Imagine receiving local, farm fresh ingredients hand delivered to your doorstep each morning then preparing these ingredients — using French culinary techniques — to create American-style entrées paired with a Pacific Northwest wines. Bonjour! This is what life is like every day at EAT Restaurant.
Described as “American food with a French twist,” EAT Co-Owners Eric Truglas and Amberleigh Brownson have teamed up with Executive Chef Dominique Faury and CFO Jeff Kahn to bring their very tasty vision to Bellingham.
According to Eric and Amberleigh, the idea for EAT restaurant was conceptualized back when the two worked together at Semiahmoo Resort.
“Jokingly we talked about how we should open a restaurant,” Eric recalls. “We were working so hard — why not work for ourselves?”
Though Eric and Amberleigh valued each other’s humor, they also valued the teamwork that they shared. Over time, their pipedream didn’t seem so far-fetched after all.
“In this business, it’s about the strength of your team and being generous. Any one of us could have done it alone, but the fact is, it’s a lot better if we do it as a team,” Eric shares. “You have to choose your partners wisely.”
As the idea of opening their own restaurant became less of a dream and more of a goal, Eric and Amberleigh started devising a serious business plan, one that included looking for other professionals to join their already dynamic team.
For Chef Dominique, working with Eric was a professed lifelong dream — and a decision that moved him from San Jose to Bellingham. “I really wanted to open something with Eric because I knew that the combination would be something very strong,” Dominique shares. “When Eric called me to say, ‘You know what, I am thinking of opening a new place,’ I said, ‘Let’s do it!’” With no time to hesitate, Dominque packed his bags and relocated to Bellingham.
In the early discussion of the business, Eric and Amberleigh agreed that using local, farm fresh food was a must, so they also teamed up with Sustainable Connections to find local farmers who could help stock their shelves. Each farm led to the knowledge of another farm and, in no time at all, EAT has established strong relationships with a handful of local farmers. “They are more than farmers, they are friends,” Eric says.
For Chef Dominique, love of local fresh-farmed ingredients started for him as a 10 year old in France where daily fresh ingredients were a normal part of his daily life. Now, at the start of each business day, Chef Dominique receives locally farmed food delivered straight to the restaurant. These ingredients serve as the inspiration behind the restaurant’s first come first serve specials. Some nights, only 15 plates of these specialty items will be available for order. When should you arrive to ensure yourself the opportunity to taste it? Dominique teases, “As early as you can.”
For Eric, Dominique and Amberleigh, all three know what it’s like to work in corporate environments. Eric traveled extensively for work, Dominique has years of culinary experience, and Amberleigh managed several restaurants. For the three of them, EAT is a way of putting all that energy, effort and talent into a business that is their own.
And being able to operate their restaurant in a place they all love is an added bonus. Eric describes the Pacific Northwest as a place you can go up to the mountains to the snow and in the same day come down to the beach. As far as culinary ingredients go, each is satisfied with what the Pacific Northwest has to offer.
EAT Restaurant opened earlier this January and was welcomed by a flurry of hungry and satisfied clientele. For the owners, EAT is a restaurant where people from the ages of 20 and up feel welcome to dine on any given day. Being able to serve such a wide demographic is something the partners are proud of.
Chef Dominique describes the restaurant in the same way he would describe guests coming over to his home for dinner. To make guests feel comfortable, the partners wanted to create an artistic environment and worked hard to bring original art into the space, evidenced in the bottle top sculpture Amberleigh crafted around the column by the bar.
Amberleigh hopes EAT will be a place where people can feel comfortable enough to ask questions about cuisine, pronunciation or concepts behind wine pairings. And Chef Dominique strives to make the experience fun for everyone, cooking passionately in hopes of receiving the biggest accolades his dishes can provide — making people happy.
