Restaurant français arrive au centre-ville de Seattle

Chef Thierry Rautureau's long-anticipated new restaurant, Loulay Kitchen & Bar, officially opened this week at Sixth Avenue and Union Street, a win for downtown Seattle’s efforts to land local celebrity chefs.

Named for his hometown of Saint Hilaire de Loulay in France, the new restaurant will feature Rautureau’s take on contemporary urban French cooking and will operate in partnership with the Sheraton Hotel next door. 

Rautureau won the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef Northwest Award in 1998 for his fine-dining restaurant Rover’s in the Madison Park neighborhood. He later added the more casual Luc on an adjacent lot.

Also known by his trademarked name “the Chef in the Hat” for his ever-present straw fedora, Rautureau closed Rover’s in June after 26 years and began the transition to downtown. He has described Loulay as a marriage of Rover’s and Luc and “the culinary presentation of my heart and soul.”

Western Neon provided all the stunning signage for our favorite "chef in the hat", who was fabulous to work with on this project.  The main exterior sign on the corner entrance is a curved cabinet with radiused corners and clear gold neon script and hat extending beyond the cabinet.

New digs for the Chef in the Hat!

Rover's jaunty "Chef in the Hat," Thierry Rautureau, has longed to hang his chapeau at a little bar-centric bistro, something far less formal than his four-star restaurant, Rover's.  

Luc, named to honor his late father, will have a menu that reaches beyond his native France to embrace global influences. "I don't want to be just a french bistro, even though it'll be a French bistro," he told me, sharing his vision for Luc.   Wonderful outside seating for those glorious Seattle evenings.


What a charming very french sign, ooh, la, la!               


www.thechefinthehat.com