Thomas Keller talks Tomato

Neil Perry (left), Thomas Keller and Heston Blumenthal (bald). Courtesy of the Melbourne Wine and Food Festival.

On the SBS Food site you can see my story on meeting Thomas Keller at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival earlier this year. Like most chefs of his calibre, he is charming and practiced and I got a lot out of him in some 20 minutes, more than there was space for in my profile on him.

I’ve included some raw quotes from him below. And if you follow the link below you can hear the the entire 23 minutes I spent talking with him (minus my dumb intro of myself).

Thomas Keller talks about kitchen discipline, his philiosophy and the effect of the downturn on his New York restaurant Per Se.

On creativity and inspiration:

“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 I think the biggest thing for anybody is to have a sense of awareness of where they are, where they are in the world, where they are in place and if you are aware of what’s around you in a constant way then you open up to inspiration. Inspiration is the key, it’s not creativity, it’s inspiration. So being being aware of what’s around you so that you can be open to inspiration and once you recognise that inspiration to be able to interpret it as something that’s meaningful for you. You can be inspired by anything. It doesn’t have to be something I see in the kitchen or something I read in a book, it could be anything. I could be walking down the street and see something and all of a sudden it’s a flash of inspiration and then it’s interpreted to something that is meaningful for me. In many cases it’s about food and it’s evolution. I think awareness, inspiration, interpretation and evolution are key components to what we as human beings call creativity.”

On the kitchen environment:

“Historically kitchens have been somewhat of an aggressive environment if you will and I certainly was raised in that kind of a kitchen. Many times things were very aggressive whether it was a chef or cook. And something I wanted to change in my kitchen was just that. We want to maintain a sense of respect, a sense of comradery, a sense of team. And I think that’s really the most important thing. Not to say that things don’t get emotional or things don’t get heated once in a while. We are in a kitchen and the chef is trying to give something to his guests and god forbid anything come between him and that guest whether a chef de partie, or a waiter or a captain or anything like that. It really is about getting everybody on the same page in the entire restaurant. The guest is our goal and we are trying to not only give our guests a great experience but give us a great experience. Us in the kitchen, us in the dining room, us in the entire restaurant. I think if we can treat each other respectfully and have a really good working relationship with everybody in all parts of the restaurant and its one that we feel comfortable in, one that we feel successful in. And ultimately one that we like to participate in. And if we are enjoying that partipation in our workplace, then we are going to do a better job.”