Chef Thomas Keller’s renowned Yountville restaurant, The French Laundry, has been named California’s ‘best cult-favorite restaurant’ by food review site LoveFood.com — a nod to the enduring appeal of the three Michelin-starred establishment despite its famously steep prices and a recent string of lukewarm reviews for The French Laundry and Keller’s Per Se restaurant in New York City.

According to the U.K.-based food review and recipe website, The French Laundry “changed the game of modern American fine dining back in the 1990s — and people still talk about (it) in admiring tones.”

The LoveFood list was compiled based on a combination of user reviews, industry awards, accolades and firsthand experiences by the site’s editorial team. California landed two additional entries on the list: Chez Panisse in Berkeley and The Ranch House in Ojai.

From glowing reviews to recent criticism

Operating under Keller since 1994, The French Laundry has long been considered a pinnacle of American fine dining. The Michelin Guide — which awards the restaurant its highest three-star rating — defines such establishments as offering “exceptional cuisine worth a special journey.”

The restaurant, originally opened in 1978 by Don and Sally Schmidt, features a daily-changing tasting menu, often updated twice a day based on what’s freshly harvested from its culinary garden.

Following decades of mostly glowing reviews, The French Laundry and Keller’s Per Se restaurant have received some biting criticism over the past few years.

In 2016, The New York Times critic Pete Wells described a mushroom soup at Keller’s New York restaurant Per Se “as murky and unappealing as bong water.”

A recent follow-up review by Times food columnist Melissa Clark, published Nov. 26, 2024, echoed Wells’ concerns, calling both Per Se and The French Laundry overpriced and past their prime.

Clark’s critique gained particular notoriety after she confirmed to multiple outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle, that she had been served mushroom soup from a bong during her visit to The French Laundry — a wink to Wells’ earlier comment.

Then, in a May 19 San Francisco Chronicle article, food critic Mackenzie Chung Fegan recounted a recent visit to The French Laundry, during which Chef Thomas Keller initially asked her to leave — apparently unsettled by recent negative reviews, including a 2022 critique by her predecessor Soleil Ho, who wrote the restaurant was “no longer worth the splurge.”

After a 30-minute conversation, Keller invited Chung Fegan back, and she rejoined her party for the full tasting menu. Keller later attempted to comp the meal — an offer critics are prohibited from accepting. “It’s the ultimate display of power,” Chung Fegan wrote of the chef’s gesture; in the end, her party paid the full bill.

In a statement nearly a month after Chung Fegan’s visit, Keller said, “Ultimately, it was my responsibility to feed and nurture them. I think we did that, and they had a wonderful time from what we could tell.”

See the full list of restaurants at lovefood.com.

You can reach intern Rosemary Cromwell at rosemary.cromwell@pressdemocrat.com. On Instagram @rjc.img.

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As a youngster, he helped in the kitchen of what would evolve into one of the most famous restaurants in the world, The French Laundry in Yountville. At 20, he was the sous chef at Auberge du Soleil in Rutherford, by 22 in charge of the kitchen at étoile restaurant in Yountville. At 25, he became the youngest U.S. chef to earn a Michelin star.

Perry Hoffman, now 32, crossed the Mayacamas in September 2015 to become the executive chef at Healdsburg SHED, which offers an eclectic mix of housewares, garden tools, pantry items, coffee bar and cafe — all housed in a modern barn of gleaming glass, steel and wood. Since his arrival, he has added dinner service to SHED’s offerings, creating dishes that have critics’ tongues wagging with approval and local farmers knocking down the back door to sell him their goods.

For all his success in so short a life, Hoffman has never taken a cooking class. But he had great teachers.

From an early age, Hoffman was surrounded by the enticing smells and tastes that his grandmother, Sally Schmitt, created at her The French Laundry restaurant. Hoffman got his culinary start at age 4, in Sally’s sunny Napa Valley kitchen, where three generations of his family also launched their careers. The exposure proved to be priceless for the future chef.

“My grandmother always had flowers at the end of the kitchen and a pile of artichokes in a casuela,” Hoffman recalled while sitting at a picnic table outside SHED, located just off the Healdsburg plaza. “There was always a pot of really good chicken stock on the stove, and that comforting smell I will always remember.”

While his mother, Kathy Hoffman, arranged flowers and hand-printed menus for The French Laundry, a 5-year-old Hoffman would work on a list of chores from his grandmother, which included vacuuming the dining room, roasting peppers and making breadcrumbs. He was paid minimum wage (which in 1989 amounted to $3 to $4 an hour) and still has one of his check stubs imprinted with The French Laundry.

“I would never be cooking, or I wouldn’t be as good as I am, if I didn’t have that family and hadn’t learned about the importance of peppercorns and not salting the beans until the end,” Hoffman said. “It’s almost embarrassing that I’ve never taken any cooking classes. … I just worked my entire life. I started in a kitchen and never left.”

Just like his talented family, Hoffman has a deep passion for food and wine and a hands-on ethic that encompasses all that he does, from his microgreens farm in Carneros to the mushroom foraging he pursues in his spare time.

“We’re close to the coast and the Russian River and the real forest,” he said. “You start cooking, and then think, ‘Why would I ever move away from the North Bay?’” Also deeply rooted here are the various branches of the Schmitt-Bates-Hoffman family, some of whom migrated from Napa Valley to Mendocino’s Anderson Valley in the early 1990s. Hoffman’s relatives carved out interesting careers that span the worlds of custom furniture and construction, landscape gardening and hospitality, retail merchandising and apple farming.

“Everyone has a story and everyone has a story to tell,” he said

 

“My brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins all work for themselves. Everything is done with their hands, and it’s all about artistry and the aesthetic.”

Sally and her husband, Don, sold The French Laundry in 1994 to Thomas Keller, who brought the restaurant to new heights. Sally and Don, as pioneers who helped put Napa on the culinary map, moved north to Philo to operate The Apple Farm, which evolved from a working apple orchard to include a cooking school and cabins where students could stay. They joined their daughter and her husband, Karen and Tim Bates (Hoffman’s aunt and uncle) to bring the farm back to life.

During his frequent visits to Philo, Hoffman ran through dusty paths on the farm with his two brothers, Byron (a graphic artist) and Troyce (a photographer). They are helping Sally write a memoir about her life in food, with family recipes from her first restaurant, the Chutney Kitchen in Yountville (now Michael Chiarello’s Bottega), The French Laundry and The Apple Farm.

Hoffman took his first formal restaurant position at age 15, as a pantry chef at his neighborhood eatery, Zinsvalley, in downtown Napa. After working as a sous chef at the Boonville Hotel in Boonville, owned by his uncle, Johnny Schmitt, he became sous chef at Santé Restaurant at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn.

In 2005, when he was 20, Hoffman was recruited by Robert Curry to work as his sous chef at Auberge du Soleil. The restaurant snagged its first Michelin star during Hoffman’s time there, yet he grew restless.

“It was time for me to move on and be a chef, not just a sous,” he said.

Hoffman was hired as chef at Domaine Chandon’s étoile restaurant in 2007. He won his first Michelin star in 2010 and was a repeat winner the following two years. In 2012, Hoffman was named one of Zagat’s “30 under 30” innovative young chefs; in 2013, Food & Wine magazine crowned him “The People’s Best New Chef” in California.

At Domaine Chandon, Hoffman fell in love with Kristen Brott, a wine ambassador for Estates & Wines, a branch of Möet Hennessy, which owns Chandon. He popped the question during a trip to the British Isles in December 2014, which included a romantic getaway to the Scottish island of Islay, where they stayed in a seaside cottage next to a whisky distillery owned by Möet Hennessy.

A little over six months later, the couple exchanged vows during an understated ceremony under the mulberry trees behind Barndiva in Healdsburg.

“We both plan in our career, and we didn’t want to plan our own wedding,” he said. “We wanted it to be easy, fun and simple. My mom did the flowers. There were live herbs and 100 terra cotta plants of microgreens. … They are all beautiful perennials that are now planted in our families’ gardens and will be there for years to come.”

Ellen Flora, who officiated the wedding, said Hoffman “has a smile that won’t quit. He had a passion and a focus even at an early age, and a commitment to quality. He is a quiet and warm leader.”

The feast was centered on a whole Cinta Senese pig from Acorn Ranch in Yorkville, which Hoffman’s cousin, Sophia Bates, manages with her boyfriend, Tommy Otey. Barndiva executive chef Ryan Fancher and his crew worked on the fat-marbled pig four days before the meal, cooking each part of the animal with a different technique — all of this for just the appetizers course.

“We wanted to do something different than porchetta (a boned, whole pig stuffed and cooked into a pork roast),” Fancher said. “We glazed the trotters, braised the belly, confitted the shoulder in duck fat and glazed the head, trying to keep it whole. We Frenched (exposed the bones) on the racks, added a sriracha rub, then roasted and sliced them. Our mission is to impress. We’re cooking for a Michelinstarred chef.”

After this hearty appetizer, guests tucked into a three-course dinner of lemon cucumber salad, panroasted day boat scallops or red-wine-glazed short ribs, and an array of desserts.

“It’s what we do,” Hoffman said of his wedding feast. “Our family eats.”

The morning after, the bride and groom headed to Healdsburg SHED for breakfast, where they were met by 35 members of Hoffman’s family sitting at one, long table. It was a sign.

“I thought, God, this would be a great place to work,” said Hoffman, who had been casting about for a new challenge since étoile closed in late 2014. SHED seemed to be another heavenly match.

“I really share their same passion,” he said of owners Cindy Daniel and Doug Lipton. “I walked in and they had my favorite barbecue sauce.”

The James Beard Award-winning SHED building reminds him of his grandmother’s kitchen at The French Laundry, filled with fresh flowers and beautiful produce, illuminated by large windows and natural light.

“I’ve come back to an amazing, light-filled building,” he said. “I would love to have my own place. If I did, I would want to have a place that was true, authentic and real. And that’s SHED. I could grow old here.”

Healdsburg SHED, 25 North St., Healdsburg, 707-4317433, healdsburgSHED.com

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The review website Yelp.com has ranked The French Laundry in Yountville as No. 57 and the Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch in St. Helena as No. 85 on this year’s list of Top 100 Places to Eat in the U.S.

The famed French Laundry, owned by Thomas Keller, long a favorite of both locals and tourists alike, serves French cuisine with American influences.

The Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch serves farm-to-table New American cuisine.

While the Napa County restaurants were the only two North Bay restaurants on the list, they were far from the only Bay Area favorites.

Near the top of the list was Cheese Board Pizza in Berkeley at No. 2. and Gary Danko in San Francisco at No. 6. Ike’s Place, a sandwich shop with multiple locations including one in Santa Rosa, came in at No. 24.

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The Louvre, a white linen tablecloth being gently unfurled and graceful choreography are among the inspirations for Chef Thomas Keller’s kitchen redesign for the French Laundry.

According to FL reps, this is the first major overhaul of the landmark restaurant in 20 years. International design firm, Snøhetta, California-based firms Envelope A+D and Tim Harrison of Harrison, Koellner, LLC will create a new and expanded kitchen and courtyard, an auxiliary building to house a wine cellar and support offices, and a new arrival experience to enhance the approach to the iconic blue door.

“The French Laundry is being redesigned to be a backdrop worthy of the restaurant’s history,” Thomas Keller said. “With the Louvre Pyramid as my inspiration, we wanted to find a way to juxtapose the historic and the modern while maintaining the high quality cuisine and service our guests have come to expect from The French Laundry. The new design will be an innovative and functioning space that will allow us to continue to evolve as a restaurant and develop new standards.”

FL reps also say that in addition to expanding the kitchen’s size by 25 percent, the renovation will make for more efficient use of space, creating one contiguous room for the entire culinary team with a visual connection from station to station. With walls, flooring and work stations all fashioned out of Dekton, an ultra-compact surface, the new kitchen will feature a white-on-white palette—a nod to the sense of promise and potential of a fresh start. The kitchen equipment will feature two unique Moltini suites by Electrolux and commercial ranges by Hestan Commercial. The ground-up construction of a new Kitchen Annex will house The French Laundry’s support functions including the prep kitchen, butchery, produce breakdown, and management offices. It is also home to The French Laundry’s regarded wine collection, with the storage capacity to hold up to 14,000 bottles.

Commence sighs of jealousy.

Chef Thomas Keller’s culinary team, meanwhile, have moved into a temporary kitchen space at the restaurant, and have been serving diners since April 7 at the historic location, says an FL spokesperson. “During construction, Envelope A+D conceived of using shipping containers as modular units for a temporary kitchen in the restaurant’s former courtyard, allowing for service to resume after the restaurant’s closure in January. Tim Harrison, Chef Keller’s kitchen designer-of-record for the past 20 years, designed and adapted the temporary space as a recreation of the former French Laundry kitchen, complete with its five stars mounted hood.:

The restaurant is offering dinner seven days a week beginning at 5:30 p.m. and lunch on Saturday and Sunday between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. The project is slated for completion in late 2015.

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Word broke Monday that Thomas Keller is opening Ad Lib, a pop-up restaurant at the Silverado Resort through early March while the French Laundry undergoes a renovation. The restaurant will operate out of the resort’s Royal Oak Room beginning January 21 through March 2 from 5-9p.m. Thursday through Monday.

According to the website, the menu consists of “traditional, honest food” with a hearty selection of daily specials influenced by The French Laundry Culinary Garden. The a la carte menu, with entrees ranging from about $28-$55 each, will include a Classic Caesar Salad and Steak Tartare, both prepared table-side, Fruitwood Smoked Kielbasa, Black Angus Chop Steak, Root Vegetable Pot Pie, Braised Beef Short Rib “Wellington,” Broiled Alaskan King Crab Legs and a Seven-Layer Coconut Cake. Guests can also expect a hearty selection of daily specials influenced by The French Laundry Culinary Garden.

This is a collaborative effort from TKRG Chef de Cuisine Devin Knell, The French Laundry’s Chef de Cuisine David Breeden and Sous Chef Michael Wallace, who has been appointed the Chef de Cuisine of the pop-up.

But here’s the rub. Unless you’ve got at least four people, you’re out of luck (and even then, you’ll have to call soon). Tables for two have already been snapped up for the duration of the pop-up. Details and more info online at thomaskeller.com/ad-lib

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To much fanfare and global foodie hullabaloo, Restaurant Magazine just released its list of the Top 50 Restaurants in the World. The stakes are high, very high; even a slot in the lower tiers can transform an establishment’s fortunes, quite literally overnight,  as I read last week in the Times: “Business after the awards was, like, stupid,” said Mr. Bosi, of London’s Hibiscus; the day prior to last year’s announcement, you could have secured a table for dinner the same evening at overall winner Noma – the day after, you’d have been in line behind 100,000 other hungry souls…

You might wonder, as I do, about the extent to which the whole exercise is just plain silly: I mean, really, how does one define absolutes for restaurants? At any cost, or for the money? How much do service, decor, ambience, and originality count? How do I separate the restaurant itself from the intangibles of a particular meal, say wherever it is that my wife agreed to marry me? All of which is to say nothing of the controversy over the process itself: Some of the eligible chefs also work as judges; some national governments woo jurors with all-expenses paid visits; and the jurors don’t even have to have eaten at a restaurant to vote for it.

To be clear, I have quite a lot of time for restaurant critics, and I believe they get it right far more than they get it wrong, but I am deeply skeptical about The World’s 50 Best, mainly because the results, as one juror interviewed by the Times readily admits, read like they’re more about what is perceived as cool and hip than they are about dining. I could add my voice to the inevitable tsunami of critics yammering on about this place or that – I’ve eaten at more than half a dozen of them, and I have some pretty strong views about their rightful ranking, or lack thereof – but, really, who cares what I think? And that’s kind of my point: the very nature of the undertaking strikes me as fanciful at best, and grossly misleading at worst, as you can see if you try to make any sort of rational sense of some of the results:

• The French Laundry may or may not deserve its lowly 2011 ranking of 56, but can it really have gotten that much worse since 2008, when it was No. 5? Or does it make any sense to simultaneously rate its culinary clone in NYC, Per Se, No. 10?
• Argue with Michelin all you want, but is it reasonable to suggest that Le Chateaubriand, a hyper-trendy bistro in Paris that came in at No. 9 and has precisely zero Michelin stars, is significantly better than every single one of the 24 (at my last count) 3-star restaurants in all of France?
• Or that there can be any meaningful information, statistically speaking, in slots 30 through 80, when their difference can be accounted for by a single vote? (For context, the Top 10 get votes in the hundreds, so we’re talking about a single human, or a fraction of a percent of the total, playing a determining role.)

I mean no disrespect to the chefs on the list, and I’m sure that every single one of them is at the absolute pinnacle of his or her game; Noma, the winner for the 2nd year in a row, and most of the other Top 10, are by all accounts absolutely ethereal dining experiences. But I’ve studied statistics and data for my entire professional life, and the more I stare, read, and think about the results, the more it all smacks of a popularity contest.

What do you think?

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Peter Jacobsen doesn’t get mad at the herds of snails that have made Swiss cheese out of his organic kale. He gets even.
At the edge of his 1.5 acre Yountville orchard and farm, the dentist turned dirt-under-the-nails grower pulls open the lid of a wooden box to reveal hundreds of the slimy pests. Instead of baiting or poisoning them, Jacobsen invites them to his makeshift snail hotel, treating them to a diet of greens and cornmeal. Fat and happy, these garden troublemakers are eagerly snapped up for swanky dinner menus. Revenge is best served in a bath of butter and herbs.
Walking around the small backyard plot dense with rows of tomatoes, squash, flowers and fruit trees, Jacobsen casually acknowledges that he makes his living working with some of the best chefs in the country. The produce on his property along with that of next door neighbors, , grace the tables of The French Laundry, along with spots like Angele, Auberge du Soleil, La Toque and Redd.

Having close personal relationships with farmers has been a hallmark of top chefs like Alice Waters and Thomas Keller for years. Keller, in fact, has a network of farmers around the country producing everything from cheese and meat to veggies and fruit for the restaurant.
It’s a philosophy gaining traction throughout the restaurant biz as chefs seek out more and more specific products grown to their own exacting organic standards. Around Wine Country, a handful of local chefs have even gone one step further, managing onsite culinary gardens or even their own farms. Among them: Zazu, Restaurant Eloise, The French Garden, Julia’s Kitchen at COPIA and Zin come to mind, though there are certainly many others.
For Jacobsen, there’s plenty of trial and error involved in the process. Chefs aren’t always clear about exactly what they want, he says. Often they’ll ask for a particular size, texture or color but leave it to him to refine and experiment with the produce to get everything just right–like lavender that doesn’t taste soapy or pears that hold up to a salad without becoming mush.
Throughout the year, Jacobsen grows everything from onions, rosemary and basil to pears, figs, plums, tomatoes, berries and lettuces for the restaurants.
Just across the street, the Hill family (who are primarily involved in winemaking) are also producing small lots of organic produce and edible flowers. Walking around with her pet chicken, six-year-old Joselyn Hill points out the various types of flowers, fauna along iwth her brother, Ryan. She makes sure we see her special orchard treehouse as we tour the farms gathering as many goodies as our little baskets with hold. These are seriously pedigreed plums and figs, after all.
As Joselyn chatters happily, I stop to consider the fact that her playground is the chef’s garden for Thomas Keller. Her chicken pecks at fallen blackberries and tomatoes that almost made it to one of the best restaurants in the world.
I’ve never been so jealous of a kid, or a chicken in my life. I’ll savor my purloined plums as consolation.

Jacobsen Orchards, Yountville. Closed to the public but you can purchase his organic seeds for your own gourmet garden here. Hill Family Estate tasting room, 6512 Washington Street, Yountville, 707.944.9580

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