Nicole Matson
How to Cook a Wolf | Seattle
March 2020
Bay Area-born and Tucson raised, Nicole Matson followed her growing passion for food by attending the Scottsdale Culinary Institute’s Le Cordon Bleu program. She graduated in 2009, and soon after, she scored her first formative gig as a sauté cook at seasonal Tucson bistro Maynards Market & Kitchen, where, under the mentorship of Chef Addam Buzzalini, Matson remained for five years and was responsible for creating daily specials. When Buzzalini shared that he would be moving to Seattle to run the kitchen at Ethan Stowell’s Tavolàta, he asked Matson to come along. And so, in 2014, Matson travelled to the Pacific Northwest to become sous chef of the Italian restaurant.
Matson worked her way through the Ethan Stowell Restaurant Group, becoming sous chef of Mkt., then sous chef of Staple & Fancy, where Chef Deborah Taylor trained her in farm-to-table cooking. In 2017, Matson was promoted to executive chef of How to Cook a Wolf. At the fun, sophisticated flagship, Matson transforms simple, hyper-seasonal Pacific Northwest ingredients into beautifully composed, focused dishes with Italian inspired rusticity.
