6 Sassiest Quotes from Thomas Keller’s HuffPo Interview

By Meesha Halm

The typically reserved Thomas Keller showed his teeth in a recent interview with the Huffington Post. Keller chided the interviewer for not doing his homework (“Did you do any research on me whatsoever?”) and took umbrage with Corby Kummer’s criticism of tasting menus (“I'm not sure what the point of the article was”). The whole interview is worth a read but here are our six favorite quips from the article. Check it out in full here.

On empty platitudes from star-struck guests: 

“If I serve you a piece of fish and I have to make a compromise and for whatever reason I didn’t get it exactly right, and then you come back in the kitchen and say, 'Thomas, that was amazing, the best fish I ever had,' to me, you're a schmuck. Because I know I could have done a better job.”

On the rise of the celebrity chef: 

"We didn't create the celebrity chef, the media did…  I wish that you would call them leaders in the profession. We don't call people in the medical field 'medical celebrities.'"

On spreading himself too thin:

"I would be if I were the one cooking at all of my restaurants. But the point is not to be everywhere at once; it's to create a team that you trust entirely."

On the San Francisco dining scene:

"We don't have those iconic restaurants here; they're all gone. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's people's [lack of] commitment to restaurants or the need for change." 

On what’s next:

"Why can't we just continue doing what we're doing? It's hard for a chef, because if I open another restaurant I'm 'spreading myself too thin' and if I don't it's 'why aren't you opening another restaurant?'"

On the future of the French Laundry: 

"I hope it stays here. The goal is for it to become someone else's restaurant. Whoever takes it from me will take what I've done and do better."