Elite Traveler May-June 2017

INFLUENCE THE BIG INTERVIEW

Chef Thomas Keller on making the emotional connection

Award-winning chef ThomasKeller is aking in the culinaryworld. With threeMichelin stars for twoof his restaurants and longwaiting lines at his others, Keller has come todefine eating as an emotional connectionby offering the finest experience imaginable. And, as he explains toRobertaNaas, he does exactly that, time andagain

and if they make it on the team, they have to take a year off from their position at work to focus on developing a program for the international level. Our entire board meets with these chefs at least six times throughout the year, tasting, testing and commenting. Those teammembers have to put their egos aside and compete as a complete team. It’s serious business,” says Keller. Of course, he also trains young aspiring chefs on a daily basis at his restaurants. “It’s our job to teach them, to give them the tools and the mentorship to make them better than we are.” This, Keller says, is one of the most satisfying parts of what he does. “I’ve been blessed. I have had so many wonderful moments in my career and have been recognized in so many different ways, but my most gratifying accomplishment is the teams that I have working with me at my restaurants; the culinary teams, the wine teams and others. To watch them grow and go out and open their own restaurants and to elevate the status of our culinary business is very important. That and the day I was able to purchase The French Laundry are probably the most gratifying and life-changing moments I have ever had.” According to Keller, the vital ingredient a person needs to be a top chef is to take charge. “When you whittle it down, it comes to being a leader and allowing those around you to excel at what they do. Young chefs need to learn from their failures and grow from them. Sometimes we make mistakes. We are like a baseball team; you can’t go out and win every time, but the good chef is the one that tells his team to learn from their mistakes, put it behind them and come in the next day to do it better.” Keller says he learned from experience, too. When he was a young dishwasher early on his road to success, he learned six disciplines that led him to become not just a great cook, but also a successful restaurateur. Those disciplines included the ability to stay organized, be efficient, ask for critical feedback, practice repetition, respect times and rituals and be a team player. “As a dishwasher, you are an important

Chef Thomas Keller, owner of the famed French Laundry in Napa Valley, California and the esteemed Per Se in New York, recently took an hour out of his busy schedule to talk with us about cooking, eating and the dining experience. The 61-year-old chef, restaurateur and cookbook author has won dozens of awards from the James Beard Foundation, Bocuse d’Or and other respected organizations. He is the first male US chef to win the French Légion d’Honneur, which only three American chefs have ever won – Julia Child and Alice Waters went before him. Keller is also the only US chef to have been awarded three Michelin stars for two different restaurants, and has a one-star rating for another of his restaurants, Bouchon. Even his cookbooks have won awards. Still, Keller does not rest on his laurels and continually strives to improve every single aspect of the dining and culinary experience. “It’s all about getting the smile, making the emotional connection, giving somebody something they feel inside their hearts,” explains Keller. “In today’s culture and society, where everything is fast-paced, it is important to give an experience that is memorable. With food, emotion is typically associated with experiences we have already had, something that has given us great pleasure. We source the best ingredients and present them in ways that elevate the flavor profiles in different ways that connect.” In addition to running restaurants and writing cookbooks, among other things (let’s not forget that this is the chef that consulted with Pixar for the

movie Ratatouille , to ensure authenticity in the movie’s lead character), Keller is president of Bocuse d’Or USA Foundation, the mentoring program for the US teams that compete in the famed Bocuse d’Or competition, the highest global competition of the culinary world. Launched in 1987 by chef Paul Bocuse, the competition takes place in Lyon, France over the course of 18 months and involves countries from around the world. The US team won the most recent competition, wherein the final 24 participating countries competed for nearly six hours of cooking tests. When we asked Keller why he got so involved in tutoring the US teams, his answer was simple: “Because Paul Bocuse asked me to, and when Chef asks you to do something you do it. In this profession, you learn at a very young age to say ‘Oui, Chef.’ This is a culture that is all about giving somebody what they ask for. I think that is what makes great restaurateurs great. They say yes and figure out a way to do it. So when he called me and asked me to organize an effort to have a US team supported by a large group of individuals, across many disciplines, to support the US culinary team in order to get to Lyon and compete in a meaningful and serious way, I said ‘Oui, Chef.’” Keller, along with chef Daniel Boulud and Bocuse’s son Jérôme, put a team of experts frommany aspects of the business together to give full support the US culinary team. “They have to garner our attention in an application, prepare their presentation, demonstrate their techniques in front of 12 judges

“It’s all about getting the smile,making the emotional connection, giving somebody something they feel inside their hearts.”