When the Chef is not actually in the kitchen

[Bux]

A million dollars won't open the same kind of restaurant. It takes twelve million and a bank won't lend an unknown sous chef that kind of money.

So I guess the high prices we pay at some of these restaurants are not for the marquee chefs but for the debt service on the loan?

Supply and demand set the maximum prices a restaurant can charge. No restaurant is going to survive if its debt service is so high that it can't be covered by what it can charge for the food and no restaurateur is going to lower his prices just because he's got a low overhead. As hathor said, it's a business. The new restaurant with the multimillion dollar debt can't charge more than its competition. The $12 million price tag is a metaphor for many things. Just as bank will be more eager to lend the money to a celebrity chef, a hotel will be even far more eager to lower its rent for a star chef, because his name is a draw for the hotel. it's just easier for a celebrity chef to open a new restaurant under his name than it is for a new kid to do the same, although the new kid may actually be the one who is responsible for the success or failure of the celebrity restaurant. Sophisticated diners will eventually know who's in the kitchen and his name may mean as much to them as the name on the marquee. It's a vicious circle. Of course it matters who's in the kitchen, it just doesn't always matter if you know his, or her, name or not.

Robert Brown mentioned Blue Hill in NY and the dependence on its two chefs, Mike and Dan. Mike is now upstate in their suburban offshoot and because it's a new and larger place, Dan is often there as well. Juan was in the kitchen while Mike and Dan were in Westchester the last time I was there. Service was a bit rough for a few minutes when we were first seated--it was Sunday, the manager's night off and I suspect some of the regular staff may be serving at the new place--but the food was right up there with the best of nights. Get to know Juan. His resume is excellent and he's up to the job. Everyone can be replaced, including the marquee chef, it it's the food you're after. The other guys are just not as bankable as the celebrity chef. The job of an educated diner is find out where the food is and not where the celebrity is that night.

[robert40]

I have seen this topic come so often and it never fail's to give me a chuckle.

I once worked at a restaurant in the early 90's that many consider one of the top five in the country.

In the six months I was there the chef/owner may have been in the kitchen during service a month out of that time. Likely less.

And you may be surprised to know that service may have been a bit more tense with him there then without.

Now after more then ten year's some have noticed this restaurant getting alittle stagnant.

Bottom line, the C.E.O of Ford was likely know where near the production line when your car went through. [ Likely why they don't last ten years anymore]

Same is the case of the celebrity chef.

As the case of Keller, well he is a total other entity.........

[docsconz]

I guess it depends on what you are willing to pay for. If all you are after is a great meal and you get it and the meal is good value for the money spent, what does it matter if the celebrity chef is there or not?

If, on the other hand, one hope that in addition to a great meal one wishes to be in the same building as "greatness" then it matters from a customer point of view.

My feeling is that the food is the main point and if the chef is there too, so much the better. If the chef's absence harms the ultimate product that is a bad thing and the restaurant will ultimately suffer. If the ultimate product remains top-notch even without the chef, then a new star is likely to be born. That is the way I felt about Jonathon Benno in the kitchen at Per Se.

[Bicycle Lee]

I think that if you want your reputation to be reflected in food, you have to cook it. It cannot just be YOUR guidelines that someone else (no matter how competent) is following IMO.

Thes comment might resonate with me if you can actually demonstrate to us that you can tell the difference. As others have noted here, even when the chef is physically present, he does not personally execute each and every dish, for each and every customer. Any chef who does must be operating on an extremely small scale, because there's only so much that a single human being can do.

In my experience with just local chefs I could tell when they were not in the kitchen, which leads me to believe that if I had sampled Keller's cooking several times (how would THAT be?) then I would be able to tell when it wasn't him...

[docsconz]

Perhaps there are some with whom it would make a difference and others with whom it would not. I think it speaks more to the level of a chef's management abilities.

[Bux]

Perhaps there are some with whom it would make a difference and others with whom it would not. I think it speaks more to the level of a chef's management abilities.

A chef's management abilities are likely to be unrelated to his cooking abilities, but I'll bet they're not unrelated to the reputation of his restaurant. I would think it would be almost impossible for a restaurant to turn out sufficient quanitities of top notch food to rise to the level of world class without a chef who had both cooking talent and management ability. Once at the top, the chef should be able to step away from the stove more often than from the management if he wants the restaurant to stay at the top.

I'll take that one step further, the meaning of chef is "chief," not cook. Although "chef de brigade" has come to shortened to "chef" and to mean cook in English, it refers to the person in charge of a kitchen crew. Julia Child, "The French Chef," was never really a chef and that's not the meaning of which we speak when talking about restaurants.

[docsconz]

Perhaps there are some with whom it would make a difference and others with whom it would not. I think it speaks more to the level of a chef's management abilities.

A chef's management abilities are likely to be unrelated to his cooking abilities, but I'll bet they're not unrelated to the reputation of his restaurant. I would think it would be almost impossible for a restaurant to turn out sufficient quanitities of top notch food to rise to the level of world class without a chef who had both cooking talent and management ability. Once at the top, the chef should be able to step away from the stove more often than from the management if he wants the restaurant to stay at the top.

I'll take that one step further, the meaning of chef is "chief," not cook. Although "chef de brigade" has come to shortened to "chef" and to mean cook in English, it refers to the person in charge of a kitchen crew. Julia Child, "The French Chef," was never really a chef and that's not the meaning of which we speak when talking about restaurants.

Agreed, although some chefs may be better at organizing a kitchen for when they are not there than others. Some chefs may have personalities that they simply cannot delegate that responsibility and so feel that they must always be there, even if they could get away.

[JMayer]

I don't wish to appear condescending again - which I never intended - but I am still having trouble grasping JMayer's point. Earlier on, he conceded that he doesn't expect the named chef to personally prepare every dish for ever diner. Yet, he says:

A meal is an expression of the person who has created the reciepe and or concept, and as thus only exerts its true character at the hand of the creator (sorry if this sounds over the top and gushy).

So here, again, is what amounts to the Frank Sinatra analogy: Frank has to be singing, or it isn't the same product. I mean no condescension, but I wish JMayer would stick to a theory. Either he expects the named chef to personally execute his meal, or he agrees that the chef does not literally do that. If the chef does not literally prepare each dish, then ensuring quality control over a product one doesn't personally touch is a matter of management, not of art. In this sense, it is not the same as Frank Sinatra, who really did have to personally sing his songs.

Oakapple sorry if what I said was slightly confusing:

A meal is an expression of the person who has created the reciepe and or concept, and as thus only exerts its true character at the hand of the creator (sorry if this sounds over the top and gushy). Bottom line, I would love to see more great chefs giving attention to their dishes by taking more active roles in the kitchens that turn out their dishes. Perhaps, Mr. Keller was the wrong chef to bring up. I hope this helps.

The sentence in bold was meant more metaphorically. Of course a chef cannot cook every meal, but he can be present and take an active role in the dishes that the kitchen is putting out.

Justin

[JMayer]

But expectations at Per Se are not of excellent management, and competently reproduced culinary blueprints, but of genius, and of genius that flows from a particular individual.

I think that it's easy for any one person to cook wonderful and creative meals. What requires the genius is for that person to be able instill his entire food mindset in those who work for him so that it stays with them forever. When Ducasse says, "I am in all of my kitchens all the time," that is exactly my vision of what a great chef should do. That statement should be completely true, because everything you think about food, from the exact degree you like to cook your green beans to what you would combine them with to where on the plate you would put them will be inside every single person who works for you. They don't need you present to replicate your vision. Micromanaging is easy. Not being there is what takes skill. I hope Keller is up to the task.

If it is easy to cook a wonderful and creative meal then I have been wasting my money all these years! If I wanted to see great teaching I would go sit in on a Harvard lecture and eat a ham sandwhich. Again this comes down to what you as an indivdual value as a diner, I myself am drawn to a restaurant by a chefs genius, not by how well he can manage and teach in a kitchen. Don't get me wrong, teaching does play an integral role in the kitchen, a chef must show others how to do things and impart his "wisdom" onto others. Moreover, a chef must be able to delegate the tasks involved in creating dishes. However, the fact remains if I am going to drop serious coin at a restaurant I am expecting that the chef will be back there conducting his crew and imparting his or her personal strokes of "genius" (of course chefs get sick and cannot always be present, but for the most part they can be present). Maybe the big issue here is whether a chef should also manage the many affairs of his restaurant? Or should he or she just focus on the food? (Last I checked many renowned musicans dont manage anything, not even when they go to the bathroom (just kidding!).

Justin

Edited June 4, 2004 by JMayer (log)

[Callipygos]

Is it me, or would Rocco DiSpirito serve as a valuable cautionary tale about absentee chefs here?....

[slkinsey]

I feel that meal at the height of its power is about so much more then just a group of highly trained indivduals putting together tasty dishes. A meal is an expression of the person who has created the reciepe and or concept, and as thus only exerts its true character at the hand of the creator (sorry if this sounds over the top and gushy). Bottom line, I would love to see more great chefs giving attention to their dishes by taking more active roles in the kitchens that turn out their dishes.

So, just so I understand what you're saying...

You don't necessarily think that the quality of the food will suffer if the big-name executive isn't in the kitchen when the food is prepared, right? I think there is ample evidence to support that this isn't true. Do you think you could taste or somehow sense the difference between a dish of his own conception prepared by Alain Ducasse at ADNY and the same dish prepared by Christian Delouvrier at ADNY? If your answer is "no" then I sense that you suppose you would be missing something else? Something "spiritual?"

Anyway, it would seem that you are saying that you like the philosophical (and, I would argue, somewhat quaintly romantic) notion of having the big-name executive chef in the kitchen, perhaps actually involved in the physical preparation of your meal? And that somehow you think there is a certain aspect of "soul" and "art" that is lost when the big-name executive chef isn't there? I'm not condescending here -- I'm trying to nail down what you think you would be missing.

As much as the popular imagination likes to romanticize the creative process, art and artifice don't really work that way. People like to imagine the tortured opera (or whatever) composer bent over his piano searching his soul until, eureka!, mother invention strikes and his very being flows from the pen to the page... then, later in the performance, he conducts the orchestra with such heartrending pathos that it can never be but lessened under anyone else's baton. This is great for the movies, but it's a complete fiction (sometimes perpetuated by my colleagues and me). It's all "magic" for the people sitting out in the audience -- no one behind the curtain thinks that way.

The way it really worked is that Rossini wrote an opera on contract, showed up at the theater to work on it with the original cast, maybe conducted and/or directed the first performances, and then went on his merry way with a fistfull of Florins or a sackfull of Scudi for his trouble. Although one could hold that an opera, sonata, symphony or quartet is "an expression of the person who has composed it" it does not hold that the composition "thus only exerts its true character at the hand of the creator." Guillaume Tell didn't suddenly lose its soul when Rossini left the theater, and it still hasn't despite the fact that the composer has been dead for 136 years.

I don't see why food should be any different in this respect. After all, a recipe is an abstract conception which is actualized only when it is executed, just like a composition when it is performed. It is "performance artifice." Someone like Keller or Ducasse is actually more intimately involved in the execution of his concepts than any composer or playwright due to hiring and training the cooks, periodic oversight of the kitchen, etc. The fact is that Keller and Ducasse probably haven't done any substantial cooking in their restaurants in years. Doing the actual cooking in high end restaurants is a young person's game, and by the time many chef's are starting their peak creative years, those days are behind them. It's a romantic notion to think that the executive chef is saucing your plate or taking your sweetbreads out of the saute pan.

To revise your earlier statement, I would suggest that (the gustatory element of) a meal at the height of its power is precisely about a group of highly trained indivduals putting together tasty and inspired dishes conceived by the chef. Now, can an executive chef spread himself too thin such that his restaurants start to suffer, either with respect to the execution of his conceptions or the conceptions themselves? Absolutely.

You can't mass produce art (or craft or whatever we want to call what extraordinary chefs feed us).

Yes you can. You just need to make sure that the same quality is there in the mass production. Ever heard of Stickley? How about Tiffany?

[JMayer]

Dare I use another analogy? Well here goes nothing! When a person attends Harvard Law School they pay a very hefty sum to attend this institution, as a result they expect certain things. One of the expectations is that renowned professors will teach them. Now within these law classes there will be several teaching assistants who the professor at times relies upon to teach the course, however, if the TA’s are always teaching the classes the students will be disappointed because they expected to be taught by the professor not the TA’s. Moreover, like a kitchen staff the TA’s do most of the “nuts and bolts” of the operation (grade papers and or tests, see students etc…); however, it is the right of the student to see the professor one-on-one and hear him or her lecture. Why is it the right of the student? Because they are paying a large sum of money that is not in proportion to the actual material worth of what they are receiving (leaving aside projected future income etc…). Sure Harvard law students have access to a massive library and almost unlimited resources, but so do students at large state universities. A student is paying for the renown of both the institution and faculty. There is no price you can put on being taught by an individual who has excelled to the very highest level of his or her field. Some people may think students that pay tons of money to be taught by someone is moronic (if I had a dollar for every person who thought I was stupid for spending $400 dollars for a meal I would be rich), but it comes down to what you value as an individual.

I am sure my above analogy has several holes in it, but could we please stick to advancing this topic and not picking apart peoples analogies. I merely offer this analogy as a way to bring out why I feel it is realistic for me to believe that the chef should be present in his or her kitchen. A great chef whether he or she likes it is a person of renown and if he or she is going to charge high prices then it is the publics right to have them in the kitchen. What are we actually getting as a consumer at Per Se, unreal service yes, great food prepared in a state of the art kitchen yes, a massive wine list yes, but there comes a point where the actual worth of what your getting comes down to more then just these and other physical components. Why do some people gladly pay millions for art that they could buy a copy of for $50 bucks in Central Park? For some people you cannot put a price on genius. Could we not get a bunch of Harvard MBA’s together and culinary schoolteachers together, buy Thomas Kellers cookbook, and make a restaurant that rivals FL or Per Se (I wonder?)? Where do we as consumers draw the line between the actual material worth of what we are getting and the artistic value? How much would you pay for fabulous meal that is turned out by an assembly line?

Food for thought,

Justin

[JMayer]

Thank you Samuel for a very thoughtful post

Edited June 4, 2004 by JMayer (log)

[brioboy]

There's a PhD dissertation in here somewhere....

Aside from the quite correct construct of chef as impressario, the interesting idea raised here was that it matters to those for whom it matters and not for those concentrating solely on the objective experience/food/reality of the meal. But why would it matter to those for whom it does?

David Mamet (who should know/think about fame) has a line about how the product of the artist has become less imnportant than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has absorbed the tragic/sublime/epitomized experience and in this society that person becomes more important than anything he/she might create...

[hathor]

David Mamet (who should know/think about fame) has a line about how the product of the artist has become less imnportant than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has absorbed the tragic/sublime/epitomized experience and in this society that person becomes more important than anything he/she might create...

Leave it to Mamet ... what a brilliant line. So, so true in these days where marketing trumps all.

[Exotic Mushroom]

Could we not get a bunch of Harvard MBA’s together and culinary schoolteachers together, buy Thomas Kellers cookbook, and make a restaurant that rivals FL or Per Se (I wonder?)?

I would say absolutely not. A chef is not his cookbook. My point was that he doesn't have to actually be there after you've been trained by him or someone who he himself has trained and appointed to train you. Could the French Laundry, staffed as it is, without Keller ever returning, remain just as good a restaurant? I think that is a more appropriate question, and if Keller has done his job right, I think it could. Because he, through teaching and training, has become a part of his cooks. That isn't something you can get from reading a book and following instructions.

How much would you pay for fabulous meal that is turned out by an assembly line?

What do you mean by "assembly line"? Because that's exactly what the French Laundry kitchen is. A bunch of people who put one thing on a plate and then pass it to the next person who then puts their part on the plate.

Exotic Mushroom, granted your ability to knock out the chef's cooking with the same skill he does, how long could your chef be out - and how far away could he go -- before your cooking and his began to diverge? At what point would it become, for better or for worse, more your kitchen than his?

I would say that as long as I remain committed to executing his vision, they will not diverge. If, at some point, I decided that I wanted to do my own thing, or cook my green beans just a little more al dente because that's what I personally prefer, then the cooking would be different. If I decided that since I like the way scallops and mushrooms taste together, so I was going to put them on a plate together, then it would be more my kitchen than his. Basically, he has trained me so that I know what he would do, and the way he has instilled his values in me, I won't forget them. Ever. They are now a part of me. So the kitchen would be his as long as I remained committed to keeping it that way.

Of course, if he never returned, then he would not pass onto me the ways he his growing as a cook. And the food would not develop. I could keep cooking a snapshot of where he is at this particular moment forever, but eventually people wouldn't want to come there to eat it because it would cease to be interesting. A chef does need to be in his kitchen and constantly passing on how he is growing and changing, and I don't know if I'm qualified to say that such a thing requires x number of days per month or whatever. It varies from chef to chef. But I don't think you need to be there anywhere near every day to have it still be your food as long as you have a well trained person running things.

[JMayer]

David Mamet (who should know/think about fame) has a line about how the product of the artist has become less imnportant than the fact of the artist.  We wish to absorb this person.  We wish to devour someone who has absorbed the tragic/sublime/epitomized experience and in this society that person becomes more important than anything he/she might create...

Leave it to Mamet ... what a brilliant line. So, so true in these days where marketing trumps all.

Interesting points. However, the fact remains that artists such as Mamet and top chefs are charging a premium price for their product and in turn are making hefty profits (maybe not so much for chefs). As such, they have a certain responsibility to the consumer! Obviously, for each genre of art this responsibilty varies, in Mamet's case it would be to turn out quality movies etc...

Justin

[Exotic Mushroom]

To revise your earlier statement, I would suggest that (the gustatory element of) a meal at the height of its power is precisely about a group of highly trained indivduals putting together tasty and inspired dishes conceived by the chef.

Whoever said this, you are absolutely right.

If it is easy to cook a wonderful and creative meal then I have been wasting my money all these years!

I'm sorry if I suggested that it's easy for everyone to cook a wonderful and creative meal. What I meant was that there are a whole lot more amazing cooks running around than amazing chefs. I can make amazing meals that blow everyone eating them away. I know several other people, professional cooks and home cooks, who can do this. This does not mean that any of us is qualified to be a chef or that we would be a good ones.

I myself am drawn to a restaurant by a chefs genius, not by how well he can manage and teach in a kitchen.

But how well he manages and teaches a kitchen is the chef's genius. This is the difference between a cook and a chef. A cook cooks. A chef conducts cooks.

However, the fact remains if I am going to drop serious coin at a restaurant I am expecting that the chef will be back there conducting his crew and imparting his or her personal strokes of "genius"

But if a chef has done his job well, then everything will be executed identically with or without him present. I guess I don't really understand why you insist that the chef be present, except to help fulfill some romantic fantasy of Keller brunoising your carrots behind the kitchen doors.

Maybe the big issue here is whether a chef should also manage the many affairs of his restaurant? Or should he or she just focus on the food?

But a restaurant is a business. Even if the front of the house is managed by somebody else entirely, the kitchen is a business. You can't focus on the food without also being involved with how much you can spend on food or who is cooking that food. A chef will have people to help him with that, but ultimately, that's why he's there. For the other stuff, you have line cooks.

Edited June 4, 2004 by Exotic Mushroom (log)

[Exotic Mushroom]

However, the fact remains that artists such as Mamet and top chefs are charging a premium price for their product and in turn are making hefty profits (maybe not so much for chefs). As such, they have a certain responsibility to the consumer!

Yes, their responsibility to the consumer is to run a kitchen that turns out consistent food of a certain quality that reflects their spirit, creativity, and values. If they can do that without being in the kitchen, why should they have to be?

[hathor]

David Mamet (who should know/think about fame) has a line about how the product of the artist has become less imnportant than the fact of the artist.  We wish to absorb this person.  We wish to devour someone who has absorbed the tragic/sublime/epitomized experience and in this society that person becomes more important than anything he/she might create...

Leave it to Mamet ... what a brilliant line. So, so true in these days where marketing trumps all.

Interesting points. However, the fact remains that artists such as Mamet and top chefs are charging a premium price for their product and in turn are making hefty profits (maybe not so much for chefs). As such, they have a certain responsibility to the consumer! Obviously, for each genre of art this responsibilty varies, in Mamet's case it would be to turn out quality movies etc...

Justin

So, we should ask ourselves, why the desire to eat at a 'celebrity chef' restaurant? How did we ever hear of Keller in the first place? I believe marketing places a major factor in any of these top end 'celeb chef' restaurants. Do you think Jean George does not have a publicity staff? To what extent are the 'bragging' rights a component in choosing a restaurant? Why do restaurants sell lots of 'name' wines when comparable and cheaper wines sit untouched?

A t-shirt by Karl Lagerfield for Chanel, has more cachet, but the same amount of cotton as the t-shirt from the Gap.

[Exotic Mushroom]

A t-shirt by Karl Lagerfield for Chanel, has more cachet, but the same amount of cotton as the t-shirt from the Gap.

But better cotton and better cut and better fabric drape and is better designed. It is undeniably worth more. How much more depends on how much money you have to spend and how much you value the quality of fabric, cut, drape, design, and craftsmanship in your t-shirt. Same goes with dinner at The Olive Garden vs. dinner at Oliveto.

Edited June 4, 2004 by Exotic Mushroom (log)

[Pan]

Dare I use another analogy? Well here goes nothing! When a person attends Harvard Law School they pay a very hefty sum to attend this institution, as a result they expect certain things. One of the expectations is that renowned professors will teach them. Now within these law classes there will be several teaching assistants who the professor at times relies upon to teach the course, however, if the TA’s are always teaching the classes the students will be disappointed because they expected to be taught by the professor not the TA’s.

In this case, I'd probably feel the same way, but only if the TAs are in fact inferior to the professors. There are many examples of famous musicians who have charged a lot of money for lessons but couldn't or didn't teach well, whereas their less famous proteges were in many cases excellent and far superior teachers. I would assume that there are similar instances in every field. And of course, there's another level here: Studying under a big-name professor is more prestigious, and that could perhaps help in job applications and so forth - which is, of course, irrelevant here (except perhaps for the perceived prestige of having your food cooked while the Chef is in the kitchen).

What I'm getting from you is that this is about your expectation (which seems somewhat unrealistic) and the mere fame of the Chef as opposed to the lesser-known people who work for him. But perhaps you'll clarify that it's really something else?

[DonRocks]

But how well he manages and teaches a kitchen is the chef's genius. This is the difference between a cook and a chef. A cook cooks. A chef conducts cooks.

And when (s)he is not there, he's not conducting the cooks.

I heard Scott Bryan say, many years ago before he was at Veritas, that when he's gone for more than a few days, he comes back and the sauces are no longer his.

Many chefs want to believe, and do a really good job convincing themselves (and others), that they can "pull it off" and run multiple restaurants. But it's not the same, and the more removed the chef becomes from being on-site on a daily basis, the further the individuality and soul of the restaurant become diluted.

Cheers,

Rocks.

[Exotic Mushroom]

And when (s)he is not there, he's not conducting the cooks.

To me, "conducting" cooks is not about being there watching over their shoulders how they plate every dish. It's about making them not need you there and having things being exactly the same anyway. You train them to act as though they were an extension of you. And they become that.

I'm not saying every chef or even every good chef can do this. Some or most need to micromanage and to be present constantly. But I think great ones can. It's an issue of training.

[JMayer]

I will fully admit I have romantic ideals about chefs and restaurants, but don’t we all have to some extent. Perhaps what I am saying is not inline with the reality of how “real” restaurants are run (utopian ideals?) Moreover, maybe using the word “chef” was wrong in the first place, seeing as how it has been pointed out that the etymology of the word chef has many more connotations then just cooking. Maybe the real issue is why do we not celebrate cooks more? Why is there not more people aspiring to be “head cooks”? Why are there not more threads about cooks on E-Gullet? Would it not be great to go to the “top” restaurant in the world with the expectation that the “head cook” (who is renowned for his culinary genius and vision, and not necessarily a young upstart) would be in the kitchen having an impact on the dishes that were coming out? Perhaps I am guilty of giving the head chef too much prominence in the actual day-to-day, and am not viewing him/her in the proper light and appreciating that.

Sincerely,

Justin

P.S. Thanks to all who have participated so far.

Edited June 4, 2004 by JMayer (log)