Canlis Restaurant, Seattle. ...

Just drive Canlis Canlis is just a

restaurant in so many ways I think it's

also a tradition a legacy and a family a

lot of people think they know what fine dining is and to me it's just people

serving people it's not fancy silver wareand it's not fancy food it's the unexpected surprise of feeling cared for the restaurant was wrapped around the personality that persona the largeness of my grandfather Peter Camus.

it was very much his place he wanted to be in an emerging city in a town that was kind of coming into his own that was Seattle he was a first generation in Britain he wanted to prove himself he wanted to show the world that what his parents had done was worthwhile it was good

this was his mom sito a remarkable

cookie we have any heritage stand

cooking hits through that woman right

there he wanted to do fine dining that

was countercultural and we got to put

that in context there was a different

era it's the 40s it's the 50s white.

French male stuffy tuxedos and he wanted to do nothing of that he hired all Japanese women beautiful gracious hospitality using from their pores Japanese women and kimonos they were serving in the way of their tradition which was team style service it's not something Peter invented came natural to them it was cultural to them and in powerful ways that's the spirit of this place even today anytime you talk to guests in the dining room they look back fondly on this crazy man who dared to run a restaurant that was different and then of course mom and dad like oh yeah so

you need to get the 70s we'll think they're doing that's them running the restaurant meat is what we're trying to do when it came our turn.

we then chose to have the restaurant

reflect more of the way we wanted to

raise a family and a life it's when the

restaurant went from being about the

owner to being about the guests how do you welcome and love people who are your guests and yet think time or strangers a lot of restaurants today I think in fine dining have the chef on a stage and the guest comes in and we evolved around this is a different kind of place .

where we want to put the guests on a stage and see if the entire restaurant can revolve around them our grandfather's obsession with being the best and being perfect in every detail matters and my parents just

love of people and making everyone feel welcome we're thinking and we can do both at the same time the world-class recognition that we get in this restaurant and all of the attention you guys were standin on the shoulders of so many people that

came before us.

I think of a restaurant just like I

think I'm a person like it is always

becoming it's alive and so are 

people in it you don't take it lightly

the hundred employees show up waiting to pour out their souls for the cause of this place we have a mission statement at countless which is to live out and grow the idea that it's worth putting other people first especially its own employees.

 when Brady came along it was

like the whole thing just came through there who he is as a person the kind of leader he is of what he wants for his people it isn't just that they become great cooks they actually Brady has brought us back to good things that were at Canlis always historically and yet sometimes

get lost along the way it's nice to have

like the trust of the brothers to know

that the creative freedom to do more or less whatever we want but I think in

order to move forward you have to know where you come from one of the cool things that Brady first did was to look at the old menu and to get inspired by it.

My guys this is where he came from like that was drew wait tell me about your great grandma's recipe okay hold on a second I want to know about like your grandfather's so he really just sort of knit that together and it's allowed us to feel more of us as I go back full years of Kemalists.

I started to make sense and how can we use that ethos to create something new there's a lot of parallels between the restaurant story of my own you know I'm part Japanese my mom's from Japan and Japanese cuisine has always been a big part of my life it's like influenced my cooking probably more than any other culture when my grandfather came to Seattle he was doing food that pulled and drew largely from his roots.

Greek and Lebanese and then from what he had seen in Hawaii from what was happening with fish out there and just cooking styles and techniques that were not readily available or seen on the mainland as reflected in the cuisine that we create and I think I was able to provide something that made sense in the context of families it's written to pay attention to the rearview mirror.

I think Brady did that really well he

like a kid this is what's cool and this

 what's next this is what the way we

shouldSaurus this is like the ingredients we should be using I think

through this differently the soul of everything has remained the

same that did that should have never

change we have a legacy double every time we put on the shoes from a random way you guys what do we have Tuesday night will you take a certain ring yes these Anthony green parties the three times at 6:45 they got engaged here and lent it and played the Sun was it together by Rihanna really cool beat.

Somehow that if you approach every table the same way you're doing them a disservice you're being selfish at the

table you're saying we know how to serve you because this is what we do we're professionals but you don't you don't know how to serve somebody until you understand who they are and so keeping the promise is figuring out how to make Canlis live up to what they need it to be tonight the restaurant was created to be when the best restaurants in the world that'll always be the

underpinnings of this place but we just want another restaurant like what people want his relationship and what people care about is that they knew people they loved or cared for it's 67 years of doing that it's 67 years of seeing through all of the fancy all of the fine dining all of when people perceive restaurants.

 I think we saw this place is a place full of potential jura sin but nobody thought that's how happen I tell

my friends the campus is something to be thankful for maybe one day they'll work here and maybe one day they won't there's so many things I want my to figure there's so much I've capable would never exchange the restaurants

future .

 I mean look at my own childhood and the restaurant was where dad worked our family table was not in this restaurant my brothers and myself were raising ourfamilies the same way the restaurantsthere but it's not everything so if Igonna teach my kids something it's thatif they want to learn to live then theycan come home and cook with us and sit around the table there's something magical about gathering around a table and yes we eat hard as a family when we're together. 

our family it's the way it's an excuse

to bring people together so we look at

time around the table with our families

as one of the most important things that we can do as a family

that's where magic happens let's eat 

drink and laugh and be goofy and that's where you feel like family.