Lia Bardeen, a chef with over 15 years’ experience working in world-class restaurants in New York City and around the globe, is bringing her culinary and business skills to Vashon as she plans to open a restaurant on the north edge of town.
Bardeen, who spent half of her childhood on the island with her father and step mother, Tom and Jo Ann, is literally turning Old Dreams into new ones as she works to convert the little green house and former consignment shop on Vashon Highway, next door to the Chamber of Commerce.
“The island has always been a big part of my life,” she said. “And I really wanted to be back in the Pacific Northwest.”
Bardeen’s road to executive chef began as she worked in restaurants in New York City to put herself through school — ironically, not culinary school for the literature major.
“There’s a tradition in the field of learning on the job,” she explained.
And learn she did.
After just two years at the well-known, Michelin-starred River Café, Bardeen was hired as a sous chef at Jean-Georges, one of New York’s most famous and critically acclaimed restaurants. Eventually she became its executive sous chef, before venturing off for a stint on season three of Bravo TV’s Top Chef.
Ultimately, Bardeen landed back at Jean-Georges as part of its corporate team, where she was responsible for opening various restaurants in locations all over the world, including China, France, Japan, Dubai and the Bahamas.
Weary of traveling and newly married, Bardeen and her husband spent two years in Mexico before deciding it was time to come back to her beloved Pacific Northwest.
“It just seemed like the right time to come back to Vashon,” she said.
She spent time looking at potential restaurant spaces on the island with her father before settling on the small house that had also been a wine shop in one of its former lives.
“It’s such a great location. I love the trees,” she explained. “And it just feels like a good space … it’s homey.”
Bardeen is also excited about the possibility of planting a garden for the restaurant’s use on the property’s three-fourths of an acre.
She made the decision to buy the house in June and has been working with the department of health and the county for all of the necessary permits. As of press time, Bardeen was waiting only on the building permit from the county to allow renovations to the inside of the house.
“The outside cosmetic work is mostly done. We’re roughed-in for plumbing, and the drainage review is complete,” she said.
If the county comes through with the building permit as anticipated, the hope is to have the restaurant open by Valentine’s Day.
“I don’t have the name yet,” Bardeen noted. “That is turning out to be the most challenging part.”
She describes the style of food the restaurant will serve as “modern American,” likely influenced by her experiences at a variety of restaurants in New York and other parts of the world.
“My hope is that it will be a place where people will be driving home from work and just pull in to have a glass of wine and a bowl of pasta,” she said, “but also where they will come for special occasions and enjoy themselves.”
For more information, email Bardeen at liabardeen@gmail.com.
