Chef's Surprise

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Keller is painfully aware of the influence of the media. Born in California, he began working in a Palm Beach, Fla., restaurant run by his mother, and after serving apprenticeships at top restaurants in France, arrived in New York City in the monied mid-'80s, attracting a lot of media attention when he opened his restaurant Rakel in 1986. But when the market crashed in 1987 and Rakel struggled, Keller was savaged in the press. "My credibility was low after Rakel failed. I was labeled the chef who couldn't control food or labor costs."

He left New York and wandered the country, consulting for different restaurants before visiting Napa in 1992, where he came across the French Laundry. He pulled together a group of investors and opened in 1994. Keller thrived in the bucolic calm of the wine country. His manner mellowed, and he got his infamous temper under control. Keller's father was a Marine drill instructor. "He used to tear people apart and then build them up again. I used to be like that. But now if I shout at someone, I get embarrassed." He moved into the house behind the Laundry with Laura Cunningham, general manager of the restaurant. The awards stacked up. New York seemed the last thing on his mind.

But in 2001 Kenneth Himmel, head of Related Urban Development, a New York City based real estate development firm, flew out to talk to him. Himmel's company had been given the job of attracting retail outlets and restaurants to the new corporate headquarters of Time Warner, the company that publishes this magazine, going up on Columbus Circle at a corner of Central Park in Manhattan. Himmel had five restaurant spaces to fill and needed a megastar to anchor the project. Even though Keller had left New York under a cloud, Himmel was betting he could lure him back. The enticement was prime location floor space in one of the most exclusive parts of the city, with a postcard view of the park.

Keller went to Adam Block, who wondered aloud whether Keller was ready to return to the cutthroat New York market. It was time to try again, Keller decided. After five days and three all-night negotiating sessions with Himmel, they did the deal. Critically, Block inserted a clause into the contract that gave Keller veto rights on other restaurants in the development. Block didn't want to see Keller's brand tarnished by sharing space with a franchise. He had a $10 million to $12 million investment to protect fancy New York restaurants don't come cheap. Keller helped line up an all-star team: Masa Takayama from the $300-a-sitting Ginza Sushi-Ko in Los Angeles, Gray Kunz (Lespinasse in New York) and Charlie Trotter (Charlie Trotter's in Chicago). Jean-Georges Vongerichten (Jean Georges and Vong in New York) made up the fifth.

Keller knew the point would come when he would no longer be able to cook full time, so his thoughts turned to creating something that would outlive him. "Most people's legacy is their kids. I don't have any kids, so my legacy is the restaurant. And to keep the continuity, the key is picking the right people and training them."

For head chef at Per Se, Keller picked Jonathan Benno, 34, who has worked with him in Yountville for two and a half years. Keller will get the kitchen in New York up and running, and then Benno will take over in May. Benno will be working with 18 other alumni from the French Laundry whom Keller has transplanted to New York. And of course Keller will be in constant video contact from Napa--"I want to create real synergy because I am trying to create two fine dining restaurants," he says.

To the 48 original investors who helped finance the French Laundry, Keller is more a rare creative talent who needs to be nurtured a Michelangelo in the Medici court than an opportunity to squeeze ever higher returns out of their investment. "It is not about maximizing profit," says Joe Wender, an advisory director with Goldman Sachs in New York City who recently moved to Napa and sits on Keller's council. "Moving to New York is one of the most high-risk things he could do. It is Thomas saying, 'I want to create something great and unique in the New York market.'"

Still, Keller says he cannot afford to lose money either. To set up Per Se, he closed the French Laundry for four months. "At $650,000 a month [in lost revenue], that adds up to a lot of money," he says. He is banking heavily on success his second time round in New York hence the long hours spent training his staff for the move over the past 18 months. "The only two ways we are going to fail is if the building is a flop, or if we fail as a team." He pauses and smiles faintly. "So the thing is, will the building fail?" And that, finally, is something even the perfectionist Thomas Keller cannot control.