Page 41 - Demo

Watching Thomas Keller make hollandaise sauce for 17 minutes (one of the 36 lessons that make up his online Masterclass cookery course) tells you a lot about what it takes to be a three Michelin starred chef. He exudes a calm authority as he works with meticulous ease and laser-like concentration. As he whisks three egg yolks to a perfect frothy consistancy in a double boiler, pulling the metal bowl on and off a pan of simmering water with practiced ef ciency to maintain the optimum degree of heat he says, ‘This is just requiring a lot of patience and a lot of awareness’.
It’s required a lot of patience and awareness for Keller to achieve and maintain his position at the pinnacle of America’s dining scene, holding three Michelin stars for more than a decade at both The French Laundry in the tiny town of Yountville in Napa Valley California and Per Se in the Times Warner Centre in New York. In 1990, he walked away from his first New York restaurant Rakel (a Wall Street favourite and critical success with the New York Times saying, ‘Mr. Keller has the sensitivity of a sculptor’ and that the restaurant merited ‘enthusiastic recommendation’) when the owners decided to dumb down the fine dining concept following an economic downturn.
After relocating to LA and spending several years working as a consultant, an executive chef and even launching his own olive oil business, Keller stumbled across The French Laundry. He spent two years funding the project and nally opened in 1994. He then waited four years to open his second restaurant, Bouchon, a classic Lyonnaise-style bistro (one Michelin star since 2007) a few doors from The French Laundry.
Keller’s now presides over a group of 10 establishments that includes restaurants, bakeries, cafes and a takeaway spread across Yountville, New York and Las Vegas. It’s a substantial achievement, especially when you also consider that Keller has also written ve almost biblical-length cookbooks that have sold over a million copies, publishes his own magazine Finesse, consulted on the animated movie Ratatouille, has led the American Bocuse d’Or team to Gold medal glory and since 2015 has had Grill restaurants onboard Seabourn’s eet of luxury cruise ships. However, compared to some of his three Michelin starred peers such as Ducasse, Robuchon and Ramsay all of whom have expanded their empires across the world, Keller has been measured in building his business.
So, for there to be two new Keller restaurants on the horizon, The Surf Club in Miami and The TAK Room in the new Hudson Yards development on New York’s west side, is big news. So, what does it take to pique the usually cautious Keller’s interest and get him to undertake a new restaurant project?
‘The answer is it has to be either compelling or historic,’ says Keller who plans to revive the ‘continental’ style restaurant he remembers from his youth, places like The Stork Club, The Colony, The Blue Fox and The Brown Derby (his mother ran similar establishments in Palm Beach, Florida) that served roast beef, schnitzels, lobster Thermidor and pasta primavera, in both locations. ‘Part of the Miami charm was the history of the Surf Club. It was a place that was open in the mid 30’s, it was actually one of the most famous restaurants of its time in the world. It had that sensibility, it had the history, it had the feel, it had the energy of this kind of restaurant.
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