I hope I’m wrong and that this article never sees the light of day. At the same time, I’ve been in the Kitchen for most of my life and have worked at enough shitty places to where I think I know when I’m getting pre-made fries.
If you had asked me a week ago what I thought of Chef Thomas Keller, I would have had you read this piece that I just posted on the guy. If you don’t want to read it, let me sum it up by saying that I referred to him as the culinary equivalent of Prince and now… Now I’m waiting to find out if my gut is right and I am so fucking hoping that I’m wrong.
I went to his Pop Up recently…
Fuck me for having high expectations. As I was on cloud nine and crossing the street thinking I was about to eat the best fried chicken sandwich of my life, I saw the last fucking thing I needed to see, a motherfucking Sysco truck. Remember in Kill Bill when Uma sees the bad guy and that weird alarm music starts playing? Yeah, that was playing in my head. There was no way this was real. It’s Yountsville; they don’t have shitty restaurants in this town.
But I still went in to find out for myself.
I paid $112 (not a typo) for two Sandwiches, two orders of fries, and a half bottle of wine (for the wife). And honestly, even if it was all made in-house, it was disappointing. Again, I’m waiting to get my facts straight but all of my instincts are telling me those fries were from the back of a Sysco truck. The main thing is they were “Crinkle cut,” which in many cases is a fucking dead giveaway.
I’ve made fries from scratch at a lot of places; it’s not hard. You have a wall-mounted press, you put the potato in, pull the lever and it pushes em through a square grate. Rinse em off to get rid of the extra starch, blanch at low heat for a few minutes, then finish em at a higher temp so they’re nice and crispy. It’s not fucking rocket surgery.
Yes, you can make crinkle-cut fries from scratch, but it’s a lot more labor-intensive since you have to slice em by hand with a weird-looking knife. If you’re not doing high volume, maybe it’s feasible. But this place has a line down the block most days, so keeping up with the demand for normal fries would be a pain in the ass, but not unrealistic, especially when you’re one of the most respected Chefs in the world. Crinkle-cut would make things even more difficult.
Yes, I have high expectations.
And Thomas Keller is why I do, he was one of the dudes who inspired me. No, I wasn’t expecting him to be working the grill; I didn’t expect him to grow the potatoes or raise the cattle for the burgers. But I expected more than what was delivered. I mean, for fucks sake, Pig fat ain’t hard to render and it gives the flavor a bit of a boost. I know it’s a burger Pop-Up but I expect more from Keller and his team.
I did some digging…
It’s not hard to find, just type “Does Thomas Keller use Sysco?” and you’ll come across a full page of allegations dating back 18 years. Reading this made me sick to my stomach. This isn’t just some fuck head with an embroidered jacket and an ego, this is Thomas Keller. This is the guy who wrote about paying attention to the ingredients and how each piece of fish is going to cook slightly differently because each fish is unique.
From what I’ve gathered, he prefers pre-made, frozen fries over fresh from scratch, citing consistency. Please re-read the last sentence from the paragraph above if you’re confused as to why this is an issue.
Food ain’t supposed to be perfect, it’s about making something amazing out of the imperfections and, as my brother used to say, turn shit into gold. So what if the Potatoes ain’t uniform, you’re one of the top Chefs in the world, you know how to make them amazing.
I contacted the powers that be.
The number listed goes to Bouchon and that was an answering machine for directions and reservations. I contacted the Pop-Up through their Instagram and they referred me to a PR firm (surprise surprise). I intentionally kept it vague but told them I was a food writer who was working on a story about the Pop-Up and wanted to get some details about the vendors so I could mention them by name in the article. I’m not lying to em, I’m just omitting the fact that I think Sysco is the worst fucking thing to happen to Chefs since booze was invented and has more or less fucked small independent restaurants.
This is where it gets interesting.
I originally got in touch with them on August 21st and answered their questions almost immediately. Then I didn’t hear anything for over a week before sending a follow-up. They responded that they still didn’t have an answer. This is a bit odd since what I’m asking shouldn’t be that hard for a PR firm to answer. It’s kind of their job to either know this information or be able to find it in a timely manner. Keep in mind, I’m just trying to find out what vendor is being used, not the PH level of the soil that the potatoes were grown in or even what cut of meat is being used for the burgers.
If they have nothing to hide, they should be bragging about where they get their meats and other items that they’re serving. If you’re using quality ingredients, you should be advertising it to sound fancy and justify your prices. If you’re weird about the question, there’s a higher chance that you’re hiding something and I may assume the worst, given my authority as a Chef, the previous history and the fact that I saw a Sysco truck leaving as I was walking up.
Yeah, I’m fucking furious.
I had this dude’s photo in my Kitchen for years, not only because I was a fan but because I wanted my cooks and dishwashers to be inspired. This is a dude who didn’t go to school and instead worked his way up from the dishpit to become a fucking legend. Finding out about these allegations… Fuck man, it hurt.
At the end of the day, he’s too big and too popular. He could come out with a line of Salad dressing, and they’d sell out based on his name alone.
This article won’t matter; that place is still going to have a line of people down the block who don’t give a fuck about the food. He’ll continue to run his Kitchen and I’ll run mine.