It was the Americans on the podium. I stopped to see him, say hello, see how he was doing. The rabbit screams. He wanted America to have a better representation at the Bocuse dOr. My ignorance, as I said earlier, just continued to motivate me, to propel me forward. [10], Prior to the opening of The French Laundry, Thomas Keller started a small olive oil company called EVO, Inc. in 1992, with his girlfriend of the time, to distribute Provenal-style olive oil and red wine vinegar. It was such a moment for us because we represented our country. You know, jai-alai is a sport. 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. Its that social engagement, that interaction around a dinner table that to me is the most important. We had some in New York City, mostly in New York I would say. Not even butter, and then he would buy 20 pounds of it to store in his freezer so that he could have it whenever he needed it. When the hotel was sold, Keller clashed with the new owners and found himself again at liberty. I think the single most important thing you can do the single most important decision you make when youre making a reservation to a restaurant is not what restaurant youre going to, but who youre going with. So when we started to think about Thanksgiving here at our restaurant, The French Laundry, when we first opened, we started thinking about that, serving that kind of meal, which was a meal that allowed you to interact with it. 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. Today we have executive chefs as well. 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. 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. One thing that is so fascinating about your biography is your lack of formal culinary education, the lack of a Cordon Bleu certificate. Keller remained in New York, consulting, but was completely unsatisfied. Traditionally, in France, is that an unpaid position? It was really only on Saturday and Sunday that I kind of had to support myself through eating and/or entertaining myself. When I wrote The French Laundry Cookbook, it was an important story for me to tell. Forget about three. What an impact that must have had! Thomas Keller: Yeah. 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. In 2004 he published "The Bouchon Cookbook," although he gives most of the credit to Bouchon chef Jeffrey Cerciello. If you didnt properly rinse or stack or sort the silverware or the dishes correctly, and you put them in the dishwasher, a minute-and-a-half later, when the machine opened, they would still be dirty. So of course the next week he showed up. Theres two ways of looking at it, and I look at it both ways. Thomas was considered too young to work as a cook so he started as a dishwasher. In past interviews youve speculated that perhaps some people are born with a gene for hospitality. And I realized that thats not why I came to France. Kellers mother managed a restaurant in the area, and both Thomas and his older brother Joseph worked in the restaurant kitchen from an early age. Right. Thomas Keller: My father was a Marine. And of course at that time I was very young in my profession and I said, Well, how can I make pasta green? No more than three days later (so you don't forget too much), take . We made an instant connection, and we agreed on a price, and I was going to buy The French Laundry. Is there a connection between the fact that you got a book of recipes from the worlds great restaurants and then decided to go and apprentice in France, in the worlds great restaurants? 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. 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. Of course, when you butt heads with the owner, ultimately the owners going to throw you out and thats what he did. Of course, when it tries to jump forward, Im holding a leg. Rakel was in an area called Hudson Square in Manhattan, not too far from SoHo, not too far from the Village, but an area which was unheard of, and so we found a space there. Its extraordinary what we have available to us and how important our farmers have become. Lets go back to the beginning. The second summer I decided to go to New York City to try my hand in Manhattan, and that was when I met Serge Raoul. Im looking at this rabbit hanging on the side of the barn, and 11 rabbits in the cage. The other one was off on his career. Just go. So hes tasked with many different things and having to juggle many different things. You have lunch. Could you tell us that story? But Gourmet magazine picked it up and they thought it was very important. Its reaction is to jump. And the last, not any more important than the others, was the idea of teamwork and embracing that. 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. 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 1994, Keller closed the deal and set about renovating the facility. And so it just didnt go with our proteins, it went with everything, because every ingredient that we receive in our restaurants or you receive at home as a consumer, somebody has spent part of their life producing that for us, and we have to be respectful of that and make sure that we are able to nourish ourselves with the food that they supply us. And so you have a pastry chef who is responsible for the entire pastry station, right? He actually was my first mentor in this profession. It was a normal thing and it still is today. Soon, he started taking up chef positions at various restaurants in Rhode Island, where he met his mentor and French Master Chef Roland Henin. If you dont, then weve only failed you, we havent failed ourselves, and thats an important thing for us to remember. With Paul Bocuses son Jerome and their fellow chef Daniel Boulud, Keller founded the Bocuse dOr USA Foundation (Mentor) in 2008 to inspire culinary excellence in young professionals and preserve the traditions and quality of classic cuisine in America. Keller and the Bocuse family hoped to see young American chefs compete successfully in this competition, but a number of years would pass before American chefs would reach the winners circle. It was a daunting task for us every day to produce this menu. What we call a stage in an American restaurant, or a stagiaire in a French one, does that literally mean a stager? Theyre working on the same preparation, the same compositions, the same dishes, the same recipes day in and day out for that entire year period. So I stayed in New York for about a year looking for something to do, never really finding anything. You dont know. And I shouldnt say my first job, my first job in a formal kitchen was as a commis. So you have chef electricians. Thomas Keller, the master chef behind the Michelin-starred restaurant The French Laundry, is an unlikely champion for business and organizational excellence. I learned that organization was really important. Philip Tessier, who was a young chef, our sous-chef at French Laundry, formed a team and made the challenge. And theres no choices on the menu, so its a problem for us. So I thought, Well, when I open The French Laundry, well extend hours of operation and well offer choices in each category. Thomas Keller: Per Se. He was that kind of came from that kind of generation. You had to do different things at different times of the day, which began which were part of the ritual of your job. [14][15][16] On describing his reasons for accepting the Bocuse d'Or Team USA presidency, Keller stated, "When Chef [Paul] Bocuse calls you on the phone and says hed like you to be president of the American team, you say, Oui, chef. Before we get there, Ruth Reichls article, as important as that was, there was an article prior to that which very few people realize. Each time you made it it was yours, it was not necessarily his. But nonetheless I built my own little smoker out of an old refrigerator and cured and smoked my own salmon. He was tall, masculine, broad, a good-looking Frenchman who was the executive chef of this private club. Did your mother or father support your culinary ambitions? Could you give a little definition of how each rank works? 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. Originally intended to be a temporary project while Keller planned his lifelong dream restaurant for the location, serving hamburgers and wine,[9] he decided to make ad hoc permanent and find a new location for the hamburger restaurant due to its popularity. Back to the first cookbook you received as a gift from your mom. So it just became a natural evolution for us to do away with the five-course menu because 80 percent of our guests were choosing the nine courses, and 20 percent were choosing the 40 others. You prepared it in the way you could at that time with the ingredients that you had, and the knowledge and skills that you had at the moment, and it evolved with you. What did you eat? Kon Tiki, things like that. Of course its such an uncomfortable story for a lot of people that my publisher didnt want to include it in the book and I made her. I needed to have the knowledge and the skill in order to prepare it. One of the first employees to sign on was a young woman named Laura Cunningham, a Berkeley graduate with some experience in the Napa restaurant scene. The following year, Michelin inspectors came to the West Coast and gave The French Laundry three stars as well. And that was my room. So we were one of the first restaurants to kind of fail. So we had a gathering at the Per Se in New York where we invited the ambassador from France who came, and I thought of my colleagues of course, Daniel, Jerome, Alain Ducasse was there, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and it was a great celebration. [12], Keller is the president of the Bocuse d'Or U.S. team and was responsible for recruiting and training the 2009 candidates. The ignorance allowed me to do it. Jerry Della Femina moved down there, opened his offices. In 1999, Thomas Keller published The French Laundry Cookbook, which he considers his definitive book on cuisine. Who was going to be their inspectors? Do you relate your attraction to the discipline and camaraderie of the kitchen to your fathers career as a Marine? 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 he said, Thomas, I want to be the first to congratulate you. He studied briefly at Palm Beach Junior College but knew his real education would come by working at the best restaurants he could find. What is the chef cooking today? He is the only American chef to have been awarded simultaneous three-star Michelin ratings for two different restaurants. I caught my breath and I said of course I thanked him very much and I said, One of the things that I want to assure you of is, again, its great to achieve this recognition, but now its our responsibility to make sure that the guests that come to our restaurant have that experience. Thomas Keller: At 4:00 in the afternoon, we were on the West (Left) Bank, in front of one of the department stores over there I think Samaritaine or some one of the great department stores of Paris and the phone rings. Ive had some extraordinary honors in my life. He has received countless accolades, including The Culinary Institute of Americas Chef of the Year Award and the James Beard Foundations Outstanding Chef and Outstanding Restaurateur Awards. And during my time working for him and of course I was just a lowly cook so Im not sure why I was having this kind of conversations with him but the conversations were really about cooks and our career and our profession. And I always say my biggest asset at the time was my ignorance. Lets face it, if youre with friends and family, or your partner, and youre having a wonderful time, your experience is going to be elevated because of the time that youre having with the people that youre with. The pigeon was beautiful. So our job is to make sure that were choosing those ingredients of the moment. We had Johnson and Wales. To get by, he started a small business, EVO, importing Italian olive oil. I mean were the mothership, were the foundation of Thomas Keller Restaurant Group and certainly the inspiration for Per Se. Favorite Restaurant Restaurant Experts' Poll, Outstanding Wine Service Award, James Beard Foundation, 2001, Outstanding Service Award, James Beard Foundation, 2003. To expand his knowledge, he joined Compagnons du Devoir, an artisans' organization that offers technical education through tours and apprenticeships with masters. I was in an area in California I was in Los Angeles I didnt really know that area that well. [23] Keller served as a consultant for the 2007 Pixar animated film Ratatouille, allowing the producer to intern in the French Laundry kitchen and designing a fancy layered version of ratatouille, "confit byaldi", for the characters to cook. So we chose to stay in Paris because the phone call would have I mean to miss a phone call as being one of the first Michelin starred restaurants in America, being one of the first American chefs to receive potentially a Michelin star would have been too much of a I think of a moment in my life that Id want to give up. I spent three summers there: 1980, 81 and 82. And he had told me about this small restaurant in Yountville for sale called The French Laundry and I should look into that. Had I known everything that I was going to have to do over the course of the next 18 months, I would have given up right away. I mean youre in Paris. How old were you when you received it? I think one of my investors invested 500, and the one who invested the most I think was 80,000. He became a cook. I had left Checkers. Thomas Keller: A commis is the lowest position that you would enter when you enter a kitchen. But of course there was no recipe for the spinach pasta. I break its leg. I said, Jonathan, youre the first chef de cuisine. And then we have to mentor them not just in their career, but in their lives. Why didnt I choose to go to school? If youre with somebody you dont really want to be with, or theres a problem going on, your experience is diminished regardless of what I do. 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. Now I think it would be casual fine dining. They agreed to take $5,000 in escrow. We had a beautiful time on the back porch of our house, and that Monday night, the next night, he passed away. So thats where I chose to go. Everybody read Herb Caen whether you liked food or not. Thomas Keller: We did. Raoul and Keller, R-A and K-E-L. All this was a mystery until the day that you get a phone call. Thomas Keller: Well, we all learn that. The Keller empire expanded to Southern California with the 2009 opening of Bouchon and Bar Bouchon in Beverly Hills. Yes. 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. Its been a great pleasure. Born in America in 1955, Thomas Keller is a restaurateur and cookbook author, but first and foremost, a chef. Apart from his innovative restaurants, ThomasKellers books and above all his dedication and imagination have brought his informed and inventive cookery intohomes from coast to coast and around the world. We were of course very flattered. So when I was doing my research and asking people in the Valley what they thought about The French Laundry, they all loved it. One of our primary jobs, one of our primary responsibilities is to hire the right people, make sure that the people that were hiring, those individuals, young men and women, are of the right attitude, of the right mindset, have the right skills to enter into our profession.