I wanted to see new things. 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. I mean if youre having dinner you should be thinking about what youre eating. We could only hope that we can achieve that. We did lunch and dinner. And Raphael was run just like the restaurants ran in France. And so as a young person, my brother and I my brother Joseph, who is 18 months older than I would spend a lot of time in the restaurant and in the kitchen. When the hotel was sold, Keller clashed with the new owners and found himself again at liberty. And it just didnt happen. His father, a United States Marine, was stationed nearby at Camp Pendleton. And great restaurants have to be consistent. He wanted America to have a better representation at the Bocuse dOr. Now remember, a chef in France doesnt necessarily relate to the kitchen. Talk about Rakel. You have chef plumbers. I spent three summers there. And all you have to do is believe in yourself, be patient, be persistent. How did you get started in the restaurant business? Once again, things got off to a good start, and Keller enjoyed making friends with colleagues in the West Coast restaurant scene. Were committed to one another. 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. It was a very small kitchen, and it was a beautiful experience because it was what I related to from just returning from France. So he has to be able to motivate them. The Schmitts wanted $1.2 million for their business, and Keller had nothing resembling that kind of money, but they agreed to take $5,000 from Keller to hold in escrow while he returned to Los Angeles to raise the money he needed. So that was really the beginning for us of our success in Northern California. In the same way that our U.S. Olympic athletes represent our country, we feel the same way in our profession. It could be as short as two paragraphs. Not just in the kitchen but in the management positions, in the ownership positions, everywhere that I kind of struggled in the past. Were going to have this instant business. But we were doing, at the time, fine dining. Keller took a $5,000 cash advance on his credit card to retain an attorney who helped him structure a private placement offering. But I think his favorite thing to do was really to share time, share moments with the young staff and just tell stories. So now we increased our production from 40 items to 60 items. And I went to his restaurant, had lunch on my way to Arbois and I left thinking, Wow. Therefore you have to pay them. Thomas Keller: Yeah. 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. You never say no to the chef, right? Its so repetitive. Chef Keller began his career in the kitchen of the Palm Beach club managed by his mother, before traveling to France and working at Guy Savoy and Taillevent, among other similarly lauded places. I got in contact with the owners, Don and Sally Schmitt. The parmesan was the grated kind that you found in the green shaker. Thomas Keller: Yes. [17], In 2012 he announced he was at the point of his career when it was time to step away from the kitchen. By 1986, he felt ready to try his hand again at opening a restaurant of his own. Thomas Keller is a man who needs no introduction. It didnt matter if you were doing fine dining, family dining. How did you come by that vision? He combined his thorough knowledge of French tradition with his own flair for humor and imagination, offering his guests a seemingly endless series of exquisite small plates, such as a miniature ice cream cone of salmon tartare, or a small serving of oysters and caviar resting on a bed of tapioca. She served me one of the best sandwiches I ever had, which was beef tongue. Given free rein, he built a smokehouse to cure meats, developed relationships with local livestock purveyors and learned to cook entrails and offal under his old mentor, Roland Henin, who would drop by on occasional weekends. America had competed since the beginning but never even came close to the podium. He was a Marine. The following year he added two additional locations of Bouchon Bakery at The Venetian in Las Vegas while continuing to vary his commercial ventures. You had to get the glassware to the bartenders so they could do their job. The opening of her debut restaurant, Core by Clare Smyth, marks an important milestone for Smyth, who trained under world-renowned chefs Thomas Keller and Alain Ducasse and made headlines as. They invited me up to meet them. Thank you, Chef. It was about Pauls dream realized, America reaches the podium. It was very interesting because the authors were Vincent and Mary Price, and it was their recipes of the great restaurants that they had experienced around the world, and it was this beautifully leather-bound book. Thomas Keller: I dont know the literal translation of it, but its an observer. 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. It was unprecedented in this country for a restaurant to get three stars from Michelin. Ill dye it green. So, food color came out, we dyed the pasta green. Most of the kitchens that I worked in always have the chef, the sous-chefs, the chef de parties, the commis, and thats a very hierarchical system where everybody looks at the chef for the direction, the sous-chefs to implement it, you know, the chef de cuisines to perform it, and the commis to support it. Forget about three. Im sure my mother bought it for me because of the quality of the book, not necessarily the quality of the content. So during the Korean War he was there for two and a half years. So we have to our expectations in our kitchen, in our restaurant, in our service. So I went to talk to Bob and I gave him this whole spiel about The French Laundry and here was my business plan. He is also featured in "My Last Supper" by Melanie Dunea. Of course you never know those things when youre doing it. And of course then to finish the meal was the famous marquise au chocolat, the chocolate marquise with pistachio sauce, something that I made almost every night during my time at Taillevent. Thomas Keller: There was a recipe in there, and I cant remember the name of the recipe, but it was a recipe from a very famous restaurant in Italy and it was, I believe, spinach pasta with prosciutto di Parma, parmesan cheese and butter. Keller spent the next three summers at La Rive in Catskill, where he learned to source produce locally, growing many of his own vegetables, and even trying to kill and dress small game, an experience that gave him greater respect for those who produce the food we eat. I was questioning my ability as a chef. But it wasnt because I wanted to have a career in the profession, in the culinary profession. We all learned that we had to be aware of the demographics and not just what we wanted to do, but what those around us really wanted to eat. One of the things that I dont believe we do enough of is to help our veterans, our servicemen and women. So we added a vegetable menu, which was seven courses, and we added a tasting menu, which was nine courses. He wrote his social column every day. Thomas Keller: Yeah. 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. As time went on and we became more and more popular, we realized that we wanted to add a tasting menu. You just never know. It was my generation that kind of missed that. An executive chef would be somebody that would be in a position in a hotel for example, or where there are many different restaurants, and he would be the executive chef over all of the chef de cuisines from each different food and beverage outlet for example. Thomas Keller: Rakel. Teaches Cooking Techniques I: Vegetables, Pasta, and Eggs. You had to deliver the dishes back to the chefs, right? I mean that became the catch phrase. No more than three days later (so you don't forget too much), take . When I was in South Florida, I was working in a restaurant called the Caf du Parc. So this idea of smoking your own salmon, or this idea of making your own ketchup, which was really popular at this period of time, didnt necessarily result in something that was better than the guy in Scotland whose family has been curing and smoking salmon for generations. I left because I was committed to fine dining and ultimately moved to L.A. And unfortunately Rakel failed or Caf Rakel failed two years later. Youre American. The chef has recently come under fire for praising a major Donald Trump donor. Did you commit to purchasing it before you raised the money? So efficiency became important, how you lined up the racks, how you put the plates in the racks, or when was the time to wash the glasses, when was the time to wash the silverware so that nothing so that everything became seamless for everybody. There was that true connection to our suppliers, to those people who produced our food. He had dinner at The French Laundry and he wrote three paragraphs about The French Laundry. A year later your skills your experience were increased, and if you made that same dish, it would be different. So the schools that we did have were relatively new. 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. I graduated high school. Of course we had the Culinary Institute of America, which began in the mid-40s after World War II. You know, where did the dish come from? So he reached in the cage, pulls a rabbit out, both legs, has one of those little baseball clubs, knocks it on its head, pins the rabbit to the side of the barn, slits its throat, dresses the rabbit in about five minutes. And I could have him pin the medal on my chest. Thomas Keller: In 1977 I met my mentor, Roland Henin, who really enlightened me about what cooks do: we nurture people. And he was always the one who was out there getting reservations for the restaurant. I learned the importance of ritual, doing things at specific times of the day and having them leading up to those times, and being prepared for those times. Thomas Keller: We used to think about luxury as choices, right. 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. From the beginning, did you have the idea of doing a tasting menu, rather than a long menu of choices? 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. In 2011, Keller opened branches of Bouchon Bakery in Beverly Hills and in New Yorks Rockefeller Center. In everything that we do, we have to understand that our expectations have to be of the highest. The specific details of the recipe do matter. I went to move to Paris in 1983 so I had been cooking now for almost a decade. There was one farmer who supplied me with my rabbits every week. That year it won three International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) awards for Cookbook of the Year, Julia Child "First Cookbook" Award, and Design Award. Its fascinating that theres this underpinning of philosophy beneath the core value of great cuisine, of making it as good as it can possibly be. In time, you and The French Laundry got your three stars from Michelin too. It was about the engagement with others. I think that a restaurant like The French Laundry or Taillevent, any of the great restaurants around the world and certainly there are many, many, many of them are restaurants that are experiences certainly. And it was one of those things that you try. You know, working with a group of other young men in a line, in a high-stress environment where its very intense and youre cooking food. One of the most moving little notes on your website is easy to miss, but its just the fact that The French Laundry has had three stars since 2007, and Per Se has had three stars since 2006. And there was another friend of mine in Los Angeles who taught me how to use a computer. I was committed. The more choices you had, the more luxurious it was. Why didnt I choose to go to school? Thomas Keller: We opened Bouchon. But of course there was no recipe for the spinach pasta. Thomas Keller: There was one other a little less-known chef, who also inspired me and I think a lot of my colleagues, and that was Jean-Louis Palladin. So the morning sous-chef is a very, very important position, somebody that typically has had great experience in the restaurant that hes working in. In 2015 we finally reached the podium, the first time the Americans have ever been on the podium in France. We went to the local markets all the time. And the success of you as an individual is really based on the success of the team. As you mentioned earlier, the 1980s and 90s were a fascinating time for great food in California. She became a restaurant manager. I wanted to have a large group of people, because of my experience at Rakel. Thomas Keller: Its interesting because when I was at Taillevent, I had been cooking for quite some time. At the same time he has to be able to maintain the standards of their preparation and also the ingredients that are coming in. I understood it. 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. Its like, Wow, I can choose any one of these pillows. But which one really is the best? I stopped to see him, say hello, see how he was doing. So Per Se was in the forefront of that first launch in New York. You knew when you did a bad job and you knew when you did a good job.

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