In an era when most big-shot chefs seem content to rubber-stamp their latest expansion restaurant, Thomas Keller got meticulous when he brought the haute-Napa cooking of the French Laundry to New York City. First, he took the extreme measure of closing his baby in Yountville, California, for four months in order to concentrate on his new venture, Per Se, in the Time-Warner Center overlooking Columbus Circle. But then Keller still had a hard time accepting the fact that he wouldn't be in both kitchens at once. So he found a way to do it: via live two-way video hookup between Per Se and the French Laundry.
At Per Se, the call and response between Keller's chef de cuisine, Jonathan Benno, and his brigade of line cooks is dead serious and up-tempo: "Fire four rabbits straight up!" "Chef! Fire four rabbits straight up!" Benno's got all the nerve you'd hope to find in a brain surgeon, so there's no doubt your $210 prix-fixe dinner is in good hands. But Keller isn't AWOL. He's everywhere.
Above the kitchen door there's a surveillance-style camera mounted near a 37-inch plasma screen. The camera's lens probes the room while the screen shows what's up in Keller's kitchen out West. Both kitchens are classically French — white tile and stainless steel — so at first glance you might think the live feed is just a strange mirror. "It's always on," says Keller, who can also keep an eye on Yountville when he's in Manhattan. "And we just wave back and forth to each other."
During a recent evening visit, Per Se's kitchen was in high gear, but the view from California showed a solitary prep cook laying out row after row of dumpling wrappers. The digital snooping was fun: Banging around on the handheld remote control, you can examine the array of knives at every station at the French Laundry and even zoom in on the specks of flour on the workers' knuckles. The dedicated T1 line, though usually set on mute, can also deliver a lifelike clang of pots and pans from three time zones away.
The only decoration in Per Se's 5,000-square-foot kitchen is a row of five seven-by-nine-inch brass stars, including three presented by Michelin, mounted over the giant, custom-made $80,000 Bonnet stove. (Only three other New York restaurants have received the three-star treatment from Michelin.) The New York kitchen is modeled closely on its California parent, with the addition of a brass rotisserie that stands at the head of the room like a fiery pagan altar, its perpetual flame licking Long Island ducks. The idea for the most high-tech feature — the video link — came to Keller in Mexico. "I was sitting on the beach in Cabo," he says, "and trying to think of how I was going to stay connected to my staff, how we were going to share ideas."
