Word: kitchener
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...arrived from Napa Valley, Calif., to the coldest weather in New York City in 10 years. Over the weekend the pipes froze and burst in the new high-rise Time Warner Center building where his restaurant, Per Se, is located, so there is no water. The floor in his kitchen is being re-laid for the third time to get it level. The fire alarm keeps going off with flashing lights and a deafening siren, and platoons of electricians, plasterers and carpenters are working frantically to get the place ready for the building's opening in three weeks...
None of this bedlam fazes Keller, 48, who is used to the organized chaos of a busy kitchen. Instead he has zeroed in on a minor detail, the tiny labels on the Garnier Thiebaut linen that has just arrived from France. "Especially made for the French Laundry" they read, referring to Keller's four-star restaurant in Napa instead of Per Se, for which the linen was ordered. That few if any diners will notice the label on their napkin is immaterial; Keller knows it is wrong. And it irritates...
...Keller, like most entrepreneurs, needed to take the risk. He knew he couldn't continue at the French Laundry indefinitely. "The kitchen is such an athletic place. At some point you have to stop being, say, a running back and become a coach," he says. Despite having had two operations, Keller still experiences pain in his knees while standing at the stove...
...bankers, an attorney, a restaurant consultant, an accountant and a psychologist. (Chefs are a little crazy, as anyone in the restaurant business will tell you.) He has increased staff training to reassure himself that the pursuit of perfection will be maintained even when he is not in the kitchen. And, as insurance, he is installing a live video link between the kitchens of the French Laundry and Per Se so he can eyeball the day's squid preparation or vegetable selection on a large plasma screen...
...head chef at Per Se, Keller picked Jonathan Benno, 34, who has worked with him in Yountville for two and a half years. Keller will get the kitchen in New York up and running, and then Benno will take over in May. Benno will be working with 18 other alumni from the French Laundry whom Keller has transplanted to New York. And of course Keller will be in constant video contact from Napa--"I want to create real synergy--because I am trying to create two fine dining restaurants," he says...