The French know fashion. New Yorkers know attitude. And, it’s fair to say, no one knows the culinary capabilities of the Pacific Northwest quite like Kerry Sear.

The executive chef of Four Seasons Hotel Seattle recently returned to Four Seasons after a decade as chef/co-owner of Cascadia in downtown Seattle. Sear took his experiences cooking in Seattle and merged them with his time spent cooking in other destinations to create the menu at ART Restaurant, which is “why you’ll see a lot of market-driven ingredients mixed with global influences.”

Sear is taking a simpler but no less striking approach to regional cuisine at ART, evolving the menu to combine the freshest ingredients from Pike Place Market with a bit of “joie de vivre.” Creations such as Indian-spiced wild king salmon or Pike Place Market steamed crab with five-spice butter reflect the simple pleasures of the Northwest, while “world-inspired” dishes like crisp branzino with tomato basil relish are the equivalent of frequent-flier miles on the plate.

His 10 years of independence aside, Sear was a long time coming to his new post in Seattle. Though he’d hoped for a career in graphic design, he got started at age 11 in the kitchen of a local manor house restaurant in his hometown of Old Brownsover, England. “The first dish they showed me how to make was minestrone, and at the end of the day I got a small purse of pay.” He was sold.

And so, eventually, was Four Seasons, which hired him for what turned out to be a 15-year run, including positions in Vancouver and Toronto and at The Olympic Hotel Seattle (formerly a Four Seasons Hotel).

Beyond his culinary creations, which Sear has been known to sketch out beforehand with a brush on canvas, the chef has turned his artistic eye on the design of ART, influencing everything from menu design to the hues of the wood. Sounds like quite a pairing.