The Wall Street Journal spoke with Thomas Keller about food in today's paper. Mr. Keller uses Raynaud porcelain tableware to produce his Checks tableware that he uses in his restaurants.
Prepping Food for the Eyes
By CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN
The award-winning chef Thomas Keller is well-known for the exquisitely presented dishes in his restaurants. But an artful simplicity suffices when he is serving up food at home.
"You eat with your eyes—you use your eyes first," says Mr. Keller, whose restaurants include The French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., and Per Se in New York City. "So something that looks elegant and nice also looks appetizing."
Mr. Keller, who throws dinner parties at home about six times a year, likes to pick "comforting, recognizable" dishes. "Cutting-edge or avant-garde should be saved for a restaurant experience," he says.
Mr. Keller stresses that he doesn't "plate," or formally arrange, foods for serving at home. But he is mindful of the colors and textures of the foods he is serving. For instance, a filet of beef might be sliced on the bias in uniform pieces with a rough surface that contrasts with the smooth, silky surface of pommes purée.
At his restaurants, Mr. Keller usually serves food on large-rimmed white porcelain so that the items on the plate will stand out more. "White goes well with everything," he notes. But he likes the more rustic look of earthenware bowls for hors d'oeuvres and dinners at home. He sometimes tries to coordinate the plate with the color of the main food on it.
"Brown and tan terra cottas go well with greens; yellow [plates] are beautiful with tan. Blue is not a really good color with food," he says. He generally prefers round—rather than square or oblong—plates, because he likes the "softness" of their look.
When hosting guests at his Yountville home, he will typically start by setting out dishes holding candied almonds, glazed cashews, cured olives, eggplant tapenade and perhaps a variety of cheeses. Dishes such as salmon rillettes can be prepped ahead of time and presented in a little earthenware pot or dish. Mr. Keller usually displays cheeses on a striking slab of marble or on dark-hued wood cutting boards that provide lovely "contrasting colors" to the yellow shades of the cheeses.
For added pops of color—and flavor—Mr. Keller will dress up the cheese boards with dried fruit such as apricots or apples. "I'm not going to put a sprig of parsley or a rose on a cheese board just to make it look nice," he says. "The garnish has to be a component of the dish."
He typically serves a salad in a large bowl—sometimes one with a floral or leafy motif that complements the dish. Mr. Keller sometimes sprinkles on chives, chopped parsley, large grains of salt and edible flowers right before setting it out. Mr. Keller often chooses the flower of a plant already in the salad. If a salad has onions or thyme, the plants' blossoms may be a garnish.
Mr. Keller serves his entrées family-style, typically choosing one main dish to be the centerpiece of his table. Sometimes, he will grill a whole salmon or turbot on a cedar plank, debone the fish and then serve it on the plank. Similarly, if he is doing a côte du boeuf, he may serve it right on the cutting board. He will surround the board with sides such as lentils or risotto in brightly colored little bowls.
Mr. Keller is a fan of the "one roasting-pan meal," in which he roasts vegetables and then tops them off with a fish. He typically chooses nice, new-looking pans—he favors All-Clad at home—that can double as serving dishes.
Ultimately, Mr. Keller says, the key is to apply the fashion adage of "less is more" to food presentation at home. "The common problem that people make is they make it too complicated, they get too ambitious," he says. "Simple, to me, is best."