Everything Thomas Keller said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Keller: Fine dining restaurants should be elite in skill, not elitist
“We run an elite restaurant, but we're not elitist.”
Keller: Whispering direct feedback to staff works better than yelling
“If I sit there and yell at you because you've done something wrong, You're not going to necessarily understand what you've done wrong because you feel, you're feeling insignificant. If I whisper in your ear and say, you know, you really disappointed me, and th…”
Keller: Laura Cunningham transformed and casualized fine dining service globally
“Laura, you know, has been a significant, significant part of the success of the restaurant, but also in changing the way fine dining restaurants operate and the service that they provide. And that has been to casualize service in fine dining restaurants in Ame…”
Keller: Storing fish upright on ice preserves the quality of its flesh
“So, so the shape of the ice is, Is now affecting the quality of the flesh of the fish. But if you stand it straight up as it swims, there's no pressure on the flesh.”
The French Laundry refuses to negotiate ingredient prices with its purveyors
“Which means I don't really ask, I call them my partners, my purveyors, how much something costs.”
Keller refuses to license his name to mass-market food or franchises
“I, that doesn't interest me. I've never been interested in lending my name to, you know, a can of soup or a pizza.”
Keller: Opening restaurants is seductive, but operators must commit long-term
“You think about opening a restaurant is very exciting. It's seductive. It's exciting. But then you've got to run it for 20 years. You can't just close it. You have to open a restaurant that's going to be part of a community. And it lives on in perpetuity, or a…”
Keller: Accolades reward yesterday, while negative criticism drives improvement
“Every accolade that we receive or anybody receives is for what you did yesterday. It's not what you're doing today or what you're going to do tomorrow. So, you know, we appreciate criticism. I mean, that's the one thing we ask is like, what didn't you like? I …”
Keller: Wasting ingredients diminishes the lives and labor of food producers
“If I'm burning a piece of bread There was a farmer who planted the weed, harvested the weed, there was somebody who milled the weed, there was somebody who made the bread. It's like, I'm diminishing their life by not taking care of the products that we have in…”
Keller: The Polo Lounge Produced Some of America's Most Cutting-Edge Cuisine
“I mean, I come from the Polo Lounge. I mean, this is, this was some of the most cutting edge cuisine in America.”
Keller: Put $5,000 down to buy the $1.2 million French Laundry
“We went into escrow on a 1.2 million dollar property for 5000 dollars.”
Keller: An investor offered full funding in exchange for future control
“There was one investor who offered to bankroll me all the way, and I was sitting in the garden at the French Laundry with him at the time, and he said, but I want control over everything that you're doing in your future.”
The French Laundry and Per Se change their menus every single night
“Every night from that point on, we've changed the menu at French Laundry and Per Se.”
Keller: French Laundry Team Opened Bouchon to Provide Late-Night Dining
“We decided the best thing to do was to open a restaurant that was open until midnight.”
Keller says he is in his restaurant kitchens every night in town
“I am in the kitchen every night that I'm home here in Napa Valley, and when I go to New York City, I'm in the kitchen every night that I'm in New York.”
Thomas Keller
How I Built This 2