding and hot cocoa and board games. Christmas morning, Rautureau might serve a simple breakfast of omelets or scrambled eggs, pastries or cake. The rest of the day is “snacky” and celebratory ā€” “really, that’s a day when we drink Chae and have caviar.”

 

Kathy’s Rice Pudding

1 cup cooked rice

3 cups milk

3 eggs, beaten

Ā½ cup dark raisins

Ā½ cup maple syrup

Pinch of nutmeg

Pinch of cinnamon

 

Preheat oven to 325Ā°F.

Fill a large rectangular Pyrex dish about halfway with hot water, and place in the oven.

In a saucepan, slowly bring milk to a boil. Meanwhile, mix together the rice, raisins, maple syrup and eggs in a large bowl. When the hot milk is ready, slowly and gently whisk it into the rice mixture, adding one ladle full at a time.

Pour the pudding into a 2-quart round Pyrex dish. Top with a pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon.

Place it in the hot water bath in the large rectangular Pyrex. Bake for 55 minutes until firm.

Let cool, then enjoy!

 

Hungry for more? Read about more chef holiday family traditions: Ā Mexican Wedding Balls from Leslie Mackie and Dungeness Mac & Cheese with Bacon from Jason Wilson.

About the Author

Rebekah Denn