Perfecting Service Experience – the Thomas Keller way
“I think that you’ve got to make something that pleases you and hope that other people feel the same way.” Chef Thomas Keller.
I live in a tiny, tiny town called Yountville. For foodies, Yountville is synonymous with Thomas Keller and his superlative French Laundry restaurant. As America’s greatest chef, Keller has branded our little city as surely as Hollywood forms the aura for LA or the Daleys have shaped the image of Chicago or Orlando is Walt Disney.
Recently, The Chef opened his fifth restaurant in the village, fittingly called Addendum. Addendum is not just down-home cooking (fried chicken, barbeque, made-from-scratch ice cream), it’s take-out! In fact, Addendum is totally French Laundry NOT: the tab is $16, not $300; lunch not dinner; picnic tables not white linen; childhood classics not once-in-a-lifetime concoctions. Is this a celebrity chef gone wild, turning his back on a lifetime of gourmet cuisine to go down market?
Well, let’s take a quick detour from the usual stuff about customer service to an interlude on the food. Keller’s fried chicken, the core of the Addendum menu, has long been recognized as pretty special stuff. Bi-monthly Chicken Mondays are a Yountville institution; locals queue for an immersion into lemon-brined, supernaturally juicy, absurdly crispy, butter-milky fried chicken at Keller’s Ad Hoc Restaurant. So, okay, Addendum turns Ad Hoc’s sporadic treat into an everyday opportunity to put on some pounds joyously. But, while KellerFC may be America’s best (says Bruni, NY Times critic); chicken is not the best thing at Addendum. That would be: Bar-b-que. BBQ is not merely familiar; it’s the closest thing we’ve got to a national soul food. How, then, does somebody come along and make barbecue into a revelation? Addendum ‘cue is the familiar made fantastic, every day goodness made memorably good. The beef finds that pure place where the chew isn’t quite gone but “melts in your mouth” is not a cliché. The smoke is here, there, everywhere, but never takes over the flavor profile. Knowing that BBQ provokes serious emotions, I don’t want to set anyone off. North Carolina, K.C., Austin ‘cue: all terrific stuff. But, when Thomas Keller does it …
The Chef, in other words, manufactures wonderfulness whether he’s working up market or down. Ice Cream or souffle, Sou Vide or BBQ, chicken or foie gras, that’s just irrelevant. The Keller Brand encapsulates the magic of painstaking attention to detail bound to relentless application of creative technique. When you taste Keller food, you taste it: “oh, so, that’s what carrot is”
The specialness of Keller’s food flows not from genius or ‘raw talent.’ His not-so-secret ingredient is leadership. A few anecdotes from an intimidatingly large collection on how the Chef creates a culture of perfection:
a.) When Keller opened his great place in New York City (Per Se), he was so worried that his absence might lower quality standards back in Yountville that he installed a web cam to watch the food coming out of the French Laundry kitchen
b.) He personally led his crew each and every night, often on hands and knees, in a clean-up routine dauntingly exhaustive to even his clean freak lieutenants
c.) His kitchens operate in near silence, putting the lie to the histrionics of Hell’s Kitchen. In the Keller scheme, talented teams work in a quiet ballet of craftsmanship
d.) When a guest at French Laundry leaves the table, any food in progress for that table goes straight into the bin, insuring that nothing is served an instant past its prime.
Keller leads by example, and the point of his examples is that every detail counts. What does this perfectionist have to tell us about the idea of perfection?
“When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy.”
There are 110,000 chefs in America, and only one Keller. Few of us are as good at what we do as he is. Still, like any good chef, we can acknowledge that our job as service and support professionals amounts to delivering experiences we are proud of, and hoping that our customers feel the same way. The perfect service experience is as mythical as the perfect food. Our real goal is simple but incredibly hard: constant improvement.
“For me, that’s one of the important things about cooking. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today.” Thomas Keller
(Mark Angel is EVP and CTO, KANA)
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October 1st, 2011 at 5:49 am
Thanks, Mark, for my first exposure to Chef Keller’s cooking — certainly not my last. (I was also thinking tonight of your recommendation of http://www.enotecapinchiorri.com/, one of my other most memorable meals, but that’s a comment for another blog.)
The Keller leadership thing that I remember most visiting the kitchen at tFL after an amazing meal was the green piece of paper in the kitchen with big computer-printed letters, “Sense of Urgency,” (I know it’s a much fancier plaque by the clock now, but the version I remember is the green paper.)
I have a green piece of paper above my office workstation, too. It says, “Sense of urgency. -T. Keller.”
Thanks for sharing the insights! Here’s a question: from another boss, the webcam would have been creepy and distrustful. From Keller, it’s inspiring. Why?
October 5th, 2011 at 10:25 am
David, in answer to your question, perhaps the reason the web cam isn’t creepy is because the people who work for Thomas feel ‘connected’ because of the web cam? When you want to work for inspirational people you want to immerse yourself in everything they do. This means being near them and known by them so that you can learn by example as well as by instruction. The fact that Thomas uses a web cam means that he really cares about what’s happening when he can’t be personally present. He can see the good as well as the bad and the remote team know that he’s bothered/interested and not relying on hearsay. It speaks volumes for the commitment of the man to everyone who works for him.
October 6th, 2011 at 2:30 am
David’s comment is interesting because it seems so often that leadership lessons are pretty elusive and good leaders break all the rules. How do you rationalize the styles of Ellison, Gates, Jobs, Hsieh and Bezos?
At the end of the day, when we actually work with someone as opposed to judge them from afar, a lot of this may come down to a simple dynamic: am I going to follow this person, with all their inevitable quirks and sub-optimizations? If a leader has integrity, and seen as acting consistent with his or her vision, i think we tolerate a lot. Keller’s vision is perfection of detail. i’ve got to guess that his team says “of course he’s gonna watch everything we do, because he cares about the guests”, where with a leader less credited with pure motives, the camera would be big brother.
i may be wrong, but what i see in teams that work in high performance environments (like world class restaurants and silicon valley software companies) is a willingness to judge a leaders actions thru the prism of the leader’s competence and commitment. Where competence and commitment are unquestionable, we barely question actions that would otherwise create a storm of criticism.
October 6th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Mark and Anne -
Great thoughts. Thanks.
dbk