What other restaurant critics told me about their encounters with Thomas Keller

San Francisco Chronicle​

20-05-2025

Yesterday, I published an account of my visit to the French Laundry, truly a night to remember. I hope that you'll read it, but the tl;dr is that, after I was spotted, Thomas Keller called me outside and said he wasn't comfortable having me in his restaurant. We then chatted for half an hour, largely about his opinions on the current state of restaurant criticism.
During the course of our conversation, Keller mentioned four critics by name — Michael Bauer and Soleil Ho of the Chronicle and Pete Wells and Melissa Clark of the New York Times. When I initially set out to write about the encounter, I thought I would give each the opportunity to respond, in their own words.
Ho and Wells agreed to speak with me on the record. Clark confirmed the details of her own French Laundry visit but declined to comment, and Bauer wrote via email that, six years after stepping down as critic, he would prefer to stay out of controversies.
The edit went in a different direction, and much of what Ho and Wells had to say ended up on the cutting room floor. But I found our conversations fascinating, and maybe you will as well? Here are some highlights.
Ho had met Keller before becoming the Chronicle's restaurant critic. As a young line cook working in New Orleans, Ho had participated in a culinary competition run by Ment'or, a nonprofit that trains American chefs to compete on the world stage. Keller is the president of the foundation, and he was on the panel of judges that assessed Ho's work.
During Ho's first visit to the French Laundry, they were recognized immediately. 'Culinary, they threw the book at us,' Ho told me, describing it as an overwhelming experience. The visit was, they knew, a waste, the treatment they received — complete with the offer of cigars — so far outside what a normal diner could expect that it verged on the unusable. In Ho's review, they wrote that their first visit was like being 'in the club,' and they expanded on this comment in our conversation.
'In retrospect, it feels like a mild, civil…' Ho searched for the right word. 'Warning might be too strong.' The message, as Ho interpreted it: ''You can have all these things, if we're on the same page.'' Ho felt like Keller was welcoming them into the in-crowd. The subtext? You're a former cook yourself. You're going to be one of the good critics, right? Have a cigar.
Ho went on to dine at the French Laundry twice more and, remarkably, was not recognized either time. (They were not in disguise.) These two incognito meals allowed Ho to gauge more accurately the state of the restaurant, which led ultimately to a negative review. 'Once you're in the club, you want to stay in it, which is why it's hard to admit when something doesn't work,' they wrote.
When I spoke with Wells, I told him how Keller contrasted the praise he receives from pleased guests with the prickly barbs of critics; in his review of Per Se, Wells memorably compared a mushroom soup to murky bong water.
'Well that's great,' Wells responded. I chuckled. 'No, I mean that sincerely,' he clarified. 'If you're pleasing people and they keep coming back, that's great.'
Wells argued that, particularly in the case of a once-in-a-lifetime restaurant like the French Laundry or Per Se, you can't discount the different contexts of a critic and an average patron. A couple visiting the French Laundry might be spending the whole weekend in Napa in celebration of a 25th wedding anniversary. They're attending the magic show wanting to believe, not searching for the invisible wires.
But, Wells said, 'As a critic, when you're going through the review process, especially at a really elaborate restaurant, you're looking for things that the average customer isn't looking for.' That's not to say we're approaching our restaurant meals as skeptics and meanies, searching for flaws. But we are at work, and it's our job to be observant. Maybe that couple celebrating their anniversary won't care about an unfilled water glass or a long pause between courses — but maybe they will.
Since Wells' quip about bong water, whenever Keller has spotted critics like Ho and Clark at the French Laundry, he's sent them a glass bong filled with mushroom soup. What, he seems to be asking with tongue in cheek, are his critics smoking? I asked Wells how it felt to know that line must live rent free in Keller's head.
'It's always nice to be remembered,' he said.