Food & Culture

Down to Her (Southern) Roots: Chef Lisa Dupar Talks Hometown Cooking

The Pomegranate Bistro owner and chef will host FareStart's Guest Chef Night on June 30

By Kasee Bailey June 9, 2016

lisa-dupar-2016-2_0

This post is sponsored.

Sponsored by FareStart

Chef Lisa Dupar would be content with a plate of fried chicken and a glass of champagne.

“I was raised in the South, and my grandparents had an oyster bed on Edisto Island [in South Carolina],” she says. “Our family culture was to cook, eat, talk about food, fish, crab, shrimp and eat more.”

Having lived in locations across the map—from Georgia to South Carolina to Switzerland to Seattle—Dupar has, for years, been successfully merging Southern-inspired cooking into whatever environment she’s been in.

Dupar earned her first dollar in high school, learning how to decorate cakes from her boyfriend’s mom. She spent two and a half years cooking in Switzerland and, in 1981, became the first female chef at the Westin Seattle. She opened her inaugural restaurant Southern Accents in 1984, which represented her homage to classic Southern dishes; she later sold the Redmond establishment. In 2005, Dupar opened Pomegranate Bistro in Redmond.

Oh, did we mention she also owns a catering companyone that now stages more than 1,500 events a year? Or that her first cookbook, Fried Chicken & Champagne: A Romp Through the Kitchen at Pomegranate Bistro, received the First Book: the Julia Child Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals in 2011? Yeah, she’s good.

Dupar has also devoted plenty of time during her stellar career to working with FareStart, an organization that assists homeless and disadvantaged men, women, and youth with culinary training and job placement. On June 30, she’ll help students prepare a three-course, gourmet meal to FareStart diners during Guest Chef Night, an event she’s been participating in since the organization’s early days.

“It’s always amazing to hear the graduates’ stories,” she says. “It snaps me right back down to earth with the realization of how very lucky I am. I leave the evening feeling like for a small moment, I made a difference.”

Make your reservations for the evening now.

What is going to be on the menu for your Guest Chef Night? How did you develop the menu?

I picked dishes from our early summer catering menu that I thought would be fun for the students to learn and also show off the expertise of the Seattle Les Dames community.

What do you enjoy about being a part of Les Dames d’Escoffier, an organization that educates and mentors women in culinary professions?

The company I get to keep. These women are so accomplished and do so much to give back it is a constant inspiration.

What made you want to start your own catering business?

Necessity is the mother of invention. I was newly pregnant and my husband lost his position, and I remember saying, “Well, I could cater!” I had my restaurant Southern Accents, and I was constantly getting asked to cater Southern food. (I still am.)

What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned in your culinary career?

Work with people who share your same values. Then you literally have a galvanized team working toward the same goals.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

Seeing how happy people are with their food and experiences with us. Especially weddings, or high-stakes events where so much passion, attention and emotion is invested into the success of the event and it comes out exactly as the client envisioned.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Your greatest power in life is the power to choose. We can choose our response to any situation. The quality of that response creates the quality of our lives.

Why is Seattle a great food city?

Great chef talent combined with the most diverse selection of farmers, fishermen and artisans to support us in our wildest dreams.

Where do you go to grab a bite to eat in Seattle?

Ba Bar [on Capitol Hill] or any of Josh Henderson’s places.

What food trend do you wish was over?

Cake pops

What advice would you give to aspiring chefs?

Have patience and perseverance. My chef told me it takes longer to become a chef than it does to become a doctor.

What is your ultimate comfort food dish?

Shrimp and grits

 

Join The Must List

Sign up and get Seattle's best events delivered to your inbox every week.

Follow Us

Five Things You Need to Eat in September

Five Things You Need to Eat in September

A grilled cheese smash burger? Katsu spam masubi? Creative mash-ups born from the delicious idea of two-in-one

A lot of good things come from saying, “Why not do both?” When both options are coveted, marrying the two hardly feels like a compromise at all. The food scene is working hard to make our tough choices easier, particularly as we head into autumnal months when cravings turn to comfort foods, but stomach space…

Big Mario's Reopens Northlake After Seven-Month Closure

Big Mario’s Reopens Northlake After Seven-Month Closure

Big Mario’s reopens venerable pizza spot in time for Husky opener

The Northlake Tavern & Pizza House lives on. Big Mario’s has reopened the popular destination near the University of Washington campus as Big Mario’s Northlake Tavern. The 65-year-old pizza joint closed in January after the previous owner retired. Big Mario’s said at the time that the closure would last only two months, but the full-blown…

Five Things You Need to Eat in August

Five Things You Need to Eat in August

Ube pancakes, egg cream, and blistered tomato memories

Food has the wonderful effect of capturing a time and place. Many dishes in this city bring memories into the present, celebrate history, and preserve the abundance of our current season. What is old can be made anew. And in this bustling city where creativity, change, and traditions intersect, we can return to many familiar…

A Pandan Treat

A Pandan Treat

How a Vietnamese coffee shop became one of the city's best under-the-radar waffle spots

Whether it’s a hot puff of steam pushing through a tightly packed mound of grounds, or beans whirring in a grinder perfuming the air with their bitter oils, in almost every coffee shop on the planet there’s only one scent that dominates: coffee. So, it can be a little surprising to walk inside Phin Vietnamese…