Outside the US Thomas Keller isn’t as well known as Spain’s Ferran Adria and the UK’s Heston Blumenthal. But he is one of only two chefs in the world to hold three prestigious Michelin stars for two restaurants: The French Laundry in California and Per Se in New York.
And his place in the culinary history of America is firmly cemented in place by one of the simplest most accessible dishes, a tiny savoury ice cream cone (or cornet), a mouth tickler that can be understood by anybody and has been copied by many.
But while anybody with a memory of seaside holidays can understand the cornet, it is unlikely that most will ever get to taste the Keller version. His restaurants are booked out months in advance and more expensive than most people can hope to afford. Nine courses at The French Laundry costs USD$240 (AUD$334) with USD$50 (AUD$278) alone charged for BYO corkage. And the 2008 New Year’s eve dinner at Per Se cost US$750 – that’s an incredible AUD$1,045 – a head.
Everything at these restaurants is designed to please and relax. Why? “If you are coming to The French Laundry or Per Se you better like the person you are coming with because you will be sitting with them for three and a half hours,” he says speaking during the recent Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. To say nothing of the cost.
Keller doesn’t believe some high faultin’ idea of inspiration and creativity are behind his most famous dishes. He reckons it is all around us, ready to be exploited.
“People talk about creativity,” he says. “We create this. I create that. He created those. I truly believe that there is no such thing as creativity. Pure creativity doesn’t really exist. Everything is here. The world’s here. It was given to us by whatever means. Everything around you is here to use.”
And so it was with the cornet when in 1990, new to Los Angeles and under pressure, he was served an ice cream cone. “It was totally inspiring at that moment.”
The same goes for his other classic Oysters and Pearls – pearl tapioca sabayon with oysters and caviar – that was inspired by a purple packet of Pearl Tapioca he saw in a supermarket aisle. Diners, he says, may be intimidated by high end restaurants. “And if I can make you smile with the first bite of food that you have by giving you a cornet,” he explains, “that’s a real icebreaker. It’s meaningful. It has that sense of whimsy but is still very seriously about the food.”
If anything Keller, who is relaxed, fluent and philosophical shows tenacity. He has confronted failure in the face. After his New York restaurant Rakel failed in the late 1980s, he was fired from his job in Los Angeles. He then spent over a year and a half raising US$1.2 million to buy The French Laundry, a building he discovered in Yontville in the Napa valley in 1992, which opened in the northern summer of 1994.
Keller believes that it takes harder work and tenacity to make luck, with which he attributes his success, a work ethic and attention to detail instilled in him by his mother. “We can trace the person that we are and our internal mechanisms back to our parents who probably had the biggest influence on all our lives,” he says. “And my mother was a woman who had a great work ethic, really paid attention to detail, never gave up.”
And so hard work is in his blood. “Someone told me a long time ago we work 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week and with a little bit of luck you’ll be successful,” he explains. “If you cast your net as wide as you can and continue to be focused and hopefully you’ll get recognised one day. It’s not that I feel that I’m any better than any other chefs that are out there.
“The greatest restaurants in the world are not the ones that do the best food. They are the ones that do the greatest food most consistently.”
What has changed from the classic French restaurant and cuisine is that food has become personality based. Keller says the current generation of “modern chef” is about a “personality cusine”. In the old days what differentiated one restaurant from another was the quality of the produce and that the chef could cook it better. Now it is about the chef stamping his personality on the food (and the rest of the world to through books and TV shows).
And that’s where Keller has made the difference. He’s imprinted not only his inspiration on America’s dining pysche but also his approach to produce. The French Laundry was different because it grew much of its own vegetables. Per Se is also different because of Keller’s established network of suppliers across the US.
And this is partly why he rejected the invitation to open a restaurant at Crown Casino in Melbourne; he’d be starting from scratch. “It has taken me 33 years to get to the point that I am today working with the different teams I have. And to export that in just six months or a year and a half that it is a scary idea,” he says.