He's the man behind Seattle's very own celebrity chef, Tom Douglas.

"I think we're both passionate about restaurants," says corporate chef and (recently) partner, Eric Tanaka.

"It's not that we're only passionate about or we're only passionate about the service -- I think we're passionate about when people come here, them having a good time."

Eric oversees all four of Tom's restaurants: Etta's, Palace Kitchen, Lola and Serious Pie.

"Hopefully, all our places are driven by a passion -- because we love pizza or because we love bread -- that's really, to us, the basis of why we do something. And really, why we've always done a single restaurant, not a chain."

Eric's story is unique in that he never liked cooking.

"I love eating. It's as simple as that. I love hamburgers. I probably ate a hamburger every day as a kid, certainly through high school, probably two a day."

After his parents refused to put him through culinary school, Eric got himself two degrees from UC Irvine: urban planning and economics.

"I was gonna go for a third, 'cause I didn't know what I wanted to do, but my parents kicked me out of school -- they said I had to graduate," laughs Eric.

"So, I took a job for the city of Irvine in their Urban Planning Department."

But it wasn't long before Eric got a job doing what he loved - working in a restaurant.

"Anything they asked me to do, I would do."

Eight months later, Eric was asked to open a sister restaurant in New York.

"The chef quit in New York so they asked me to take over. So, a year into my career, I was a chef in New York which was great and which was bad, because I'd only cooked one year my whole life."

After three years in Manhattan, Eric moved to Piedmont.

"The biggest thing that I learned in Italy was food is culture and food is family. Like, you didn't miss a meal there because you had homework or because you were going out with your girlfriend. It's like every meal for seven months I had with the family that I lived with."

He found that same sense of family when he interviewed with Tom in 1994 during a family vacation out west.

"Tom has a lot of that -- it's about deliciousness, it's about graciousness, it's about family."

More than a decade later, still no signs of burnout.

"I feel fortunate to be doing what I do with the people that I do it with. And I feel fortunate that 14 years later I love to come to work everyday just as I did then."

Places Eric likes to Go Eat!: 663, Samurai Noodle, Mooberry, Sambar, Elemental.

For more information:

http://tomdouglas.com/