For months, Canlis has been searching for its next executive chef, one of the most coveted gigs in the Seattle restaurant scene, if not the country. After interviewing candidates from all over the world, owner Mark Canlis has picked someone a little closer to home: James Huffman, the current executive sous chef.
Canlis loves to do the unexpected, and hiring from within definitely counts as a surprise. The last two people to lead the kitchen at Canlis were Brady Ishiwata Williams, who won a James Beard Award before moving on to open Tomo in White Center, and Aisha Ibrahim, who was recently a James Beard semifinalist and left Canlis earlier this year to pursue opening her own restaurant somewhere outside Seattle. Both had worked at Michelin-starred restaurants and moved to Seattle to take the job.
Huffman, by contrast, is a local product. He grew up in Lake Forest Park, and has worked in the local restaurant industry since he was a 16-year-old at Kidd Valley. He later got a gig at the famous Eastside fine dining destination Cafe Juanita, and has been at Canlis for the past nine years, working his way up the kitchen ladder under both Williams and Ibrahim. As noted by the Seattle Times, the first outlet to share the news, he’s the first person born in Seattle to be Canlis’s executive chef.
Mark Canlis, who has been the restaurant’s sole owner since the recent departure of his brother Brian, says that this hire is a landmark for Canlis in a sense. In prior hiring cycles, the brothers may have felt they had to elevate the restaurant by bringing in an outsider who had cooked in some of the world’s best kitchens. But at this point, Canlis itself probably qualifies as one of the world’s best kitchens, capable of incubating its own talent. “There were seasons in the past where we definitely needed to bring in outside input. We needed voices. We needed new ideas,” says Canlis. Now, he says, “the restaurant is strong enough to be producing people capable of doing the job… It’s cool to not need to go to the other side of the world to bring in someone to run a Seattle restaurant.”
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Since Ibrahim left in April, Huffman has been leading the kitchen on an interim basis, and has added new items on the menu as the seasons change, a kind of extended tryout. One of those dishes in particular wowed guests, a kalbi-style beef dish that comes with spring onions cooked by burying them in charcoal and onion tops. “You could take the beef off the beef dish and serve the onion as its own dish,” says Canlis.
Throughout this process, Canlis has been less focused on the food than leadership qualities; it goes without saying the executive chef at Canlis needs to have amazing chops as a chef. “This guy embodies the values of our company — he’s trustworthy and generous and other-centered,” says Canlis.
“I stayed here for so long because those things just connected with me so naturally and were already a part of who I am, putting people first, caring about your neighbors and your community,” says Huffman.
Especially since this is a hiring from within, there likely won’t be drastic changes at Canlis (the salad isn’t going anywhere). The things Huffman wants to focus on are behind the scenes, like a renewed focus on supporting local farmers and producers. “Those are the people that we want to approach and invest in and make sure that they feel seen and that their product is respected,” Huffman says. He adds that it’s also important that “the cooks within our walls and the dining room team, they all feel seen and respected and that we’re caring for them in the right way.”
