Thomas Keller Goes Continental
Chef Talks About His New Restaurant at Hudson Yards
nestled in the heart of new york city’s brand-new Hudson Yards mega-development sits chef Thomas Keller’s latest venture, TAK Room. A long time in the making, the restaurant—named for Thomas Aloysius Keller himself—aims to serve as a neighborhood centerpiece, an ode to the continental cuisine that once reigned supreme in Europe and America. Keller spoke to Newsweek about the role of restaurants in creating a community, being a chef in the age of social media and the comfort inherent in the food of yesteryear.
When you were approached about Hudson Yards, what was your initial reaction?
They first approached me about this project around 2008, 2009, when they were starting to explore the opportunities around here, and they saw what their vision was. Of course, part of that is always to include restaurants. And building new community restaurants is so important. My first reaction was: Really, this is an extraordinary opportunity to be a part of a compelling project, a compelling story in New York. Something like this hasn’t happened since Rockefeller Center.
There has been a lot of discussion about the creation of a neighborhood and making this area a food destination—because it was basically a wasteland before. What are the pillars that you think every neighborhood should have? Communities are about people and making sure there is the infrastructure to support [them], whether they’re visiting the community, or they’re living here, or they’re working here. And certainly restaurants are a big part of that, and making sure that there is diversity in restaurants in any community, this one being a very large one, where people have the opportunity to dine...at any price range they want. I think that’s what we have here, which is really the cornerstone of communities—this gathering place. A restaurant shouldn’t be about politics. It should be a place of refuge, where we can actually find that solace and comfort and nourish ourselves.
You went for continental comfort food. What does that have to do with our society now?
It wasn’t really anything about any current state of our culture or our society. I’ve been thinking about this restaurant since 1996, ’97. I grew up in this kind of restaurant. My mother ran this kind of restaurant. This was a restaurant from a period in American history when we were the most respected, most glamorous, most progressive, wealthiest, most sharing nation on Earth—after World War II. This was
the kind of restaurant that was prolific at that time. They were based on the continent of Europe, which left us open as chefs and operators to do anything we wanted. You think about some of the food that has become recognizable as American, things like Dover sole. Well, Dover sole meunière is actually French. We have a prime beef from England. We have lobster thermidor from France. We have chicken Kiev from Russia. So you think about these dishes—which are very recognizable in America because of those restaurants—and there’s a sense of comfort with them.
It sounds like a very emotional experience on several levels. Food’s emotional.
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TAK Room is really casual dining. We have to remember that time in American history: These were casualdining restaurants. The menu is very simple, it’s very understandable, [and] there are reference points in almost every dish that’s on the menu. It’s not intended to be a long, lengthy meal about this chef. It’s really about the quality of the products, about the service, the execution of these products and the execution of those services. We want to make sure people are comfortable in this restaurant, and there’s no presumption of any kind of rules or regulations, or things like that. This should be a restaurant where people can come anytime during the day, during the evening...and really enjoy themselves without feeling that they’re in a fine-dining environment.
Are you going to be in the kitchen here? If so, for how long?
I’ve been in the kitchen every night since we’ve opened, actually before
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we opened. So, you know, I’ll be here as long as it takes. One of the great things about today is the interest [in food and becoming a chef] embraced by so many young professionals. When I started cooking in the early ’70s, nobody wanted to be a chef. There was no recognition of any American chefs yet. Again, we had great restaurants here in New York, and you may have had a sprinkling of them in Chicago, L.A., things like that. Food wasn’t important for us really until Jackie Kennedy brought René Verdon into the White House, and France became the place everybody wanted to go, because everyone wanted to emulate Jacqueline Kennedy.
How have food bloggers and Instagram changed dining?
I always think about that—public relations, social media. Do we really need that in a business where we’re supposed to be offering nourishment to the guests? Do we have to do that? We’re forced to do that because that’s the way our society is today. They want to know what’s going on. I don’t delve into that. I have too many important things to do than to follow what the bloggers are saying, and social media’s saying, what’s on Instagram, or who’s tweeting, or who’s Facebooking, or who is leaving a review on Yelp or Opentable. Once you start getting into that world, you’re going to spend hours at it. It’s just not good. It either reinforces what you’re doing or criticizes what you’re doing, right? So you have to find the inner strength yourself to adhere to the convictions of what you’re doing and know that what you’re doing has merit.
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If you could go to any area as a culinary food destination, where would it be?
That’s such an individual thing. I love Japanese food, so I would migrate to Tokyo, to Kyoto, to experience the food. I very much appreciate Japanese sensibilities. Their purpose is to use extraordinary products and deliver them in a simple way. And then, of course, France. I’m always so, so impressed by those chefs in France doing wonderful food and creating this environment for you that’s comfortable, that’s luxurious in ways and so satisfying.