So Sous Me: Lauren Thompson of Café Juanita
In the current era of chef worship, no one should expect the executive chef to be at the restaurant expediting service every night. With a restaurant's limited capacity and razor-thin profit margins, chefs need multiple sources of revenue. So who exactly is feeding us while our celebrities are out competing on Iron Chef? Seattlest answers this question through a series of interviews with our city's sous chefs and chef de cuisines. We continue our series with a visit to Cafe Juanita, where chef de cuisine Lauren Thompson runs the show when chef Holly Smith is away.
Lauren Thompson with a cuddly delicious lamb.
Thompson did some research and found a recipe for a souffle made of grits. Swapping in polenta better fit Café Juanita’s rustic Italian profile. The result of Smith’s vision, Thompson’s diligence and a few conspirational tweaks is a butternut squash and polenta sformata currently on the dinner menu.
Thompson, 36, has been at Café Juanita nearly five years, with a few breaks due to having two children along the way. In addition to working with Smith on the menu, she organizes, expedites, butchers and spends her fair share of nights cooking a station on the line—whatever it takes to keep the Kirkland restaurant’s narrow open kitchen running smoothly. Especially when Smith is off, say, doing battle on Iron Chef America or winning assorted awards.
Born in Zimbabwe, Thompson moved to Texas when she was 9, graduating from Texas A&M University with a degree in psychology. She discovered cooking during her first job out of college, an IT position with a company in Houston that required her to work the overnight shift. Up all night on her off days when everyone else she knew was asleep, Thompson whiled away the solitary hours cooking. She began culinary school full time and after six years in the IT industry, jumped ship for the full-time kitchen life.
In Texas, the language was dirtier, the jokes were much dirtier, and the attitude in the kitchen was much dirtier,” she says. In 2004, Thompson and her husband moved to Seattle, a city with a food culture that suited Thompson and was compatible with her husband’s IT career as well.
“When I moved to Seattle, the two chefs I wanted to work for were John Sundstrom and Holly Smith,” Thompson says. Thompson staged in both kitchens and ended up working at Lark. After two years she followed some colleagues to the short-lived Fork. When Scott Simpson (who now owns Lunchbox Laboratory) decided to close the restaurant, Thompson recalls, "I came knocking on the door of the other chef I wanted to work for."
The older Thompson gets, she says, and the more she cooks, she believes in “letting what nature has to offer speak for itself.” Whether it’s a great pig or a great fava bean, “just let it be what it is and don’t muddy it up too much. I think it’s elevated enough on its own if the raw ingredients are fabulous."
Like any good cook, Thompson dreams of owning a restaurant. But like any good mother, she acknowledges that having children changes everything. “Whether that dream becomes a reality sooner rather than later will depend on how much time I’m willing to not spend with my children,” she says. “That’s a battle for me every single day.”
These days Thompson is also spending some time in the company of whole and half-pigs, prepping for the upcoming Cochon 555. Look for her assisting Smith at epic pork battle later this month.
