The French Laundry, Per Se

THE CHEFS

TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO it dawned on me that the business I run is like a sports franchise. We hire chefs, servers, and managers—our athletes—and need to do so with a philosophy of not only winning in the present but building for success in the future: succession planning.

Everyone who works here enters with different life experiences and different skills that they apply to a range of tasks. We hire them, we train them, we mentor them, whether they are young chefs at Bouchon or Ad Hoc or more mature chefs arriving at per se or The French Laundry. Some are akin to AAA ballplayers, working their way up from the minors; others have already played in the majors. Our job is to reinforce their strengths and help them overcome their weaknesses. All of them are part of a team, whether they’re in AAA or in the top echelon. Even Stephen Strasburg, the MVP of the Washington Nationals, said after winning the 2019 World Series, “I’m just here to be part of the team.”

I think about the kids in the major leagues. Imagine staring down a 95-mile-per-hour fastball with fifty thousand people screaming around you. That’s composure. I feel the same for my chefs—every member of the team is under pressure to perform at a very high level. When they land in positions of responsibility at our restaurants, they show the same amazing composure, discipline, and skill as an elite athlete. They all understand the importance of being part of a team, and I’m so proud of them for it.

And it’s not only about the performance of the chefs, but about the coaches and managers as well. When I or one of my senior staff hires someone, we expect that new hire to surpass what we can do. It’s the only way to keep improving. If that person you’ve hired, trained, and mentored does not, over time, become better than you, then you haven’t done your job.

I LEARNED THIS LESSON through a painful experience. We opened the restaurant per se overlooking Manhattan’s Columbus Circle in February 2004. One week later, a fire devastated the restaurant, and it almost devastated me. But as chefs, we come together in times of crisis.

Eric Ziebold had been my longtime chef de cuisine at The French Laundry and helped me open per se. Though he had plans to move on to open his own restaurant after the launch of per se, he offered to return to The French Laundry while I stayed in New York to work on rebuilding per se and manage the situation. We reopened, happily, and when per se was running smoothly, I returned to Yountville, to The French Laundry, expecting to take the pass for that night’s service, which I’d been doing for ten years.

But I saw Eric standing there. He had the pass. He’d been at the pass all the time I was reopening per se. In that moment, I realized I didn’t have a job anymore, at least not the same job that I’d held for so long. I’d moved from player to coach. And not simply because I’d had to let someone else play in a crisis, but because there were younger chefs who could do what I used to do better than I could do it now.

At the time, we were all just reacting to an urgent situation, but once I was able to reflect, I saw the bigger picture, the greater need for succession planning, long-term team building . . . the same thing a successful sports franchise does. More than just determine who will be the next chef to fill a role, we need to determine how to help the new players build on and surpass their predecessors. How can Timothy Hollingsworth surpass Corey Lee at The French Laundry? How can Eli Kaimeh move beyond Jonathan Benno, and then Corey Chow beyond Eli?

The new chefs aren’t by nature so superior to the former ones, but the tools and equipment improve, the ingredients grow increasingly fine, and—most important—the training and mentorship we practice allow them to advance. This is how you build excellence in a team, excellence that endures and is sustainable, even if one key player—like me standing at the pass in the kitchen of The French Laundry—moves on.

IN THE FALL OF 1999, I was on the book tour for The French Laundry Cookbook. One of the stops was the Williams Sonoma in Pasadena. In line with his mom, waiting to get a book signed, was twenty-year-old Corey Chow, a psychology major at Cal Poly Tech in Pomona, California. He didn’t know he wanted to be a chef yet—his mom just knew he loved food.

Eight years later, during family meal at per se, I got my plate and took it to the kitchen to eat. It was Chinese food—beef and broccoli, fried rice, fish with scallions, steamed and finished by flash frying. I asked Jonathan Benno, chef de cuisine, “Who made family meal?” and he pointed to a commis, the lowest rung of the brigade. It was Corey Chow, who now had my attention.

Corey had graduated from Poly Tech, then gone to Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena. He externed at Alan Wong’s Honolulu and loved it so much he stayed for six years. During that time, Wong closed the restaurant for two days so that Jonathan and per se pastry chef Sebastien Rouxel could put on a special dinner there. Corey had never seen such perfect culinary execution. He was astonished, and so he set his sights on per se.

He staged at per se, and Benno gave him a job. He moved quickly up to sous chef, but, not seeing a path for more advancement, he left to work with Rich Torrisi and became a chef de cuisine for the Michelin-starred restaurant Torrisi Italian Specialties. I ate there and had the same experience I’d had when Corey made family meal. This guy can cook, I thought, and he’s also running a kitchen.

When Corey asked to return to per se, as executive sous chef under Eli Kaimeh, I said, “You can cook, but can you lead a team?” He said, “Yes, Chef.” And when Eli left, Corey advanced to become chef de cuisine, a place he never dreamed he’d be when he was in line waiting with his mom for his book to be signed eighteen years earlier.

Around the time Corey came to work as a commis, David Breeden was already a chef de partie on his way to becoming sous chef and, ultimately, executive sous chef at per se. David had had a rough upbringing in the hills of eastern Tennessee—so rough, in fact, that he left home at age fourteen with $21 in his pocket. Somehow, he made his way, living on his own, often working at restaurants. He applied to the best restaurant in his area, Club LeConte, run by a chef named Seth Simmerman, but never heard back, so he decided to join the United States Navy. He didn’t know that his application to the chef had been shunted to the manager of the dining room rather than the chef. On the very day David, newly eighteen, was set to enlist in the navy, Chef Simmerman called to offer him a job. David said, “I can’t, I’m joining the navy today.” Chef Simmerman said, “I was in the navy, I cooked on submarines, and believe me, you don’t want to do that. Get your ass in here.”

The year was 1998, and Chef Simmerman became David’s mentor. Because David didn’t have a car and it took so long for him to get to the restaurant using public transportation, he asked the chef if he could catch a ride to the restaurant. The chef said, “I leave at eight a.m.—your shift doesn’t start till three.” David said, “If you drive me to the restaurant, I’ll work for free until three.” And that’s how David learned to cook—working for free from nine to three, then minimum wage from three to eleven.

David set his sights on a job at The French Laundry after reading an article about me in Gourmet, in which I talked about the importance of killing rabbits. He managed to talk his way in via Devin Knell, one of our longtime chefs, a great technician, who was looking for a butcher. “I can butcher,” David fudged. (“I could maybe French a rack of lamb,” he says now, “but really, I didn’t even know how to cut a chicken efficiently and well.”)

I remember walking into the old screened-in porch and seeing him butchering every day, but I thought he was a culinary student on an externship. He was good, so I asked him when he was going back to school.

He said, “I’m not in school.”

I said, “Where do you work?”

He said, “I’m hoping to work here.”

I asked if he was considering moving out here. He said, “I already did. My girlfriend arrives with all my stuff tomorrow.”

Like I said, people catch your attention. I began to watch him, saw the way he took ownership of every task, mastered it, did it better than anyone. He eventually became a chef de partie, moved all the way up to saucier, before the stresses of cooking at this level took their toll. He took six weeks away from the restaurant to decompress and visit family.

He wanted to move to New York, and so, with my blessing, he went to see Jonathan Benno, and Chef Benno hired him. David knows both kitchens really well now.

Corey and David are two very different chefs, but they work well within the framework of the restaurants—David ingeniously figuring out how to serve the food of his rural background (pole beans, pork shank) in a Michelin three-star restaurant, Corey likewise maintaining a connection to his Chinese American heritage.

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN GOOD at surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me, and Elwyn Boyles is one of those people. In 2008, I’d been advertising in trade magazines for a pastry chef, and I got a call from Tom Aikens, in London, who had been the youngest chef to earn two Michelin stars. He told me of a very talented pastry chef named Elwyn Boyles who had worked for him and who was ready for a change and wanted to spend time in the United States.

Elwyn was raised first on a farm in Wales, then in the little village of Horseheath, England, a half hour south of Cambridge. He began washing dishes at the local country inn, the Red Lion, during high school. By the time he was finishing high school and taking his A Levels, he was the chef, cooking simple pub food six nights a week—prawn cocktail, mushroom stroganoff, steak and kidney pie, apple crumble.

After graduating, he spent nearly four months in Australia, and on his return he had decided university was not for him. He wanted to cook. Through a government apprenticeship program, he was placed at the Café Royale, a posh hotel right off Piccadilly Circus, and started, as many apprentices do, in pastry. But just four months in, Elwyn said, “Hey, I really like it here. And I’m good at it.” So he stayed in the pastry arts during the three-year apprenticeship.

He then worked in upscale hotels in London—The Four Seasons and The Connaught—then at smaller Michelin-starred restaurants, Midsummer House, led by Daniel Clifford, and Tom Aiken’s eponymous restaurant in Chelsea.

He arrived at per se in New York in 2008 and persevered as he adjusted to a new country, a new restaurant group, and a new management style. After about a year, he came into his own.

I knew by then that if I wanted to keep Elwyn on my team, I’d have to keep him interested, keep giving him new projects to work on, so I charged him with unifying the dessert programs of The French Laundry and per se. It’s important to me to keep my kitchens connected, that they feed one another. This is why we have live screens of each kitchen, so one can see what the other is doing at any time. Elwyn achieved that unity with our desserts and has become, in my mind, a pastry chef second to none.

These three chefs lead the French Laundry–per se team and, along with me, are the voice of this book. But three people don’t make two Michelin three-star restaurants. Everyone who works at the restaurants helps to shape those restaurants. Every single person. From the dishwasher to the chef to the woman in Petaluma who makes the cheese and the man who created an oyster farm in Duxbury, Massachusetts, where never an oyster had grown before he grew one, to the accountants and the service staff to the whole team in the garden to the GM at our new Mexican restaurant and the bartender and chefs there. Please understand how important it is for me to express this. Everyone who works at these restaurants shapes these restaurants. A little better each day, that’s the goal—a little better this morning than yesterday.

Special mention must also be made of two chefs who worked behind the scenes to develop the recipe portions for this book—Elaine Smyth and Alison Beazley (left), who did all their work for the book while maintaining their daily duties at per se and The French Laundry.

I thank them all.

DAVID BREEDEN

MY JOURNEY TO THE FRENCH LAUNDRY

MY FIRST MEMORY of The French Laundry was as a guest on August 6, 2004. I had started in kitchens as a dishwasher in my mid-teens, and now had gotten a stage at The French Laundry, to begin the following January. I was in San Francisco with my girlfriend exploring the culinary scene, and we got a last-minute reservation due to a cancellation and drove up for lunch. Kevin Macway, a longtime French Laundry associate, was our captain. We had, of course, an amazing meal (my first “Peas and Carrots,” originated by then poissonier Jonathan Benno). But that was not the highlight. At the end of the meal, Kevin, who knew I’d be staging there, asked if I’d like to meet Chef.

I was so nervous. What if my granddad’s suit makes me look unprofessional? What if he grills me on the classical repertoire? What if I’ve had too much wine?

Suddenly I beheld the most beautiful kitchen I had ever seen. Chef was on the pass cutting romano beans. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Chef! How was your meal?” Then he said, “I look forward to your joining the team.” I don’t remember much else—I was so nervous. It was like meeting Michael Jordan.

SIX MONTHS LATER, January 25, 2005, I arrived at 5:00 a.m. for my 5:30 start, having scoured again my copy of The French Laundry Cookbook.

I entered the copper door to the kitchen, and even now I distinctly remember the smell—not like a kitchen but rather like someone’s home. There were two enormous 100-liter pots of veal stock simmering away, and the beautiful smells of the mirepoix and aromatics were wafting through the air. A butcher with a huge kit of rabbits cut each into precise pieces. A commis cut the brunoise for the chefs de partie on a mandoline.

My first-ever task was to prepare the pommes Maxim for the famous Beets and Leeks lobster dish. I also had to juice beets and chiffonade leeks. I was terrified. Walter Abrams, the poissonier, a buff Colombian dude from South Florida, arrived and looked at the pommes Maxim, evaluating the texture and seasoning. “Not bad, rookie,” he said.

It was an amazing kitchen. Every service was dynamic. The food was . . . perfect. And in a way I’d never seen before, everything we did in the French Laundry kitchen was about the guests.

AFTER TWO YEARS, the intensity of the work and serious family issues led me to take a break, regroup in my mind, be with family and my beloved East Tennessee hills.

But I’m a cook and quickly grew restless. I had to keep moving. I took a break from Tennessee to stage in New York (Daniel, Jean-Georges) but didn’t feel comfortable in those kitchens. Against my instinct, because The French Laundry had been so hard, I went to see the per se kitchen and introduce myself to its chef de cuisine, Jonathan Benno.

He was at the sous chef’s desk, next to the pass, on the phone. I waited. When he hung up, I introduced myself. He gave me the same smile Thomas Keller had given me, shook my hand in the same way. I gave him my resume. This was where I wanted to be. And a few weeks later, Chef Benno called and asked when could I be in New York.

Some kitchens you just fit into. And Jonathan became a mentor, even a father figure, to me. And by chance, he, I, and our late dear colleague Chris L’Hommedieu were the only people working at per se who had also worked at The French Laundry.

When Thomas was at per se, we had a special relationship because of this. I spoke the French Laundry language, and Thomas strove to keep the two restaurants spiritually joined. This sounds trite but it’s a fact: Thomas taught me more than anyone in my life about how to become a leader, a compassionate human, and a mentor to my own team.

In November 2012, Thomas called me into the office of the general manager at per se, where we could speak alone. I’d been at per se four years and had risen to executive sous chef under Eli Kaimeh. Thomas did this a lot, with all of us, making sure we were good, asking about our goals, our challenges.

But this time he had a funny smile. He said, “Chef, are you ready to come home?”

I said, “Absolutely,” not quite understanding.

Timothy Hollingsworth, the hugely respected chef de cuisine of The French Laundry, was leaving, Thomas explained, and then asked, “Would you consider returning to The French Laundry as chef de cuisine?”

I almost swallowed my tongue.

THE FRENCH LAUNDRY KITCHEN I returned to lead was not what I’d left five years earlier. It no longer had the walk-in, since replaced by six Traulsen reach-ins designed by Chef, which were far more efficient. The porch had been enclosed to create a space for the commis to prep, and the chefs de partie could do their mise en place at their stations. It had a Rational combi oven and a blast chiller, essential tools for precise cooking. Those stockpots, though, were still there simmering away. That familiar aroma was still in the air and that beautiful breeze was still blowing through the open windows to the courtyard.

And I was chef de cuisine. Rather than the pressure cooker I remembered as a young commis, the kitchen was an intensely professional environment. Chef had set everything up for everyone to succeed. All I had to do was support my team and let them flourish.

In late 2014, Chef and I had dinner at Bouchon, as we often did. But this time he had something important to ask me. “How would you like a new kitchen, Chef?”

I said, “What do you mean? We do need a new stove.”

He said, “No, think of the Louvre. And I. M. Pei’s pyramid.”

In February 2017, after two years of difficult work in a temporary kitchen and the supporting buildings, we moved into the new kitchen. It was like walking into a palace. We had all the tools that we had ever wished for. We had a Rational on the line for the fish station, a rotisserie, and a wood-burning hearth. The commis and pastry kitchens had many improvements as well, such as a large twelve-burner stove, full-size blast chiller, chocolate shop, meat maturation cooler for dry-aging meats, and temperature-controlled butchery. We also expanded our wine cellar to accommodate up to 20,000 bottles.

But most of all, we had space. The space allowed us to hire more chefs, which gave us fewer working hours but more time to prep, more room in which to work, more time to take care, more time to think of and better serve the guest.

For Chef, and therefore me, it was, is, and always will be about the guest.

COREY CHOW

MY JOURNEY TO PER SE

FOR CULINARY SCHOOL, I did my externship at Alan Wong’s in Honolulu and I loved it so much, I stayed for six years. But things changed for me when three chefs from per se—Chung Chow, pastry chef Sebastien Rouxel, and chef de cuisine Jonathan Benno—came to do a special dinner. There was something about the way they worked, their precision and professionalism, that told me I had to make it out to per se. And because I’d assisted Chung and Jonathan, I had an in, and I earned a stage, which led to a job offer as a commis, the entry-level position.

I was scared. The kitchen was so intimidating. I’d never been in an environment like this. Three Michelin stars. Thomas Keller. Jonathan Benno. New York City. Everyone was better than me. At twenty-eight, I was the oldest commis, but the least experienced with fine dining at this level. The culture, the terminologies, the sense of urgency. It was all a weird dream.

I kept my head down and worked. You do one thing right and then another, and you begin to build a little confidence. You also develop trust among your peers. What I was unprepared for was the generosity of the mentoring I received. David Breeden was a chef de partie when I arrived. Chung Chow. Matt Orlando. Eli Kaimeh. These guys were the badasses. They were, and I mean this as a term of high respect, animals. They studied technique relentlessly and were constantly learning from and teaching one another.

David taught me classical technique and the cuisine of the South. Chung, he just knew everything—everything about the food, his technique was flawless, and he even knew maintenance for all the equipment. If you had a question about anything, you went to Chung. Matt had worked at Noma and The Fat Duck, and so he brought a new way of thinking to our ever-evolving food. And Eli had a kind of confidence in his cuisine that mixed Jonathan’s Italian with the melting-pot food of his native New York City and Syrian heritage. What a mix.

It was all about the team. Chefs from all over the world filled the per se kitchen, from all walks of life, passionate about food, sharing ideas and experiences. We began to seriously embrace the important tools of modernist cuisine, the ingredients that allowed us to further control texture and the tools like the Rational combi oven, which allowed for more precise cooking than sous vide. Everyone wanted to outdo each other. We were all super-competitive. And because of this, the kitchen was stimulating and exciting. I wanted to be in this so badly.

In 2009, Jonathan Benno left and Eli took over as chef de cuisine. He had his own plating style and flavor combinations and a fascination with the new techniques. He wasn’t better than Jonathan, just different. The chefs were always like that. Jonathan had his Italian and French influences and a devotion to the classics. Eli was an evolved version of Jonathan. Eli was already the voice of that kitchen and when he took over, it was a surprise to no one.

His presence was the same as Jonathan’s and the restaurant didn’t change—it evolved. He made it his own. That’s what we learned from Thomas: “Treat it like it’s yours, and one day it will be.” That’s how the restaurant evolves. And it starts with the chef and the brigade. We kept pushing and evolving. Getting better, just a little better each day.

I was the first chef Eli promoted to sous chef. It was such an honor, a dream to reach that achievement. Never would I have thought to make it that far. And I couldn’t have done it without great support from the team.

David continued to mentor me, taught me about leadership and camaraderie. He created a relationship between us that has influenced my career to this day.

When David became executive sous chef at per se, you could tell he was ready to be a chef de cuisine. He just acted like one, the way he led and mentored, the way he himself continued to evolve. He was surprised when Thomas Keller tapped him to become chef de cuisine at The French Laundry, but I wasn’t. What an achievement for him, to go back to where he came from and be the boss. I was sad to see my comrade and mentor go but I was stoked for him. It was his time to make something his own.

AFTER NEARLY SIX YEARS at per se, I decided to leave. There wasn’t room to advance and I wanted a shot at running my own kitchen. I worked for a time at Nomad, and then became chef de cuisine at Torrisi Italian Specialties. It was a good opportunity and I continued to grow. But my wife, Kaeleigh, whom I’d met at per se and who still worked there, knew how much I’d loved per se and suggested I go back. I’d kept in touch with Eli and I knew that the executive sous, Matt Peters, was about to start training for the Bocuse d’Or competition, which would take him away from per se. And with everyone’s blessing, I was back again. Not very many people get that chance and I had to grab it right away.

IN JANUARY 2016, three months after I’d returned as executive sous chef, the New York Times review came out, and it devastated us. Everything changed. We would always maintain our three Michelin stars. But how do you keep yourself and your people motivated when we just got shat on by the New York Times? How do you bounce back?

We all looked to Chef and the amazing way he handled the situation. New York is tough; the restaurant business cutthroat. But Chef didn’t start screaming or railing against the Times. He was so incredibly calm, it calmed all of us. He treated the reviewer as he would have any other guest. He wrote him a personal apology. And then he brought us all together and said we will get through this one guest at a time. We continue to up our game.