paris to puget sound
Globetrotting, gold medal chef Tamas Ronyai gives back
Words by Jennifer Dorothy
Chef Tamas Ronyai at the helm of Crabtree Kitchen + Bar and ChocMo Chocolatier & Café in Poulsbo (Photo: Tae Tran)
Chef Tamas Ronyai is serious, not only about food, but about helping others enter the profession that brought him from the capitals of Europe to the West Sound, with stints across the globe along the way.
“If you know anyone who wants to be a chef, let me know,” he says. “I still have connections in France. You can go to Paris and work on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées like I did.”
Ronyai, the new executive chef, food and beverage director, chocolatier, and sommelier at both Crabtree Kitchen + Bar and ChocMo Café in Poulsbo, started cooking at 14 years old in his native Hungary. He did a three-year apprenticeship and eventually worked as a chef at the American Embassy in Budapest. After extensive international experience in Europe, Asia and Canada, he competed at international culinary competitions and earned gold medals.
“I want to promote my profession,” he says. “I want to teach what I’ve learned. I hang my gold medals up in my office, wherever I work, because I want the younger generation to see what they can achieve. I always tell them, you can have all these things too. I’m not any better than you. I’m not more talented than you are. You can do it as well.”
While Ronyai spends the majority of his time at Crabtree, his assistant Tae Tran crafts bean-to-bar chocolate confections at sister cafe and chocolatier ChocMo. His wife Fiona manages L’Atelier TR, a chocolate boutique on Bainbridge Island that Ronyai opened with Tran in 2017. They folded the business into Crabtree Brands last year while opening a new location in Winslow (complete with a chocolate waterfall).
Ronyai chuckles about the contrast between his Poulsbo venue and Safeco Field where he set the longest record as executive chef. At the stadium, he ran five kitchens with 85 cooks to feed 49,000 people. At Crabtree, the dining room seats 250.
His first job on this side of the Atlantic was in Ontario at the Fairmont Château Laurier where he met his wife. “Not existing really,” is how he playfully describes his English at the time. Therefore his interactions with Fiona—the director of catering—were mostly in French. Lucky for him, she was from Montreal.
Later Ronyai opened his own restaurant in Toronto called the Twiggy Cafe. His voice fills with delight while reminiscing how the model Twiggy actually attended the opening night.
The Ronyai family found their way to Seattle in 2007, via Vancouver, B.C. A friend had to convince Ronyai to interview at Safeco Field while Fiona got to work researching schools for their two young children. Soon enough, Bainbridge Island became their home.
“I really believe in giving back,” says Ronyai, who worked as a department head at FareStart. The Seattle nonprofit helps people experiencing poverty transform their lives through training in the food services industry. He also created an apprenticeship program in Washington state, just like the one he participated in as a boy.
He says the problem is that few people are applying to these kinds of programs or restaurant jobs post-COVID. His voice gets quiet when he says, “It’s so challenging trying to run a kitchen with a crew that is so limited.”
Ronyai is nonetheless planning to reopen L’Atelier’s original island shop on Three Tree Lane in partnership with a local farm. The cafe will offer breakfast options such as made-on-the-farm preserves on fresh-baked scones and roasted vegetable quiches. In the meantime, hungry customers can tuck into a delicious avocado toast or croque monsieur on a savory Belgian waffle at ChocMo.