Marie Rutherford is a chef and culinary instructor with a deep curiosity about the relationship between food, place, and culture. A Berkeley native, she studied Art History in Florence, Italy, where travel, food, art, and architecture began to shape the way she understood cuisine—as an expression of landscape, history, necessity, and tradition.
 
That curiosity later took her to Normandy, where she cooked in a restaurant centered around a wood-fired oven and developed a lasting appreciation for fire, working dough by hand, preserving the seasons, and transforming simple ingredients through time and technique.
 
Marie returned to Seattle to work with Renee Erickson as Chef de Cuisine at Boat Street Cafe, The Whale Wins during its James Beard Award-winning years, and Willmott’s Ghost.
 
Her cooking and teaching continue to be informed by travel, agriculture, history, and the stories behind traditional foods. She is especially drawn to the simple dishes people have cooked over fires, stretched into doughs, preserved for winter, and shared around tables for generations.