Keller is a master of that sensitive balance between classic and modern, French and American, refined and witty. In an era of pop-up restaurants and rough-edged change, he has been resolute in creating a consistent experience that involves pressed linens, fine china, and touchstone dishes such as the oysters & pearls, and butter-poached lobster.
One dish encapsulates Keller’s approach more than any other. From the day The French Laundry opened, every diner has been greeted with a single, sublime bite: a tiny cone filled with a scoop of cool salmon tartare and a touch of crème fraiche, and finished with a jaunty chive. It’s a completely beguiling morsel, but to Keller, it is much more – the perfect opening gambit, an experience that diffuses tension and sets the tone for a luxurious evening. “It is an opportunity to put people at ease,” Keller says. “You don’t have a plate or a knife. It’s an ice-cream cone: two bites and you’re done. You’ve got a napkin, you dab your mouth, take a sip of Champagne, and it’s a wonderful, complete experience.”
Over the years, the cornet has subtly evolved. Indeed, evolution is a watchword – but for Keller, evolution comes in thoughtful, often subtle ways. “Guests come to our restaurant because they feel they know what to expect and there are reference points to everything,” he says.
It is a measure of Keller’s talent and drive that this comparatively quiet approach gave rise to a gastronomic empire: there are two Michelin three-star restaurants (The French Laundry and its New York counterpart, Per Se), making Keller the only American chef to achieve that distinction, plus nine Bouchon bistros and bakeries, and the casual Ad Hoc restaurant.
A new retro-classic American restaurant in the Hudson Yards development in New York City is slated for 2018. And there have been innumerable awards and honours, including, of course, the No. 1 position in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2003 and 2004 for The French Laundry.
Equally important, if not as quantifiable, is Keller’s rigorous approach to the profession, one that has changed American gastronomy and produced some of its finest next-generation cooks including Cory Lee of Benu in San Francisco and Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago.
Legendary chef-restaurateur Daniel Boulud, who worked with Keller at the Westbury Hotel in New York City in the 1980s, puts it this way: “We can eat well today in every city in every part of the country because of Thomas Keller. It might not be because he trained that particular chef, but that chef trained other cooks.”
