Thomas Keller: We love to do Thanksgiving. Were committed to one another. He wanted to have chicken, barbeque chicken. I became a chef there and moved to Los Angeles. It wasnt until I had an executive coach for a period of time and he asked me, he said, So Thomas You know, one of his first questions to me. Chef Thomas Keller takes a seat just outside the wall of windows enclosing his new kitchen, the centrepiece of The French Laundry's $10 million renovation, while inside about a dozen cooks smoothly begin preparations for evening service, when the performance will begin all over again, as it has for 23 years. You have chef plumbers. Now our core values can be related to a lot of different people some of them defining the same way, others not necessarily but they understand them. So I gave them some and I took some. On your website theres actually a wonderfully rich list of philosophy and core values. Thomas Keller: In 1992 I visited the Napa Valley from Los Angeles. Thomas Kellerdrew closer to the realization ofa longtime dream when hisTeam USA won the silver medal atthe 2015 Bocuse dOr competition in Lyon, France. I learned six disciplines at the dishwasher which have, I think, become a foundation for my career, and I think for many people who aspire to have success in their careers. Was it a restaurant that was breaking new ground? You know, where did the dish come from? Herb Caen came to dinner at The French Laundry. With more than. I didnt have a double boiler. Sometimes simplicity is best. And I realized that my window wasnt covered with dust. We can all cook. He enjoyed the teamwork of a restaurant kitchen and resolved to become a professional cook. This was my first three-star restaurant, and I walked in there thinking that I dont know what I was thinking. You had to empty the garbage can three times a day. The highest priority for us is that we are able to reach our own expectations. So we were producing if it was five, we were producing 40 items, 40, 45 items a day. In 2013, Keller and Kwak introduced gluten-free pancake, waffle, brownie and pizza mixes. All the men went to the war and the women went to work. Not just in the culinary profession, not just in the hospitality profession, but in anything. The peas were just so perfect. And we thought this location was just like the perfect location. You want to go there and you want to have an experience. There werent really a lot of people who had aspirations of becoming a chef. Thomas Keller: Thank you. Sixth place. Its like, Wow, I can choose any one of these pillows. But which one really is the best? And for some reason he said, Okay, Thomas. Chefs use science to develop their food preparation techniques and invent new methods of cooking. You are trying to prepare a dish without having the proper ingredients or necessarily even the knowledge of those ingredients, and that really became for me a real building block, because I understood that. In 1986 he became co-owner and executive chef of the original Fleur de Lys in San Francisco. Jean-Luc Naret was coming to San Francisco himself because he wanted to have an after party to celebrate to introduce the Michelin Guide in 2007. sous-chef. So, our morning sous-chef is responsible for really the beginning of the day and setting the tempo for the rest of the day, which means that he has to work with a lot of the commis, which are typically the youngest, of course the least skilled, the least experienced. What It Takes is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice. The failure of this restaurant did not dissuade you from haute cuisine. Now Fernand Point was at his time in his era, which was the 30s and 40s he was the greatest chef in France, and therefore of course, the greatest chef in the world. It didnt matter if you were doing fine dining, family dining. Thanksgiving is one of those moments thats truly about that experience around the table, that family, friends. So Bill is then taking his expertise and skill to L.A., bought a hotel downtown, renamed it Checkers, and brought in me. I wanted to travel. Were you primarily raised by your mother? Those things. Chef Bios: Thomas Keller. So I had to go back to Serge because I didnt have any money, and I had to ask Serge to satisfy the tax lien, which my portion of it was considerable. I dont know, whatever. Hes that person thats going to support you, thats not going to let you fall and dont let him fall, and really its a team. Thomas Keller: My parents were divorced when I was young. I learned that the ingredients were important. Thomas Keller: One of his favorite things to do was to sit in the parking lot early in the morning when our purveyors would bring their deliveries in. No reality TV shows. We were able to expand our staff. That truly defines our success. My first three-star experience in France was just like that. And three days later I packed my bag early in the morning and I snuck out the door and caught the train and went to Paris and ended up staying at a friends apartment for almost two years and literally knocking on peoples doors for a job. So I said, Yes, chef. And so that began the day of our quest to get on the podium. Forget about three. I was a year-and-a-half younger, therefore I had to be set in front of the dishwasher. You're science-oriented. For other people named Thomas Keller, see, Restaurant Magazine list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World, International Association of Culinary Professionals, Restaurant Magazine's Top 50 Restaurants of the World, "Thomas Keller and The French Laundry Awards", "Le chef amricain Thomas Keller reoit la Lgion dhonneur", "MICHELIN Guide Reveals Inaugural Florida Selection", "The Thomas Keller Interview, II: On Benno, Bouchon and Brooklyn", "Prix fixe to the people: Thomas Keller goes populist with his new restaurant, Ad Hoc", "TK SET - Thomas Keller Limited Edition Set", Competing at the Bocuse dOr: Team USAs Unbeatable Recipes, Chef Timothy Hollingsworth Wants to Bring American Pressure to the Bocuse dOr, High Hopes for American Team in Bocuse dOr Cooking Competition, "Chef Thomas Keller:'Preparing myself to let go', "75 notable NYC restaurants and bars that permanently closed since 2020", "French Laundry chef talks about celebrity life", "Who cooked that up? They believed in me. Paul tells a lovely story about when he was a young man in The French Resistance being wounded and being taken to an American military hospital, American field military hospital and being given a blood transfusion. Now remember, a chef in France doesnt necessarily relate to the kitchen. TIME magazine named him Americas Best Chef in 2001. It was an emotional moment. Thomas Keller: A commis is the lowest position that you would enter when you enter a kitchen. Not everything changed every day, but the menu changed every day. Of course it became one of those stories that, if it was today, it would have gone viral, but back in those days we didnt have what we have today. Following the failure of the Cobbley Nob, Keller became sous-chef at Caf du Parc in West Palm Beach. He has also attached his name to a set of signature knives manufactured by MAC. One last question. Jan Birnbaum was the first. Simple is hard. Mr. Keller is 61, an age when other. An attorney in Los Angeles named Bob Sutcliffe, who I was introduced to by way of Joachim Splichal, Bob was an attorney who did, on the side, restaurant deals. Its popularity waned as the stock market bottomed out and at the end of the 1980s, Keller left, unwilling to compromise his style of cooking to simple bistro fare. So when I was doing my research and asking people in the Valley what they thought about The French Laundry, they all loved it. Not just in the kitchen but in the management positions, in the ownership positions, everywhere that I kind of struggled in the past. We had a choice of getting on an airplane and missing the phone call, because it was going to come at 10:00 in the morning New York time, which was 4:00 in the afternoon in Paris. Thomas Keller: I think people take it for granted that were just cooks in a kitchen, or youre just servers serving food, or youre just a sommelier serving wine. In the American version he plays a cameo appearance as a restaurant patron (the part is played by one of Keller's mentors Guy Savoy in the French version, and Ferran Adri in the Spanish one). It could be as short as two paragraphs. The first time U.S.A. is there, Im standing at the pass in Pauls kitchen, Im standing next to him and Im just telling him how proud I am, how much I love what hes done, how much I love him. [1], In 2005, he was awarded the three-star rating in the inaugural Michelin Guide for New York City for his restaurant Per Se, and in 2006, he was awarded three stars in the inaugural Michelin Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area for The French Laundry. Im very proud to have been part of this. And that was the moment, July 1977, that I decided to make this my career and pursued that with determination, with commitment. And Rakel was in an area that wasnt really supported by a community or a neighborhood around it. So, we have a sous-chef thats responsible for the meats and the garde manger. I remember she served me on that day. And it was my expectations that got in the way of my experience. Was it a restaurant that was progressive and contemporary? Everybody was doing casual dining. He provided an introduction or foreword to The Vineyard Kitchen: Menus Inspired by the Seasons by Maria Helm Sinskey, "Happy in the Kitchen" by Michel Richard, "Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts" by Claire Clark (head pastry chef at The French Laundry), the new publication of "Ma Gastronomie" by Fernand Point, "Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing" by Micheal Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Keller served as a consultant on the feature film Spanglish, and in collaboration with restaurant designer Adam D. Tihany, created K + T, a collection of silver hardware and cocktail ware for Christofle Silversmiths. I enjoyed it. We built our new kitchen. Of course we called the restaurant. It was a narrative. Fortunately, my persistence paid off and I had eight different stages in observation, permission to have observation at a restaurant. It was really only on Saturday and Sunday that I kind of had to support myself through eating and/or entertaining myself. So when they were divorced, that was her path. Pierre ran the kitchen. You had to get the glassware to the bartenders so they could do their job. So, we werent away from it for too long, but long enough that so many of us forgot how important it was. After three years at La Rive, unable to buy it from the owners, he left and moved to New York and then Paris, apprenticing at various Michelin-starred restaurants. It was about the engagement with others. [4] Four years after his parents divorced, the family moved east and settled in Palm Beach, Florida. And cheese, the cheese cart always comes by in France, and you have so many selections. Ren and his wife would come to South Florida in the wintertime because they would close their restaurant, and he was looking for a chef for the following summer and Pierre recommended me, so I moved to Catskill. In our kitchen, for example, we have a sous-chef that would be what we call the A.M. I mean all these that are part of that repetition was what I learned as a dishwasher. I needed to commit myself to doing something I had never done before. You have dinner. In our country we had very few. So that organizational aspect allowed you to be more efficient, which was kind of the second discipline that I learned is efficiency was really, really key in doing things well. Its really, thats where I learned about the idea of being a team as it relates to a sports franchise. At that point you begin overeating because you want to try each one of them. I guess it was a much safer position for me around the dishwasher, whether it was at that early age, or more importantly, when I began to realize that I wanted to cook, at the Palm Beach Yacht Club. Its so repetitive. In 2003, Richard Capizzi became the first pastry chef (not to mention the youngest) to ever sweep the awards at the U.S. What did you have in mind? It may be my last chance. I was in my mid-30s. And of course the next morning he called me and he told me that The French Laundry again had received the highest recognition from Michelin Guide, three stars. Could you give a little definition of how each rank works? With just a small four-burner stove with one oven it takes you a long time to prepare dinner. Now I think it would be casual fine dining. We have to give them training. Thomas Keller: Mentor is its interesting because, again, these things have happened in my life kind of by coincidence or by some divine plan. Could you tell us how that came about? [6], Following the split with his partner at Rakel, Keller took various consultant and chef positions in New York and Los Angeles. Never let anybody tell you that you cant do something. Thomas Keller: In the beginning, when Don and Sally Schmitt had the restaurant, there was one menu. Living It Is Harder. And that became my inspiration every morning, because I had a dream to buy The French Laundry. I had partnered with two male flight attendants who wanted to open a restaurant. So for me, there wasnt really a lot of awareness about opportunities outside of learning the trade in a kitchen. He migrated towards cooking much earlier than I did. In the same way that our U.S. Olympic athletes represent our country, we feel the same way in our profession. And Michelin first launched in New York City. I think that kind of sums up my life and what Ive been doing. On a 1992 visit to the Napa Valley, he was introduced to Don and Sally Schmitt, owners of a small restaurant in Yountville, a small town in the heart of the wine-growing region. So I was a little further ahead than some of the other stagiaires that were there who were much younger than I, who were more worried about how to make a veal stock or how to turn a vegetable or different things that are basic that I had already learned. Kellers 2012 cookbook,Bouchon Bakery, was on The New York Times bestseller list for nearly two months. I spent three summers there. And he had told me about this small restaurant in Yountville for sale called The French Laundry and I should look into that. All this was a mystery until the day that you get a phone call. The important thing, he said, is to make sure to give to young chefs the right things, the right mentoring because "if we're not truly working to raise the standards of our profession, then we're not really doing our job. Everybody read Herb Caen whether you liked food or not. For him it was about meat and potatoes. We all learned a great deal from it. You take a break at 3:00. I stopped to see him, say hello, see how he was doing. But in retrospect it was beautiful. But gardening became part of my life. His grandson is American. So of course the next week he showed up. This is perhaps one of chef Keller's most famous dishes, a sabayon of pearl tapioca, beau soleil oysters and white sturgeon caviar. They ran it in one of their last issues. Of course, I thought that because of the things that I learned, and because of the ability to execute what I wanted to do, because of my ability to organize a kitchen, I thought that I was invincible. I could feel I have the ability to learn and to kind of expand. So at the time I was born he was stationed in Camp Pendleton, which is right near Oceanside in California. And it just didnt happen. Thomas Keller: Herb Caen was a great writer. How did you come to take over The French Laundry? Theyll pick up the food guides. He said, I just want to tell you, youre going to get a phone call tomorrow and youre going to be really happy. So I went home. I have to say that period of my life and that period of my career in France was so, so important to who I am today and really helped me understand a lot of things about running a restaurant that have supported my career and my success. Rakel's refined French cuisine catered to the expensive tastes of Wall Street executives and received a two-star review from The New York Times. And of course if you were successful, then it was positive feedback and you knew that you did a good job. Thomas Keller: No. As much as I would have appreciated and certainly had deep respect to go to France and to receive it at the lyse, I knew right away that I would prefer to have somebody else pin that medal on my chest. I took a shower like I normally did and I came back to the restaurant. He loved wine. So I went to Bobs office with this idea of The French Laundry and hoping that he would be my attorney. It began in 1985 when I returned from France. Were they going to be Americans? It was a perfect meal to celebrate a perfect moment with the best people in the world. Not everybody has that much awareness of it, but for our point of view, the sense of national pride that we have in what we do, the commitment that we have during that two-year process of training, choosing and training those young chefs because it takes a year to train them. He thought that would be the perfect kind of place for me, small, manageable, in a beautiful community here in Napa Valley. And you never know. We were of course very flattered. But it was such a wonderful moment that lasted for days afterwards, because you had all the leftovers. Thomas Keller: Yeah. Thomas Keller, who had been inspired by classic cookbooks as a novice chef, published The French Laundry Cookbook in 1999. But no, you went to work in the best restaurants. Thats the system that has been in place since Escoffier codified The French kitchen in the early 1900s. I knew I could cook. Thomas Keller: That they do. We had an extraordinary dinner. Thomas Keller: The best restaurants that you were aware of if you picked up a Michelin Guide, if you picked up The New York Times, even New York Magazine or any magazine that was either a travel or food magazine, or had a food section in the newspaper at that time, were always talking about the great restaurants in France and the great chefs. Not necessarily. So I had been focused on working in and Ive chosen French cuisine and haute cuisine as my metier. I dont want to say the art of repetition, but the ability to respect repetition and embrace it. He was always the kind of guy who wanted to save money. So if you dont want to be repetitive in what youre doing, you probably dont want to really be a cook. You learn a lot from your mistakes. Thomas Keller Chef & Proprietor of Restaurants by Thomas Keller and Founder of Regiis Ova Caviar "Success, for me, is not about fortune or fame. But at the time, I wanted to get out into the world. So at that right moment, in that right period of time, I was able to put my application in and be approved for an SBA loan. So Per Se was in the forefront of that first launch in New York. A community college in Palm Beach. And I walked on the property. Michelin came in 2006. When Keller returned to the United States, he was ready to take on the world, but the world still had a few bumps in store for him, including an economic . And of course the chefs. Not only did I get a commercial bank loan, I also went to the Small Business Administration because I was still short on money. Keller was full of new ideas he was eager to implement, but he and the owner did not agree, and Keller moved to a smaller restaurant, Raphael, which he found far more congenial. Yes. So I could focus on more of the details, and I was able to do that. The recipe called for a double boiler. Its that social engagement, that interaction around a dinner table that to me is the most important. It does. For three years he wrote to restaurants all over France. You learn from the mistake of doing the bad job that you learn that you needed to either stack your dishes differently, rinse them differently, sort the silverware differently, or whatever it was that critical feedback taught you, thats what you needed to do, so you modified your behavior to be successful. Were dedicated to one another. What happens? It took 19 months to raise the money to purchase the place, but in 1994 he opened his restaurant, The French Laundry, and quickly made it a destination for gourmets and connoisseurs from all over the world. We had never when I say we, Im talking about the community of chefs who have always aspired to be of that quality, not necessarily ever achieving those stars, but to be of that quality. So we added a vegetable menu, which was seven courses, and we added a tasting menu, which was nine courses. When he was seven his parents separated, and Thomas moved with his mother and two older brothers to Palm Beach, Florida, where his grandmother and great aunts helped raise him and his brothers. I learned the technique was important. So we have a sous-chef thats responsible for canaps and fish for example. You come back at 5:30. He relocated to France in . They didnt want to make the wrong choice, so they would ask the captain, So, what should I eat tonight? Well, we have this and we have this. And so 80 percent of the guests were choosing the tasting menu. Where were you when you decided to make this your career? It was the first American restaurant to receive this honor. In 2004 he published "The Bouchon Cookbook," although he gives most of the credit to Bouchon chef Jeffrey Cerciello. And of course that catapulted us to again be financially successful, which allowed us now to commit our resources in so many different ways. Starting at $15/month (billed annually) for all classes and sessions. I have five siblings: four older brothers and one younger sister. It wasnt a difficult decision for me. I mean if youre having dinner you should be thinking about what youre eating. I was very impatient, and I wanted to go out and explore. When I was in South Florida, I was working in a restaurant called the Caf du Parc. The second cookbook that I received, which was from my mentor Roland Henin, was Ma Gastronomie by Fernand Point. In 1986, he opened his first restaurant in New York City, but the Wall Street crash of that year hit his business hard and he headed west. Located down the street from The French Laundry, it serves moderately priced French bistro fare, with Bouchon Bakery opening next door a few years later (in 2006 Keller opened a branch of the bakery in the Time Warner Center in Manhattan). Keller started out young in the field of cooking and culinary skills - in fact, his love for cooking surfaced when he once worked as a chef at his mother's restaurant in Florida. It was here he discovered his passion for cooking and perfection of the hollandaise sauce. And although I was very young, one of the things I do remember about Camp Pendleton is one of the regiments had for a mascot a tiger. He was that kind of came from that kind of generation. As you mentioned earlier, the 1980s and 90s were a fascinating time for great food in California. Thomas Keller: La Rive was outside of Catskill. His Surf Club Restaurant in Miami marked a return to the continental style of dining enjoyed in the legendary restaurants of the 1940s and 50s. In 1994, Keller closed the deal and set about renovating the facility. So when I got there, I had a good foundation of technique, a good understanding of classic cuisine, certainly the understanding of the vocabulary in a French kitchen. There he worked under the French chef Roland Henin, who inspired him to master the exacting art of French haute cuisine. Many residents and visitors to the area were lovers of fine wine and well-versed in contemporary trends in fine dining. You just never know. And that was a wonderful environment, very familiar, very small. Kon Tiki, things like that. Thomas Keller: In 1977 I met my mentor, Roland Henin, who really enlightened me about what cooks do: we nurture people. In other words, you carve the turkey, you serve the food, and then you took the leftovers home. In everything that we do, we have to understand that our expectations have to be of the highest. The story of The French Laundry for me is an incredible story, because everybody who was part of the process, who was part of the evolution, was part of that project, has impacted it in so many different ways. If I was going to make a career, if I was going to be successful in my chosen vocation, I needed to raise this money. Now Ive got this rabbit thats got a broken leg, and Ive got to kill it and dress it. My saving grace when I moved to Paris was my friend Serge Raoul, who allowed me to stay at his apartment. And he had great chefs that worked for him. Who was going to receive one star, two stars, three stars? Every day after school hed come home and watch Graham Kerr or Julia Child. Certainly, working in French kitchens was the same for me. Thomas Keller stands in front of the original exterior wall of the French Laundry in Yountville. And I learned at that moment a profound respect for the ingredients that we have, a profound respect for those individuals who bring them to us, and how committed they are to what they do, and how committed I have to be to what Im doing to respect what they do. After two years, he moved to Rhode Island, working first as chef de partie at the Clarke Cooke House, and the following summer at the Dunes Club in Narragansett.