Chef’s Kitchen

Each month we bring a guest chef into our Chef’s Kitchen column to give us tips that elevate their cooking (and hopefully ours). They also provide a recipe that showcases their tips. Our guest chef this month is Chef/General Manager Dean Shinagawa from Tulalip Bay at Tulalip Resort Casino. What started as a bingo parlor in 1983 has since evolved into a Four Diamond AAA-rated resort property featuring luxurious guest amenities, world-class entertainment and a variety of culinary options ranging from fine dining to casual. Tulalip Bay is the property's flagship fine dining restaurant inside the casino. Entering the restaurant, you go from the buzz of activity on the casino floor to the luxurious peace of a smooth-running operation. It's another world all together, one that you will wish to visit often.

Chef Dean Shinagawa was born and raised in Hawaii where he started his culinary career in various local restaurants. His enthusiasm and desire to learn led him to the prestigious Kahala Hilton in Honolulu where he completed his American Culinary Federation apprenticeship at the top of his class in the Five Diamond award-winning Maile Restaurant. He was then chosen to participate in a culinary exchange program between the ACF and the Canadian Federation of Chefs and Cooks. He received a gold medal in the category of "Five Course Gastronomique" in one of the competitions. After the one-year exchange program ended, Shinagawa moved to Seattle where he met Chef Roy Yamaguchi who, at that time, had Roy's in Seattle's Westin Hotel. He became the executive chef at Roy's, staying five years. He left to pursue his own style of cooking, blending his Asian heritage with Hawaiian cuisine, utilizing European techniques. He joined Tulalip Resort Casino as chef and general manager of Tulalip Bay in 2004. Shinagawa and his staff incorporate tropical flavors of the islands with Northwest products to create a delicious dining experience. He has created the Chef Dean Artiste Palette, a series of eight dressings, sauces and spreads that model what is used at Tulalip Bay and allow home cooks to recreate Tulalip dishes or design their own. In 2007, he was invited to cook at the James Beard House in New York City.