In an email to his loyal fans, "Chef in the Hat!!!" Thierry Rautureau confirmed today that the 25-year run of Madison Valley's premier French restaurant, Rover's, will end in April. "We are not putting Rover’s up for sale," he reported, "we are turning the lights off."
No reasons were given for this move, though the timing of the announcement was apparently prompted by the fact that the Rover's location has been listed either for sale or lease. The story was picked up and reported today by seattle.eater.com. Rautureau told the foodie website that he will be moving on to new opportunities, which he did not specify. His email was only slightly more forthcoming: "Yes, we are working on a new project we cannot talk about at this moment." He promises an announcement at some future date.
Although Rover's will soon be history, Rautureau's second French offering down the street, the popular (and less-upscale) Luc, will not be directly impacted by the move---except to the extent that the chef/proprietor winds up spending more time there.
[Rover's is located at 2808 E. Madison St. and Luc is located at 2800 E. Madison St. Photos from the Rover's website.]
This is really sad, Thierry is such a great person and chef. My guess is that this is yet another example of greedy dysfunction landlords that are a plague infesting Madison Park/Valley, so short sighted to let a guy like Thierry go!
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