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Thomas Keller Plans Burger Joint (and Much More)

Posted by Ed Levine, September 24, 2007 at 6:00 PM

Uber-chef Thomas Keller, French Laundry and Per Se overlord, is getting into the butcher, burger, and frozen entrée business, according to Bloomberg News. Can this notorious control freak pull all these new businesses off? I think the answer is yes, though there will certainly be some bumps along the way.

For Keller, like the Mario Batalis and Tom Colicchios of the world, restaurants are much harder to clone and open because they require a lot of talented, experienced, and skilled people. So it becomes much harder to open another Per Se or even another Bouchon, because each of them has so many moving parts. But a burger place (even one called Burgers and Bottles) is a much simpler proposition. Keller knows both high and low delicious, and if you know delicious you can open a burger joint. I've had the sliders at Bouchon in New York (above), and they are indeed seriously delicious.

The same thing can be said for a butcher shop. I guarantee that with all his old-fashioned restaurant experiences Keller is a superb butcher, as are many of his cooks. When you break down hundreds of whole pigs or lambs you learn how to butcher. Let's take all the prospective new businesses one at a time. The sliders at Bouchon Bakery are terrific, though it must be said it helps to have access to Per Se kitchen equipment and leftover ingredients.

As for the frozen entrees I know of Five Leaf and Cuisine Solutions, its parent company, and they do very high end frozen sous vide dishes. Hence Keller is making lobster "mac and cheese with orzo." Believe me, Stouffer's this is not. We'll order some and report back to you.

So I for one am confident that Keller will be able to pull this juggling act off. As I said, there may be some bumps in the road along the way, but remember. We are talking Thomas Keller and not Tyler Florence here.

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