When the Chef is not actually in the kitchen

[JMayer]

Why all this defense of absentee-chefs?

It's not so much a defense. More like: "How can you tell the difference?" Many of the comments here suggests an emotional/visceral reaction that smells more like resentment than analysis. "I'm eating in Thomas Keller's restaurant, therefore I'm being cheated unless he cooks every dish for me personally." Even when he had only one restaurant, it didn't work that way.

There is no resentment on my end, just thought it was an interesting topic. I think I am approaching this issue trough a different lens then a lot of you out there in E-Gullet land. I am not talking about the mechanics of cooking, rather the “philosophical” (for the lack of a better word) nature of food. For me food is an art, it is an expression of an individual’s creative force and skill. A perfect dish can be a transcendental experience, a connection between the chef and the diner. The preparation of food at its highest level is about so much more then a bunch of people throwing together ingredients. Again, this all comes to what I value as an individual. Rightly so, many people have different conceptions of what a meal should be. My concern is that a talented chef such as Mr. Keller is stretching himself to thin by having two “marquee” restaurants. When Mr. Keller is in the kitchen mopping the floor (Soul of a Chef) or placing sauce on the plate the food in my opinion is affected (whether we know it or not). To actually taste, food that was impacted by the creator can be an awe-inspiring experience! Maybe I am too idealistic or foolish.

Sincerely,

Justin Mayer

[oakapple]

There is no resentment on my end, just thought it was an interesting topic. I think I am approaching this issue trough a different lens then a lot of you out there in E-Gullet land. I am not talking about the mechanics of cooking, rather the “philosophical” (for the lack of a better word) nature of food.

Yes, but you started by saying that if you paid $1000 for a Paul McCartney concert, you'd feel cheated if Joe Blow showed up and sang instead. So, indeed, would everybody. That's not philosophical, but substantive: you paid for one thing, but got something drastically different.

But nobody who goes to Per Se or The French Laundry believes Thomas Keller is personally cooking every dish that is served to them. Keller didn't literally do that even when TFL was his only restaurant. Perhaps you took some comfort in imagining that he did, but you would have been wrong. If, as a result of opening Per Se, either restaurant is not matching TFL's quality when it was Keller's sole focus, then that would clearly be a problem. But chefs sometimes lose control over quality even when they only have one restaurant. It has been known to happen!

So it isn't so much whether Keller's running 1, 2, or a dozen restaurants. It's whether he has them under control. In the case of Per Se and TFL, the two restaurants that started this discussion, it appears he does. There is nothing philosophical about this; either he is delivering the quality people expect at these restaurants, or he is not.

Perhaps it would be useful to discuss how other "celebrity chefs" have handled it, and whether they've succeeded. In New York, Alain Ducasse just installed Christian Delouvrier as executive chef at ADNY. Fat Guy reports that ADNY is still up to snuff. But Ducasse also put his name on Mix, which so far is not a success. Jean-Georges Vongerichten has put his name on more New York restaurants than anyone can count, and while some of them are better than others, he has yet to have an actual failure. I can't imagine the last time anyone believed JGV was actually cooking their supper.

Edited June 4, 2004 by oakapple (log)

[JMayer]

But nobody who goes to Per Se or The French Laundry believes Thomas Keller is personally cooking every dish that is served to them. Keller didn't literally do that even when TFL was his only restaurant. Perhaps you took some comfort in imagining that he did, but you would have been wrong. If, as a result of opening Per Se, either restaurant is not matching TFL's quality when it was Keller's sole focus, then that would clearly be a problem. But chefs sometimes lose control over quality even when they only have one restaurant. It has been known to happen!

I am getting a little irritated by the condescending nature of some of these posts. I will state this again I understand the Executive Chef does not actually cook my meal, and it does not “comfort” me to think that he is back there searing my tuna. What I have mentionend in previous posts is what I value as a diner (someone who considers himself educated in the Culinary Arts). Morover, OakApple who are you to tell me what is philosophical or not? Did you read my last post carefully?

Sincerely,

Justin

P.S. I am sorry I ever started the analogy game. And as a conversation naturally progresses people discover new truths, and realizes what they said previously may not be completely relevant.

Edited June 4, 2004 by JMayer (log)

[Pan]

My concern is that a talented chef such as Mr. Keller is stretching himself to thin by having two “marquee” restaurants.

Is that the crux of it? OK, so in that case, how would you determine whether he's stretching himself too thin? By tasting the food, right? I hope you don't find this post also to be condescending. For my part, I certainly don't mean to condescend. I think that perhaps up to this point, we haven't understood what your bottom-line complaint or concern is. Perhaps you could try to restate it simply?

[Busboy]

The analogy (those things again) between Keller and Sinatra is illuminating in a way other than its original intention. Keller is a celebrity chef. People admire and respect and gush over the guy. For those of us who have not had the privilege of dining in Bouloud so often that they have Daniel's schedule down pat (that's envy talkin', pure envy), not having the chef in the kitchen is a little bit of a letdown. It's not rational, it may not even be "right." But it's true, and it colors perception of the dinner.

There is also a legitimate concern in that that any operation sufferes when their leader is not their often enough -- whatever that may be. Ducasse, for example, seems to be able to recruit, train, inspire, compensate and terrify people effectively enough that he can run a global restaurant empire without his reputation suffering. As for Keller...let's hope he can, too. I have reservations.

Finally, let me throw out another analogy: football coaches. They don't play a down, but they run every aspect of the team; their creativity and drive set a tone that carries down to the least player; and some of them seem to be able to win championships year after year, with an ever-changing cast of players.

[JMayer]

My concern is that a talented chef such as Mr. Keller is stretching himself to thin by having two “marquee” restaurants.

Is that the crux of it? OK, so in that case, how would you determine whether he's stretching himself too thin? By tasting the food, right? I hope you don't find this post also to be condescending. For my part, I certainly don't mean to condescend. I think that perhaps up to this point, we haven't understood what your bottom-line complaint or concern is. Perhaps you could try to restate it simply?

I would be more then happy to try to state things in more concise and clear manner. Myself as a diner, 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. Perhaps, Mr. Keller was the wrong chef to bring up. I hope this helps.

[JMayer]

The analogy (those things again) between Keller and Sinatra is illuminating in a way other than its original intention. Keller is a celebrity chef.  People admire and respect and gush over the guy.  For those of us who have not had the privilege of dining in Bouloud so often that they have Daniel's schedule down pat (that's envy talkin', pure envy), not having the chef in the kitchen is a little bit of a letdown. It's not rational, it may not even be "right." But it's true, and it colors perception of the dinner.

There is also a legitimate concern in that that any operation sufferes when their leader is not their often enough -- whatever that may be.  Ducasse, for example, seems to be able to recruit, train, inspire, compensate and terrify people effectively enough that he can run a global restaurant empire without his reputation suffering. As for Keller...let's hope he can, too.  I have reservations.

Finally, let me throw out another analogy: football coaches.  They don't play a down, but they run every aspect of the team; their creativity and drive set a tone that carries down to the least player; and some of them seem to be able to win championships year after year, with an ever-changing cast of players.

Well stated BusBoy. Thanks for your input. I am sorry if what I say does not always make sense. But I treat e-gullet as an open dialogue so I am constantly learning new things and bouncing ideas off people. I am sorry if the use of the word "condescend" offended anyone.

Sincerely,

Justin

Edited June 4, 2004 by JMayer (log)

[DonRocks]

Could the idea of being disappointed at not having the 'celebrity chef' in the kitchen be an indictment of the idea of the 'celebrity chef'?

Yes, hopefully.

But it's more of an indictment, a legitimate indictment, a long-overdue indictment, a commonly repeated and even more commonly dismissed indictment, of the absentee chef.

Cheers,

Rocks.

[lala]

I'm not going to get into analogies, but there is a basic business truth: the successful manager is the one who has hired the right people, and trained them so well that when he/she is not there, no one can tell the difference. This would mean that the manager/chef has created the vision, set the palate and standards, then his/her staff is capable of producing up to those standards, consistantly, night after night.

As a measure of success in this type of thing, these days it's the Chefs as often as the Owners (read: star chef) who are getting the accolades. Several times, the chef in charge of the restaurant has won the James Beard award, not the Star Chef. Just last month, a good example of this in Seattle: Tom Douglas is the "Star" Chef, with three (and soon, a fourth) restaurant, and while he won a James Beard award a decade ago, when he had one restaurant, it's his Chef, Erik Tanaka who just won this year. Eric is the one who does the actual overseeing of the day to day operations of the empire.

Now, I'm not saying that Tom Douglas is an equal to Thomas Keller, but good management is good management. It takes a team to create and run a restaurant anyway, and the chances of the Star Chef actually cooking your particular food even when he/she is in the kitchen is slim.

Edited June 4, 2004 by lala (log)

[Busboy]

I'm not going to get into analogies, but there is a basic business truth: the successful manager is the one who has hired the right people, and trained them so well that when he/she is not there, no one can tell the difference. This would mean that the manager/chef has created the vision, set the palate and standards, then his/her staff is capable of producing up to those standards, consistantly, night after night.

See, here's the problem with chef-as-manager. A manager's job is to make the trains run on time -- get the food in, prepare the menu, hire and fire, see that the payroll is met and the health inspectors are paid off and the food costs are in line with revenue projections. I expect that all great chefs are competent managers, or, at least, that all great restaurants have one on on staff.

Unfortunately, a great restaurant is not the product of an efficient business plan. A profitable restaurant is the product of an efficient business plan.

Make no mistake, profit is good. 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. At some level, if he is not there enough, that genius will be transmitted less effectively to the plate put before the diner and Keller franchise will become merely a profitable food industry franchise, rather than, say, the best chef in America (or whatever we want to call him).

I don't know at what point that will occur; I expect, from what I've read, that Keller lays awake at night wondering about this himself. But there is unquestionably a finite number of restaurants any individual can run, and keep all of them, or any of them, in top form. Brilliant cooking is ultimately more than an assembly-line product, as much as it may look that way from the line in the middle of a shift.

Think about it (and I'll bet someone here can give us an insightful guess) of all the talented sous chefs and executive chefs who have worked under Ducasse or Keller or whomever, and spent years absorbing training, technique and management skills from them, have gone on to equal their mentors? Even given that you have to be a hell of a chef or a cook just to get into those kitchens?

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

[Pan]

I would be more then happy to try to state things in more concise and clear manner. Myself as a diner, 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 we're back to me being nonplussed. I have never worked in a kitchen, but I'm a musician, and I don't see why the composer's presence is necessary. Am I unable to transmit Bach's genius because he's dead?

[DonRocks]

Am I unable to transmit Bach's genius because he's dead?

No, but if you showed up as a stand-in for an Emmanuel Pahud recital, people would be pissed.

[Pan]

Am I unable to transmit Bach's genius because he's dead?

No, but if you showed up as a stand-in for an Emmanuel Pahud recital, people would be pissed.

That begs the question of whose conception is at issue.

Though oddly enough (?), Pahud is one of the flutists whose conceptions are most similar in spirit to mine or vice versa.

[Yannii]

i, too, find this discussion very interesting. I think at it's core, this discussion is a struggle to define and understand the concept of "the culinary arts".

is an executive chef a man of great vision and inspiration, who simply creates fabulous menus and the elaborate systems needed to reproduce that menu on a nightly basis (analogy: mass production artists like Warhol).

or is an executive chef a master manager, who deftly manipulates a large staff in order to serve the highest quality food to each and every customer (analogy: great orchestra composers).

or is an executive chef a hands-on food expert, who is constantly tasting and adjusting sauces and recipes in order to respond to the freshness and the availability of the products as well as the ever changing environment and audience to which they are served.

clearly, i believe that a great executive chef combines all three roles seamlessly, and the so called ,"absentee celebrity chefs" are more like culinary visionaries/ menu creators who don't have the time or desire to properly ensure the quality of the product or the staff on a daily basis.

i have found in my life/career that it is extremely difficult to truly give someone else your artistic vision. other people can understand parts of it or whatever, but there is no amount of training that would allow someone to execute Keller's menu and vision as well as Keller. does that make sense?

we all eat three times a day (or so) and food is, obviously, as much a useful product, as it is an artistic expression, but in terms of the arts, there is, imho, no substitute for an original! chefs should be in the kitchen!

Edited June 4, 2004 by Yannii (log)

[robert brown]

For what it's worth, I'll share two conversations with one great chef and one great chef de cuisine of a great chef. Pierre Gagnaire told me 15 years ago that if he was away from his kitchen for more than a couple of days, the cuisine suffered. Guy Gateau, whom we recently had in for a roundtable, said that when Alain Chapel went off to cook somewhere, the chefs he left behind had mixed feelings. They liked the freedom of the boss not being around, but after a few days they began to miss his presence and the reassurance it gave. I put forth the dictum in the old Symposium that restaurants only get worse. I think the main reason is because the bigger chefs get, the less attetion they pay to their original restaurant. I don't think the music analogy or comparison holds for a gifted soloist, but maybe for a symphony. If Leonard Bernstein couldn't show up to conduct Mahler's 9th, maybe the performance would have lacked if it were led by, say, Erich Leinsdorf. It's hard to know as it depends on the quality of the guys in the kitchen and the type of food they cook. Back when Gagnaire was really wailing before he moved to Paris, you never would have had a special experiences if he wasn't around. I had a bad meal at the French Laundry because Keller was off watching the 2002 World Series in Anaheim. To me it was an indication that his guys in the kitchen were maybe watching the game as well. However, at Per Se last Sunday afternoon Keller was taking time off, but he was in town since someone told me he would be in the kitchen for dinner. I think the meal would have been comparable were he there when I was. Now let's take Ducasse. It's a fluke if he's around when you are. I wouldn't even count on his being there. Yet he seems to have his various brigades cooking the way he wants them to. On the other hand, I would be wary of eating at Blue Hill if both Mike and Dan were absent, though this is just a guess that the cuisine would suffer. So a lot depends on the conceptions, how well the chef de cuisine knows and delgates them, and how good a delegator and teacher the chef-restaurateur himself is.

[Daddy-A]

Good conversation ... good reading.

I think the best answer to the original question in this thread came early on ... something to the tune of "It only matters if it matters to that particular diner."

I'd also add the chef into that equation i.e. if its important to the chef that he's in the kitchen ... then it's important.

For what it's worth, I'll share two conversations with one great chef and one great chef de cuisine of a great chef.

Wonderful post ... and beautifully illustrative of the discussion ... and almost free of analogy

DA

[Bux]

The problem I'm having here is that many are assuming there has to be an answer to the question. Robert comes closer to expressing the non-absolute. He starts off with good evidence to support a conclusion, but then presents contrary evidence and says it depends. It depends on a lot of things, most particularly on the chef.

Take two brilliant chefs, or at least two different chefs running brilliant restaurants. One may have the capacity to stay in his kitchen improving his craft and his art and refining his food. Under him a succession of sous chefs come and go. Some go on to careers of their own. The other chef, also a chef/owner of one of the two best restaurants in the world, feels at an impasse after five or ten years in his kitchen. He's got a great talent, but he feels constrained and needs to grow in another way. It's his internal urge. He's found his restaurant hums with little or no involvement on his part, the machine is so well oiled and his staff so talented and disciplined. His sous chef of many years is where he was ten years ago just before he went out on his own, but times have changed. 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.

They will lend that kind of money to the chef with the name of one of the two best restaurants in the world however. He takes out the loan and starts a second restaurant. he gives his sous chef a decent raise and puts him in charge of one of the two restaurants. Maybe he even hired the sous chef from the other great restaurant in the world because that guy also can't raise enough capital to go it alone and he figures with two restaurants, the chef/owner has to relinquish some authority and his chance to make a name is better here than it was staying back at the other place. We've now got three restaurants. One has a full time chef/owner who's one of the top two chefs in the world and two have a full time owner but part time chef who's one of the two best chefs in the world plus full time chefs who have been worthy sous chefs to the worlds two best chefs. Of the three restaurants, which has the heaviest talent at the top and which is going to serve the best food. My guess is that the two restaurants with sous chefs who have been elevated are going to be the more exciting restaurants.

It's a fiction of course, but it's a situation that could well describe how Ducasse, Keller, Boulud, Vongerichten, Savoy etc. are operating. Still I only present it as one reasonable plausible option. In my fairy tale, I present the secondary chefs as ready and able to be chefs and that's precisely what's happening where a chef is running more than one successful restaurant, his second in command and in residence is a fully qualified chef in his own right. I don't know who's cooking at Bouchon in Las Vegas, but that doesn't prove Keller is spread thin. It's a bistro, a second label if you will and if it affects Keller's reputation in any way, it doesn't affect the meal you will have at Per Se.

[Bux]

  i have found in my life/career that it is extremely difficult to truly give someone else your artistic vision.  other people can understand parts of it or whatever, but there is no amount of training that would allow someone to execute Keller's menu and vision as well as Keller. does that make sense?

First, I think it's too limiting to say exactly what a chef should be. In my experience the great breakthoughs in many fields have come from someone outside the field. The chef who most fits the dominant or preferred mold may well be the one who's least able to bring a truly new and dynamic spark to cooking.

As for one's vision, a composer can ask an orchestra to make his vision a reality and an archtitect needs a contractor for the same purpose. There are often fields in which one man's vision requires a staff to bring it to fruition. There's no question that two different teams working on the same sheet music and instructions, architectural plans or recipe books will produce slightly different things. In the complex kitchen of a haute cuisine restaurant this is true whether the chef is there or not, but yes, a professional sous chef can be trained to excecute Keller's menus and vision. That's what a restaurant kitchen does every day. Neither the menu nor vision changes very much in a week and while even control freak chefs like to elicit feedback from underlings, there's limited room for creative input on a day to day basis. No one is talking about Keller taking a year off withoug checking up on his two restaurants.

[Exotic Mushroom]

Personally, I am always more impressed with a chef when I go to his restaurant and he isn't there and the food is amazing than if I know he's slaving away in the kitchen all night without a day off ever.

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.

I disagree. You make it sound like a great chef, when he leaves the kitchen, is basically just handing his employees a cookbook and telling them to follow the recipe exactly. But that isn't how it works. A good chef instills a part of himself in his cooks. You can look at a dish you made and know that you should sprinkle a little more cheese on it because that chef doesn't like things looking too clean. That might sound silly, but I don't know exactly how to express it.

How bout this? The other day, my chef left for the evening before I came into work. He had written down a special I was responsible for. He told me what was in it and that was it. But I know him so well that without him even showing me, I knew how he wanted it plated and exactly how much of each item he wanted in it. Or once, when he had also left early, he had one of my co-workers tell me what the special was. But I know his tastes and the way he combines food so well that I knew that my co-worker must have gotten it wrong when they told me it had scallops and mushrooms. Because those aren't two things that this particular chef would be likely to combine. And when I called him to verify, sure enough, the co-worker had been wrong.

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).

I don't know if the above example will just end up sounding silly, but I can't really think of another way to explain why I feel this is wrong. If a chef trains his employees properly, then everything that comes from them will be an expression of him. And even after you leave and work for someone else, when you cook, his signature will be permanently implanted on your cooking. You eventually start to see the chefs you've worked for in everything you do, even if you haven't seen that particular chef in years. (Now I am the one sounding gushy).

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.

[oakapple]

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.

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

That said, most restaurant cooking, and this includes Per Se and The French Laundry, is in fact "mass produced." Obviously it's not on the same scale as McDonald's slinging hundreds of hamburgers an hour, but even the best restaurants have "assembly lines" designed to produce the same things at the same high level of quality, over and over again, night after night. Keller's famous "Oysters and Pearls" dish is a classic that he and/or his staff reproduce night after night, not a single work of art (like the Mona Lisa) that is produced only once and can never be duplicated.

[Carlovski]

Has anyone considered that the food may be better when the head chef isn't there?

A creative genius who develops the most wonderful dishes may not necessarily be the best at running a brigade, or coordinating at the pass.

To continue the sporting analogies, the best players don't always make the best managers (But they might be good coaches...)

[Busboy]

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.

Without quibbling over the nature of genius, I think this is what I was getting at and why I think JMayer got a little more roughed up than he deserved -- aside from the talent the chef has for great cooking, he needs to have a separate talent for transmitting that skill. Some chefs have proven that that have it. Keller hasn't yet -- we certainly hope he does, but he hasn't proven it yet. Thus, his being out of the kitchen raises legitimate questions, especially in light of Robert Brown's commoents on TK and Gagnaire.

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?

[bbq4meanytime]

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?

[hathor]

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?

Long story short: it's a business.

If the chef were in it soley for the love of cooking, he would cooking for his friends.

[Bux]

The other day, my chef left for the evening before I came into work. He had written down a special I was responsible for. He told me what was in it and that was it. But I know him so well that without him even showing me, I knew how he wanted it plated and exactly how much of each item he wanted in it. Or once, when he had also left early, he had one of my co-workers tell me what the special was. But I know his tastes and the way he combines food so well that I knew that my co-worker must have gotten it wrong when they told me it had scallops and mushrooms. Because those aren't two things that this particular chef would be likely to combine. And when I called him to verify, sure enough, the co-worker had been wrong.

It's one thing to hear theories of what a chef is or should be from a diner with romantic ideas of what goes on, or should be going on in the kitchen at a great restaurant. It's another to hear from the back of the house. What Exotic Mushroom describes is what I've heard to be standard operating procedure at many if not most great restaurants. I don't doubt that there are chefs who need to be in the kitchen at all times for one reason of another, but for many, if not most, great chefs, it's not necessary. With a reasonably large and complex kitchen, if you haven't trained your staff to produce your food when you're not there, they probably can't do it when you are and you're not getting four star reviews.

For all that, there is someone in charge who is responsible. That person may, or may not have the creative ability of the chef and if he has it, he may have to keep it in check, but he has the discipline, technical command and respect from the brigade, necessary to do the job. In few of the really good restaurants in NY (3 and 4 stars) do I expect the chef to close the restaurant.

Are there cooks or chefs with four star (what the NY Times would call tops) kitchen experience who disagree with what Exotic Mushroom says here? It coincides with what I've heard from other cooks and speaks far more strongly to me than what others interpolate from other professions or from the tableside view of a restaurant.

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?

This is a good question. My guess is that it varies from restaurant to restaurant and from chef to chef, but it's still an interesting question.