On November 29th, the CHS blog linked to a post on A Life of Food which revealed that Saturday, November 28th was the last night at Smith for both chef Eliot Guthrie and manager Keara Matthiesen.

Yesterday, Smith owner Linda Derschang confirmed to me that Guthrie and Matthiesen are indeed moving on. She noted, however, that in both cases it was the employee’s own decision to leave.

“Eliot and Keara are both barely 24 years old” wrote Derschang. “I knew when I hired them that they would perhaps stay a year or two at most, as typically no one at that age stays in a job for years. Eliot is hoping to do some traveling and Keara is considering going into retail as she has a huge knowledge and love of fashion.”

Dershang says she hired Jessica Moore (formerly of Molly Moon and Skillet) to manage, and the restaurant’s new chef is (drum roll please) Chris Howell, from Lola.

“Chris has been working with Eliot for weeks now” says Derschang. “Eliot’s food was what I had envisioned for Smith from the moment I started putting the project together almost three years ago.”

I tried but failed to reach Guthrie for more details about his plans.

UPDATE: I heard from Guthrie this evening. From his email: "I think I just knew that my job was done. We’ve all put a lot of hard work into Smith, and I firmly believe that Smith has become something special and interesting, and I can’t wait to be a patron. There isn’t any one or two reasons why I made up my mind to move on.

In regards to my next plans, they are kind of up in the air. Going to get my garden ready for our Seattle “winter,” get my head in the books, help some friends around town and hopefully not cook a hamburger or French fries for at least a few months…."

Oh but Eliot, you cook ’em so good.

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