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Theres 12 rabbits in the cage and hes explaining to me in broken English how to kill the rabbit. I was at work so I didnt have to spend any money entertaining myself. I believe in you, but I need something. That sounds wonderful. With more than. And as time went on we realized that we started selling more and more tasting menus. We invite those from our veterans home here in Yountville down to experience a meal around a table in a familiar place with food that is nourishing in every way. So I went to different banks, several banks. Its not just about getting something to eat. So in 1980, I planted my first garden. What is the chef cooking today? So I was focused on that. Many times the advice was, Well just go. So at the time I was born he was stationed in Camp Pendleton, which is right near Oceanside in California. We are only as good as those who come after us. Certainly the profession that I chose, cooking, allowed me to do all that. It was like it was it just shocked us all. Thomas Keller: In the beginning, when Don and Sally Schmitt had the restaurant, there was one menu. And thats how we define success, thats giving people those memories. So we have a sous-chef thats responsible for canaps and fish for example. I believe the book was called A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price. Not only on our profession, but on the consumer, and now beginning to have an impact on the way our food is being produced, is being grown, is being delivered, and thats a very important thing for us all. Now, before I went to see Bob, you have to realize that I had worked on this business plan, right? After his second summer at La Rive, he decided to try his luck in New York City and was hired as chef at Raouls. And in San Francisco we had Herb Caen. It comes out in a beautiful pan. So the lobster Bohemian came out the way you interpreted it at that time. Then the hard work of attracting investors began. I was four or five years old when my parents were divorced. Thomas Keller: Well, by the time they were divorced, my two oldest brothers were already out of the house. We fell to tenth. We want to make sure that we pay respect to them. 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. Therefore you have to pay them. Thomas Keller: No. In other words, you carve the turkey, you serve the food, and then you took the leftovers home. And Michelin first launched in New York City. A lot of other people might have said, Maybe I was too ambitious.. He wanted America to have a better representation at the Bocuse dOr. Keller has joked in the past that the motivation for Bouchon's opening was to give him somewhere to eat after work at The French Laundry. June 13, 2007 FOR someone who works in a restaurant, watching a rat try to become a chef might seem like just another day at work. Serge Raoul was ready to scale down his expectations and convert to a more casual format, but Keller longed to practice the haute cuisine he had mastered in France and left the business, which closed two years later. I was working as a young cook in a private club in Narragansett, Rhode Island called the Dunes Club. Of course, when it tries to jump forward, Im holding a leg. With the porcelain manufacturer Raynaud and the design firm Level, Keller created the Hommage collection of white porcelain dinnerware. He is the only American chef to have been awarded simultaneous three-star Michelin ratings for two different restaurants. Thomas Keller: Thank you. She became a restaurant manager. 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). Thomas Keller: I studied philosophy actually. Again, we dont know what to expect. 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. We couldnt get prosciutto di Parma because it just wasnt available in this country so we used a dried Virginia ham, which was overly salty. He started his culinary journey young -- at 15, he was already working as an apprentice pastry chef at the Relais of Poitiers hotel. We did everything from the pats to the desserts, and he taught me a great deal. And that training goes on not for two weeks or two months, but that training goes on the entire time that theyre with us. You started to see the little sparks here and there of interest in not just cuisine but in those who produced it. So the schools that we did have were relatively new. We just received three stars. I became the first American chef to be at one of the great La Le restaurants in New York City. I didnt recognize it until much later in my career, but I realized it and I understand that was part of the foundation of why I became a good cook and ultimately was able to become a good chef. He took advantage of the traditionalstagiare system in which unpaid apprentices, called stages in English, learn the skills of the classic French kitchen one by one. One last question. And some friends of mine, who were very influential in my move, were moving to California and they said, Come to California and try it out. At the same time a gentleman named Bill Wilkinson, who I had a brief conversation with about four years earlier, he was opening a hotel in L.A. called Checkers. So yes, I primarily lived with my mother, and my grandmother for a little while as well, and my great aunts. You should be thinking about those who youre with. Hes gone. Weve reached an interesting crossroads in the stagiaire program because the labor departments need to get involved, and if you have somebody in your kitchen, its not a learning experience, theyre actually working. Otherwise it wasnt going to be good. To get by, he started a small business, EVO, importing Italian olive oil. It was a narrative. Could you tell us how that came about? 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 . Thomas Keller: Its interesting because when I was at Taillevent, I had been cooking for quite some time. We all have our own core values, and I think that we can identify them when pressed to find them. And that was a wonderful environment, very familiar, very small. We live by them day to day, not necessarily having written them down. And great restaurants have to be consistent. We sat in their kitchen in their house next door. He loved wine. And thats something that comes very much from military. But the next summer, when spring came around, Ren called me and asked me if I wanted to come back to La Rive, and because that was such a bucolic experience for me, it was so familiar, they were like my second parents, I moved back to Catskill for that third summer. If you kept after it year after year after year, that dish evolved into something else. You, as a dishwasher, even though you may have been perceived as the lowliest position in a kitchen, you touched everybody, and your job was critical in their ability to be successful. Oh wow, what just happened? So on Thanksgiving day at Bouchon, thats what we do. 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. Now people who are interested in food and wine, theyll read the food section of The New York Times or the Chronicle or the L.A. Times or any newspaper. So everybody relied on your ability to be organized, to be efficient, to have your job done thoroughly, to understand repetition, rituals, and give them what they needed to do the job. He became a cook. And in his own way he enlightened us in the same way that Alice did in being able to encourage chefs to reconnect to the suppliers that are bringing us those extraordinary ingredients. He relocated to France in . I learned that doing things that other people do better is not necessarily good just because youre doing it in your own backyard or in your own house. FAQs How did Thomas Keller become a Michelin Star chef? 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. As a dishwasher you do the same thing over and over and over and over again. And you never know. You know, where did the dish come from? 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. I wonder where that ambition came from to be the best, and why didnt you decide to go to school for that? We were able to expand our staff. [1], In April 2009, Keller became engaged to longtime girlfriend and former general manager at the French Laundry, Laura Cunningham. So if you can give me $5,000, then Ill take on the project, and if its successful, well take our money on the back end. I said, Great. So for the next two weeks I went to the ATM machine, and on my credit card I took out $500 until I got $5,000, and I took $5,000 in cash and gave it to him and he started to modify the business plan and produce a bona fide business plan that I could then present to partners, which we did. I mean that became the catch phrase. It was kind of this magical place, and I just felt an instant connection to it. You have truly defined haute cuisine in this country. Did you commit to purchasing it before you raised the money? You set up for dinner, then you have dinner. And of course at that time I was very young in my profession and I said, Well, how can I make pasta green? And the last, not any more important than the others, was the idea of teamwork and embracing that. Its been a great pleasure. So Per Se was in the forefront of that first launch in New York. What gives you that idea? A beautiful time in my life. In the early 70s, when I really started cooking, for me it was really about the process. We made an instant connection, and we agreed on a price, and I was going to buy The French Laundry. Cooking wasnt the question, but could I lead a team better? It would seem Chef Thomas Keller would have reason to be satisfied. And again, a coincidence that Paul Bocuse was going to be in America that March or that April. In the same way that our U.S. Olympic athletes represent our country, we feel the same way in our profession. [6], Following the split with his partner at Rakel, Keller took various consultant and chef positions in New York and Los Angeles. I dont know why, I guess because of the age difference, my brother Joseph was allowed to handle a knife, therefore he was allowed to work with the cooks. Even though I didnt have a father present, I had some great, great women that helped form and focus my childhood. Kon Tiki, things like that. Were you a good student? From the beginning, did you have the idea of doing a tasting menu, rather than a long menu of choices? It jumps, right? Everybody became more frugal during that time, as they do always in times of uneasiness and disruption in our economic climate. He wanted to have chicken, barbeque chicken. He had a friend, Ren Macary and his wife, Paulette, who owned a restaurant in Catskill, New York outside of the town of Catskill, New York. It took me quite a while to get there. In the years that followed, Keller and Cunningham expanded their operations in a number of directions simultaneously with new restaurants and manufacturing ventures. Thomas Keller: I wish I could say there were, but no. His employers there, Pierre and Anne-Marie Latuberne, recommended him to Ren and Paulette Macary, who operated a restaurant of their own, La Rive, in Catskill, New York during the summer season. I guess you also needed to learn who your customers would be. I think one of my investors invested 500, and the one who invested the most I think was 80,000. Its always, Oui, chef. Yes. The next day in the Lyon newspaper, the headlines: Pauls Dream Realized: America Reaches the Podium., Thomas Keller: We got silver. As I grew older, I realized the benefit of a good education, and I continue to try to educate myself today. Keller took a $5,000 cash advance on his credit card to retain an attorney who helped him structure a private placement offering. So its not just we relate to chef as somebody thats only in the kitchen, but remember, its chef de cuisine, chef of the kitchen, chef of the electricians, chef of the plumbers. I became the chef of Raouls, which was, at the time an outpost in what became SoHo on Prince Street, and it was a classic, classic, French bistro in every way, and it was wonderful. He also holds an honorary doctorate in culinary arts from The . I wanted to see new things. And it was interesting, because at the time of the announcement, Laura and I were in France for I believe it was a Traditions et Qualit conference, which is a French association that we belong to. So there were five of them. 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. 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. You had to do different things at different times of the day, which began which were part of the ritual of your job. Thomas Keller, who had been inspired by classic cookbooks as a novice chef, published The French Laundry Cookbook in 1999. Maybe it was a plan D as an olive oil purveyor. 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. It had been here for a long time. Keller's mother was a restaurateur who employed Thomas as help when her cook got sick. After a third summer at La Rive, he was working at Polo Restaurant in New York City when he finally received a job offer from a restaurant in Arbois in Northeastern France and packed his bags. So it was really I was in a comfortable position in my living quarters, and I wasnt really spending a lot of money. And I could have him pin the medal on my chest. Today we have executive chefs as well. So I had a little bit of savings. I spent a little time in college. He began his career at a young age working in a Palm Beach restaurant managed by his mother. You had to change the water in the dish machine every two hours. Soon, he started taking up chef positions at various restaurants in Rhode Island, where he met his mentor and French Master Chef Roland Henin. So we had to have a commercial bank loan. In time, you and The French Laundry got your three stars from Michelin too. 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. To be there for a long time, to be impactful for a long time, to have a team that continues to evolve, to have guests that continue to come to your restaurant, to have that relationship with your partners or your suppliers, those are really, really important things for me in a restaurant. Sixth place. My first job in the kitchen was as a commis. So I could focus on more of the details, and I was able to do that. Thomas Keller, the master chef behind the Michelin-starred restaurant The French Laundry, is an unlikely champion for business and organizational excellence. When I started to cook, the first cookbook that I received was from my mother, and she gave me a cookbook called A Treasury of Great Recipes. And it was fascinating because without realizing it, it inspired you to prepare the recipe. His New York friend Serge Raoul allowed Keller to stay in his Paris apartment. Hello, my name is You know, I have this idea of and Id like you to consider it. And Raphael was run just like the restaurants ran in France. I became a chef there and moved to Los Angeles. It was a restaurant that was extraordinarily consistent. And his house was right next door to The French Laundry, where he lived and it was a common thing to go over there after work in the afternoon, at four or five oclock when the morning team would be finishing up, and theyd be over there on his front porch drinking beer out of cans, because he really liked canned beer as opposed to bottled beer. You prepare for lunch. 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. The Cobbley Nob has to do with woodworking, because one of our partners was an amateur he was a hobbyist. That rabbit, which gave up its life, I had to make sure that I utilized it in the best way I could and every bit of it. Thomas Keller: Every morning there was a ritual where I would wake up and I would call my list of people asking them for money. So I set my sights high. And then of course the famous dish that they did, which I saw so many times, was the saddle of lamb rognonade, which means that its the saddle of lamb stuffed with its kidneys, served with pommes pures on the side and asparagus. You take a break at 3:00. Ive had some extraordinary honors in my life. I mean if youre going to go to France which was arguably the best country, had the best food, the best products, the best chefs, the best restaurants thats what you wanted to do. I spent three summers there. Born in America in 1955, Thomas Keller is a restaurateur and cookbook author, but first and foremost, a chef. Following the failure of the Cobbley Nob, Keller became sous-chef at Caf du Parc in West Palm Beach. And it was really about Marines and their ability to stalk, their ability to be calm, their ability to pounce quickly and seize their prey. Philip Tessier, who was a young chef, our sous-chef at French Laundry, formed a team and made the challenge. 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. This was kind of at the end of the era of the La Le restaurants. It was a Frenchman, and he would bring me 12 rabbits beautifully dressed every week. Thomas Keller: No, not really. What culinary values and service values did you learn? The parmesan was the grated kind that you found in the green shaker. The rabbit screams. Its always been an important part of our culture, that consistency. Thats what really we want to be able to instill, to teach our young staff is that the person standing next to you is your colleague. So there was just the three of us and then along came my younger sister when she remarried. So when I was doing my research and asking people in the Valley what they thought about The French Laundry, they all loved it. But nonetheless I built my own little smoker out of an old refrigerator and cured and smoked my own salmon. I could feel I have the ability to learn and to kind of expand. And this olive oil was a small olive oil company I began to kind of keep me solvent in some ways, but also keep me motivated and keep me busy and have kind of I wouldnt even call it plan B. Michelin came in 2006. The new restaurant features intimate dining rooms with a fireplace, live music, lush greenery, a glass-enclosed conservatory room, an outdoor terrace and a lounge, with a Bouchon Bakery on the same floor. Working on the film Spanglish, Keller designed and taught star Adam Sandler to cook what is often called "the world's greatest sandwich", as a plausible example of what a talented bachelor gourmet might cook for himself. And then of course we had foie gras, poached foie gras, warm with turnips spring turnips peas, and a beautiful consomm of duck, rich but at the same time light, right. I was a year-and-a-half younger, therefore I had to be set in front of the dishwasher. The new restaurant got off to a good start, but the stock market crash of 1987 cut deeply into their business. He had dinner at The French Laundry and he wrote three paragraphs about The French Laundry. Thats where the name comes from. The chef's central focus these days are the final touches on what he envisions as the physical representation of the Keller legacy: a nearly $11 million renovation of the kitchen and property at . That truly defines our success. And he agreed to do it. Those were things that he was familiar with so and just telling stories. Theyll pick up Bon Appetit magazine or Gourmet or Saveur or any of the magazines. Our job is to mentor and train the next generation of superstars, of franchise players, if you will. We changed every day. She served me one of the best sandwiches I ever had, which was beef tongue. When Thomas Keller says he's built a better chocolate bar, it's worth tasting the results. It does. All of them loved the idea but turned me down. In 1997, The New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl called The French Laundry the most exciting place to eat in the United States. Theres two ways of looking at it, and I look at it both ways. In 2013, Keller and Kwak introduced gluten-free pancake, waffle, brownie and pizza mixes. Had they not, I wouldnt be here today. So at that time, cooking wasnt as recognized or as popular as it is today. Pastry Competition. Two years later, Keller opened Bouchon Bakery in Yountville and started his own wine label, Modicum. 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. What are your core values? And it wasnt something I had thought about before, but within a half an hour, I defined what they were, just because thats how I felt, and thats how most people are. They invited me up to meet them. Keller began his career as a professional cook at the Palm Beach Yacht Club in 1974. I had committed myself since 1977 to make this my career. Simple is hard. Theres a lot of great chefs out there who can do a lot of great things, but to be consistent 300 days a year lunch and dinner over and over and over and over again is really for me what defines greatness. It was a very small kitchen, and it was a beautiful experience because it was what I related to from just returning from France. And to reach the podium for the first time, Daniel, Jerome and I felt that we had finally been able to give Paul what we promised. Thomas Keller: That they do. You know, learn how to cut brunoise, learn how to peel an onion, learn how to slice. Everybody did. It was fascinating, and again certainly we were very proud and honored. Thomas Keller, who was named "America's Best Chef" in 2001 by TIME Magazine, among countless other accolades, has taught a generation of restaurateurs how to not only be like him, but to be even better. So for me, there wasnt really a lot of awareness about opportunities outside of learning the trade in a kitchen. The California-based chef has won nearly every culinary award imaginable; his cookbooks line the shelf of other chefs and passionate home. It was a very special treat to be invited to lunch with Thomas Keller, the world-renowned chef and owner of the French Laundry, Per Se, and many other award-winning restaurants. In school, were there particular teachers you remember who had an impact on you? Were committed to one another. There was no real technique. He has also attached his name to a set of signature knives manufactured by MAC. The idea of service is so pertinent to both worlds, military and culinary. What happens? I wanted to try new things. So living that dream became one of the hardest things Ive ever done, but also one of the most gratifying things Ive ever done in my life. He is the first and only American-born chef to hold multiple three-star ratings from the prestigious Michelin Guide, as well as the first American male chef to be designated a Chevalier of The French Legion of Honor. And kitchens are run in that way because its all command response. I had much more control over it. Were you primarily raised by your mother? So that was a mistake I made that I never made again, and I learned from that. Thomas Keller: I was working at a restaurant. 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. In 2015 we finally reached the podium, the first time the Americans have ever been on the podium in France. So sure enough, Paul calls me ten minutes later and asks me to be the president. [8], After the success of The French Laundry, Thomas and his brother, Joseph Keller (currently owner/chef of Josef's in Las Vegas), opened Bouchon in 1998. You know, Everybody wants casual food now. It wasnt so much casual food that they wanted, it was more of a casual price that they really wanted. Its reaction is to jump. The recipe called for a double boiler. But not only did I have to raise money from private partners, I had to buy the property. 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. The demographics were very important in that process, which we just totally threw out the window, or we just miscalculated.