GRAND DINNER CHEF

Gabriel Rucker, Chef
Le Pigeon, Portland OR

Gabriel Rucker began his culinary career by dropping out of Santa Rosa Junior College’s culinary program when he was eighteen. He then held several jobs in the Napa Valley, where he is from, and in Santa Cruz. In Gabriel’s words he, “made salads for banquets, asked lots of questions, and learned lots of stuff,” and found enough freedom in the kitchen to develop his own style infused with creativity and honesty. In 2003 Gabriel moved to Portland and landed a job at Paley’s Place where he worked for two years. In 2005 he was hired as the sous chef at The Gotham Building Tavern. In June of 2006 Gabriel started at Le Pigeon. This petite bistro brings Pacific Northwest fresh ingredients and a little Parisian joie de vivre to Portland.

Since then Gabriel has been named Portland Monthly's Chef of the Year 2006, The Oregonian's Rising Star Chef 2006, Restaurant and Hospitality Magazine's Rising Star of 2007, Food and Wine Magazine named him among the Best New Chefs of 2007, and Le Pigeon was named The Oregonian's 2008 restaurant of the year. Rucker stars in this year's Oregon culinary tourism online campaign on the Travel Oregon/Oregon bounty web site. In his new role as Oregon's food ambassador, Rucker traveled around the state, where he logged time with a cheesemaker, rancher, chocolate-maker, a brewer, a wine-maker and charterboat skipper.

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