PHOTOS: DEBORAH JONES
French Laundry
have a value relationship to it. Whether you’re spending $30 or $300, you can still feel like you’ve been taken advan- tage of in any situation, whether it’s going to a massage or you’re going to a play or out to dinner. What we want to do is make sure that we have that value perception. It is an expensive restaurant so we want to make sure the guests who come to our restaurant have a great ex- perience and go home with a memory. •••
With so many restaurants across the nation you must give up a little bit of control since you can’t be everywhere at once. What is your hiring philoso- phy that allows you to maintain that level of excellence? You are certainly right and control is a relative term and
chefs are inherently control freaks. As we begin to mature and grow, I think we have to understand that control has to be derived in different ways. It’s much like a sports franchise with the way I look at a kitchen. When you think about that it’s a young person’s game, you really have to be at peak performance in peak shape. After a while you have to say, “What am I going to do if I cannot continue
to physically do this and I need to move outside the game but I can still have an impact on managing?” And one of those is hiring, making sure you are hiring individuals who have not necessarily a passion, but a strong desire to do a good job. That’s really what it comes down to. I think that’s true in any industry, some- body that has a really strong desire to do a good job. And with that you train and you mentor throughout their career
WINTER 2012 /
NCGA.ORG / 47
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