On Saturday evening, August 10, Tamara Murphy, the 63-year-old proprietor of celebrated Capitol Hill restaurant Terra Plata, died after struggling a stroke.
Murphy was one of many main lights of a era of cooks that outlined Pacific Northwest delicacies. She centered on native and seasonal elements at a time when that was an uncommon method, and ran a few of Seattle’s most influential eating places, together with the now-closed Campagne, the place she received a James Beard Award; her first restaurant, Brasa, which additionally closed, and Terra Plata, which she opened along with her associate in life and enterprise, Linda Di Lello Morton. She was a legend and remained on the prime of her recreation till her demise: The New York Instances lately named Terra Plata one of many prime 25 eating places in Seattle.
She was additionally recognized for her dedication to charity. She based An Unbelievable Feast, an occasion that raises cash for native farmers markets, and Burning Beast, a “culinary Burning Man” the place prime Seattle cooks prepare dinner in hearth pits at Snohomish County’s Smoke Farm, elevating cash for the Rubicon Basis, an arts and conservation nonprofit. In 2016, Murphy and Di Lello Morton have been named Group Leaders of the 12 months by the Higher Seattle Enterprise Affiliation, a chamber of commerce made up of LGBTQ folks and their and allies. When the COVID pandemic started, the couple began Meals Is Love, which partnered with eating places to distribute 38,000 meals to food-insecure households.
Murphy’s sudden demise despatched shockwaves of grief by the Seattle restaurant group, as captured by an obituary within the Seattle Instances. In that obit, famed restaurateur Tom Douglas described her as “proud, opinionated, proficient, considerate, fighter, dynamo, philanthropic, fabulous chef, loyal good friend.” Smoke Farm director Stuart Smithers informed the paper, “She was all the time serious about others — learn how to assist, learn how to make life greater and higher, whether or not it was an immigrant dishwasher, her group of cooks or a struggling nonprofit.”
Because the Instances recounts, Murphy was born in Pennsylvania, and grew up in North Carolina and Peru. She labored at eating places in New York (Anthony Bourdain was as soon as a coworker) earlier than transferring to Seattle in 1988. As soon as there, she hung out at Dominique’s Place, one of many metropolis’s prime French eating places, earlier than taking on the kitchen at Campagne (one other prime French restaurant). She ran the cafe on the authentic Elliot Bay E book Firm in Pioneer Sq. and opened the celebrated tapas restaurant Brasa in 1999. (It closed in 2010.) After that, Murphy centered her vitality on Terra Plata, opening it inside Capitol Hill’s Melrose Market in 2011 after a authorized battle with the landlords.
Alongside the way in which, Murphy mentored numerous cooks, amongst them Jim Drohman, the primary proprietor of legendary French restaurant Le Pichet — he as soon as known as her “the hardest-core line prepare dinner I ever noticed” — and Holly Smith, who owns the celebrated Cafe Juanita and who helped open Brasa. “Her belief in me — at the moment and perpetually after — was empowering and formed me professionally. A shiny flame, so outrageously proficient, with a stellar palate, and a breadth and depth of expertise that she was open to sharing with all she met,” Smith informed the Instances. “She was every little thing unexpectedly.”
Some cooks of Murphy’s caliber construct empires, however Murphy stayed put at Terra Plata, establishing considered one of Seattle’s most well-loved eating places. It’s perhaps finest recognized for its secluded rooftop — a sanctuary improbably near I-5 — with a backyard that grows herbs utilized by the kitchen. The Higher Seattle Enterprise Affiliation described Terra Plata in an Instagram put up following Murphy’s demise:
At Terra Plata, we got here to have fun our birthdays, anniversaries, and weddings; we gathered on that magical rooftop to commiserate in regards to the state of the world; we fundraised for numerous nonprofits and candidates operating for workplace; from metropolis council members to Presidential nominees. Intense conversations and stomach laughing tales at Terra Plata all the time have been shared over mouthwatering meals from Chef Tamara’s well-known selfmade potato chips, blistered shishito peppers, well-known roasted pig and people indescribable churros.
There have been many signature dishes at Terra Plata, from these chips to Monday evening paella, however the roast pig might have been Murphy’s specialty. In 2006, when she nonetheless owned Brasa, Murphy began a weblog known as Lifetime of a Pig, which documented her experiences elevating, slaughtering, and cooking a number of pigs. In it, she described one thing near her philosophy as a chef, which lower towards the molecular gastronomy developments dominant on the time.
“In an age the place cooks are reaching to their chemistry books to create meals from issues that aren’t, I’m reaching again to the farm the place issues have been principally forgotten. I received’t be turning again… Maybe NEW could be discovered within the nearly forgotten,” she wrote. “Lower than half of a era in the past, many extra of us ‘knew our meals’ and maybe a brand new function for me, is to show or not less than encourage a NEW strategy to keep in mind what meals is about and WHERE it comes from. Once we attain into the uncomfortable areas of meals, we will discover details about ourselves and what we as eaters, cooks and cooks are about and what we and the animals are able to.”
Murphy suffered the stroke that killed her on Wednesday however was saved on life help for a number of days so her organs might be donated per her needs, the Instances reported. On Terra Plata’s web site, it says that “a celebration of her life can be introduced at a later date.”
