“Some of the most exciting and creative dishes in Oklahoma,” I told readers back in January 2025, “are coming out of a small kitchen in a west Tulsa restaurant you probably haven’t heard of.” The magical ten-course dinners at Copper Dome are still as enthralling as ever, but word has spread, and if you don’t reserve in advance, you’ll be lucky to find a table.
It’s a full-time job, so why would anyone want to start another restaurant? Well, that’s exactly what Tyler Whitson – Copper Dome’s chef and owner – is doing now.
“If I stopped with Copper Dome,” he tells me, “I’d be set for life. But my employees would be stuck in the same jobs forever. If I grow, I can pay more and give the best of them better jobs.”
And so, in a bright long space on Brookside, the Copper Dome team opened Rue in late October. Copper Dome has always been approachable and friendly, but most people think of it as a special occasion restaurant. Rue invites a different type of dining experience.
“It’s casual enough that you can wander in with the kids,” says Zach Pittman. “I have a four year old, and he’ll love it. But it can also be a sexy weekend date night.”
Pittman is Rue’s executive chef; readers may have first met him when he was chef de cuisine at the James Beard nominated FarmBar. He fit in well there because he believes in serving fresh local produce whenever possible.
“It’s not hard to do,” he says. “You just go to different farms and talk to the farmers, visit them regularly. It’s far better to support these local hardworking people than to buy from a national supplier and pay huge shipping costs.”
He’ll be following this same practice at Rue.
“I love having Zach,” Whitson tells me, “because the menu will be chef-driven. We’ll add a new menu item whenever some nice thing comes along from the farms. If we have to, we can print new menus every day.”
Rue is a French restaurant – but they use the term loosely.
“I am French trained,” says Whitson. “I went to the C.I.A. [a lauded New York culinary school]. I can do French food blindfolded. I can put butter in everything, let’s go!” He’s only semi-serious, but the French fries will be fried in butter.
Over the summer, the Copper Dome gang tested out a bevy of possible Rue dishes in a series of Sunday dinners, sold out a month in advance. The inventive entrees included a pork chop with two sauces and Porter peaches on top; sole in a French curry sauce; a “cassoulet” with stewed beef rib atop white beans with an onion and beef jus; and salmon poached in olive oil atop an eggplant carpaccio.
Appetizers featured a salad of fresh watermelon and tomato enlivened with a smoked tomato cream sauce; a green lentil soup with tapioca pearls; and squash braised in orange zest and fennel seed. Just reading this creative menu roster might clue you in on Rue’s secret power: It’s a casual restaurant, but they put the same level of time and care into each dish as do the fanciest fine dining temples to gastronomy.
But there’s another secret power behind Rue’s greatness: cohesion, team work and a strong hand on the wheel.
“Tyler listens to his employees and gives them lots of authority,” says Pittman. “There’s communication that builds trust and makes us want to do our best.”
