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. 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. You started quite young, didnt you? We respond to that by notching up our game. So Per Se was in the forefront of that first launch in New York. Theres a chef de partie in every different station thats in a kitchen. And I thought that was just brilliant in the way he wrote that book. We had Johnson and Wales. We built our new kitchen. So typically, artisanal work or work that youre doing with your hands, manual labor, would have a chef. Thomas Aloysius Keller (born October 14, 1955) is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. So that was immediate critical feedback. Not necessarily. I understood that there was a lot of competition, because not only did I want the vegetables, so did the deer and the beavers and any other wildlife that would come into the fray. So I want you to come to my restaurant with the attitude that youre going to have a great time because of the experience youre going to have with those that youre dining with. Thomas Keller: On a trip to Napa Valley one spring day, Jonathan Waxman, who is a friend of mine who had opened a restaurant in New York and now is opening a restaurant here in Napa Valley. What does the American Dream mean to you? 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. Testosterone is raging and youre with all these its a group. Success is about giving to our team, our guests, our friends and family and community through time and commitment, advice and mentoring. On my makeshift desk was I clipped out of The New York Times during this time during this period in my life there was an article which was titled Having a Dream Is Hard. What did you learn working at Taillevent? My grandmother when I lived with my grandmother we had the milkman that came. And that was a wonderful environment, very familiar, very small. It creates an anxiety in you actually. 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. I mean were the mothership, were the foundation of Thomas Keller Restaurant Group and certainly the inspiration for Per Se. We were open Monday through Friday. In our country we had very few. He was that kind of came from that kind of generation. [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. Remember, it wasnt that long that we missed it. Our second challenge was in 2011. We all promised him that we would do our jobs collectively in organizing a foundation that would support a U.S. culinary team to compete in Lyon and actually reach the podium. My oldest brother was here at the same time. I wasnt convinced that I was just going to travel to France and knock on somebodys door, but in reality thats actually what happened. A year later your skills your experience were increased, and if you made that same dish, it would be different. It was a wonderful restaurant. Of course we want to make our restaurants better, but our overarching goal is to elevate the standards of our profession, and we do that by training, by mentoring, by giving the skills and knowledge to those next generations, so that they can not only help us in our restaurants but then go out and be impactful in other restaurants, and of course hopefully one day open their own restaurants. Sometimes simplicity is best. And then you work until 11:00 at night. As important as Ruths was, Herbs was the same, the Schmitts. He knew San Francisco in and out. Born to a marine drill sergeant and a restaurant manager . Which one do I want? Thank you, Chef. Trailer. I was unsure of my career. So you have chef electricians. A sports franchise kind of mentality as well as a militaristic kind of mentality, because we do have and the same in the military you have hierarchy. You had to sweep the floor at these specific times. Its an externship, if you will. Youre working in a restaurant and in France you work in a restaurant Monday through Friday and you work both services, lunch and dinner so you get to work at 9:00 in the morning. This dish is featured on both the menus at Per Se and The French Laundry, a dish that has stayed on the menus since it was created and one we fully expect to remain there. An American mega-chef, he is as renowned for his culinary skills as he is for his ability to establish a restaurant that is relaxed, yet refined and exciting. After World War II the men came back and the women stayed at work and that spawned the convenience food generation, which was us. World War II kind of shook that all up. Pierre ran the kitchen. There was a friend here in Napa Valley who was a banker turned vintner who helped me with finance, and who helped me with putting together the financial component of the business plan. The new restaurant got off to a good start, but the stock market crash of 1987 cut deeply into their business. You made him a real last supper, didnt you? And you never know. Were cooks. And then going to France and in a five-and-a-half hour period producing those two proteins and serving it to 24 international judges. It was the Americans on the podium. You had to deliver the dishes back to the chefs, right? What about books that you read growing up? 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. I spent three summers there: 1980, 81 and 82. 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. Ive had some extraordinary honors in my life. We were able to expand our staff. It was a very small kitchen, and it was a beautiful experience because it was what I related to from just returning from France. He likes a spoonful of Skippy peanut butter (Natural) before hitting the gym, and he believes chefs can find. Thomas Keller: I think the American Dream, what it means to me is we everybody in our country has an opportunity. And we were so proud. As much as he was satisfied, he said, Youre not quite there yet. A chef in France is the head of a specific area. It was a normal thing and it still is today. It was fascinating, and again certainly we were very proud and honored. 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. Iconic Dishes So during the Korean War he was there for two and a half years. 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. It was a perfect meal to celebrate a perfect moment with the best people in the world. 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. I took a shower like I normally did and I came back to the restaurant. 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. He relocated to France in . It was poorly lit, and I had to arrive at work the next morning in the kitchen downstairs at 5:30 and they would show me what to do. So I went to Bobs office with this idea of The French Laundry and hoping that he would be my attorney. I learned that the ingredients were important. It was the first American restaurant to receive this honor. And Michelin first launched in New York City. Of course, when you butt heads with the owner, ultimately the owners going to throw you out and thats what he did. There was one farmer who supplied me with my rabbits every week. 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. The chef de partie is a chef who is responsible for a specific station. 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. Best Restaurant in the World (French Laundry). Organization as a dishwasher really meant that you had to set up a template for the servers to, you know, where to put their dishes. Come over. And we went and it was an amazing moment to be able to walk into Taillevent, which had such a profound impact on my career, on my philosophy, on the culture that we have, on my skills, on everything in my life. I dont know if theres a hospitality gene as much as theres a nurturing gene. And I thought, Wow, this may be a great opportunity for me. And so that was over 400 people I called during that period of time. And of course as a white, middle-class, educated American, I wasnt on the top of the list of somebody the SBA was going to give money to. And it was fascinating because without realizing it, it inspired you to prepare the recipe. So the schools that we did have were relatively new. And it was one of those things that you try. So I had a little bit of savings. It was camaraderie. So I had been focused on working in and Ive chosen French cuisine and haute cuisine as my metier. I learned at that time that persistence is really one of those keys to success. But now I had to actually act on it, that dream, and make it reality. It was a restaurant that was extraordinarily consistent. There was that true connection to our suppliers, to those people who produced our food. But nonetheless I built my own little smoker out of an old refrigerator and cured and smoked my own salmon. We could only hope that we can achieve that. 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. And I walked on the property. I wanted to have a large group of people, because of my experience at Rakel. Fortunately, my persistence paid off and I had eight different stages in observation, permission to have observation at a restaurant. So I set my sights high. In 2017, Keller and Team USA secured the ultimate victory, winningthe Gold Medal for the United States for the first timeinthecompetitions 30-yearhistory. Everybody did. With his first book, the chef of D.C. restaurant Kith and Kin takes readers through his childhood in the Bronx, where he learned to cook from his mother who ran her own catering company, to an. FAQs How did Thomas Keller become a Michelin Star chef? As I grew older, I realized the benefit of a good education, and I continue to try to educate myself today. In other words, you carve the turkey, you serve the food, and then you took the leftovers home. And if we do those three things right, what happens? I became a consultant, which paid me more money than I ever made before, but which was so unrewarding to do that that I was just miserable. Raoul and Keller, R-A and K-E-L. That was a Sunday supper, and we had a beautiful time. The multiple Michelin-starred chef (The French Laundry, Per Se, Bouchon) spent the past five years . My first culinary disaster was a recipe from this book, and it just goes to show you the lack of availability of ingredients in our country at the time. And it really truly is a learning, a place of learning. 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. In France, Keller formed a friendship with the legendary chef Paul Bocuse, sponsor of the Bocuse dOr competition, the Olympics of international cooking. The pigeon was beautiful. He loved wine. He actually sat with us, and his wife Sabine told me as we were leaving, she said, You know, Ive never seen my husband ever, ever sit down with anybody in this restaurant. He sat with us for about five minutes and chatted. I wasnt doing anything. This is perhaps one of chef Keller's most famous dishes, a sabayon of pearl tapioca, beau soleil oysters and white sturgeon caviar. [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 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. 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 went to work at another restaurant in New York called Raphael, and this was theres a lot of Rs in my restaurant history. Each time you made it it was yours, it was not necessarily his. What we call a stage in an American restaurant, or a stagiaire in a French one, does that literally mean a stager? And then we have to mentor them not just in their career, but in their lives. I was a stagiaire and I was doing a stage, which is, you know, you go into somebodys its almost like its an apprenticeship, if you will. And if you appreciate it, great. We try to limit the choices, relieve the anxiety, and give somebody an experience that then, when they leave the restaurant, its memorable. The French government named him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in recognition of his lifelong commitment to the traditions of French cuisine and his role in elevating culinary art in America. We fell to tenth. Of course there were the schools, some schools in France, but they were mostly focused on consumers, mostly housewives on vacation who wanted to learn how to cook, as Julia Child certainly did when she went to Le Cordon Bleu. [4] Four years after his parents divorced, the family moved east and settled in Palm Beach, Florida. 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. Our money ran out and I left and went to work at Caf du Parc, and the poor guys had to kind of lick their wounds and go back to being flight attendants. He migrated towards cooking much earlier than I did. For three years he wrote to restaurants all over France. Thats the system that has been in place since Escoffier codified The French kitchen in the early 1900s. I enjoyed it. 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. And he sat us down right at the first table. Thomas Keller: The books that I read as a kid were mostly adventure books. Patience, and perseverance, are a virtue. Paul Bocuse was a commis at his restaurant. So you always had a bread and butter plate in one spot, a service plate in one spot. But more than any of that, we realized a great burden of responsibility, because Ruth, who is an expert in her field, somebody who we all look to, somebody who we all respect, has now called us, literally, the best place or the most exciting place to eat in America. And I think thats what made the difference for me is not having to focus on the foundation of cooking, but be able to understand what made these restaurants great and understanding that Taillevent, which was probably the single most influential for me, a great restaurant. The following year, Michelin inspectors came to the West Coast and gave The French Laundry three stars as well. I dont know, whatever. That was at the beginning of that relationship with Serge Raoul. And I realized that thats not why I came to France. We had some in New York City, mostly in New York I would say. So I went to different banks, several banks. As time went on and we became more and more popular, we realized that we wanted to add a tasting menu. And typically in the day she would work at the Officers Club as a hostess or a waitress, working her way up to understanding how to manage a restaurant. You knew when you did a bad job and you knew when you did a good job. Talk about Rakel. 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. Thomas Keller: Yeah. 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. We had The Greenbrier, which had a qualified externship program. His restaurant was La Pyramide in Valencin (Vienne), France. And rituals are very, very, very important. The restaurant is a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant Magazine list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World. A community college in Palm Beach. And of course the chefs. And if theyre not better than you, then you havent done a very good job. 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. The peas were just so perfect. In the next few years, Keller would pursue his interest in French cooking, developing close relationships with the cooks and proprietors of French restaurants in his own country while applying for jobs in France. Its always, Oui, chef. Yes. That was something that was fascinating. 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.