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When Soleil went, I think in 2019, they wheeled out a little cart for like a table side presentation.
And so, Lay was kind of confused because they hadn't seen it wheeled out to any other table.
And then they bring out a bong, a big glass hand -blown bong.
And so it writes in their piece, you know, the kind you use to smoke drugs.
And it's filled with mushroom soup.
This is The Sporkful.
It's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
Before we get into the show, I have some super exciting news, everyone.
I am going to be a judge on Guy's Grocery Games.
Yes, triple G. It's the beloved competition show hosted by the one and only Guy Fieri, and I'll be on next Wednesday night, June 25th.
That's Guy's Grocery Games on Food Network.
Check your local listings for the time and set your DVRs.
It's going to be awesome.
All right, let's get to the show.
For about as long as there have been restaurants, there have been restaurant critics.
Chefs tend to have a love -hate relationship with them.
A great review can make a chef's career and keep customers coming in the door for years.
but a bad review can do the opposite.
And even in an age when legacy media is struggling and everyone on social media and Yelp is a critic, reviews in major outlets still carry weight, especially in the world of fine dining.
Today, we have a story about one critic's very unusual encounter with a famous chef and the bombshell article that followed. Mackenzie Chung Fagan is the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.
It's a job she's had for a year and a half.
Before that, she was a senior editor at Bon Appetit and had written for GQ, Playboy, and Vice.
When she got the job as critic at The Chronicle, it wasn't just to step up professionally.
This role was personal.
In her first story for the paper, she wrote, quote, it's not a stretch to say that my life has been uniquely shaped by restaurant criticism.
A positive review in The New Yorker changed the trajectory of my family's life.
This is Mackenzie. My grandparents immigrated from China in 1948, and they had a string of failed businesses.
Eventually, in the 70s in San Francisco, they decided to open up a restaurant serving the type of cuisine that they would have eaten at home.
And at the time, Chinese food in San Francisco and the rest of America was mostly American Chinese food with a lot of Cantonese influence.
But my family's from Hunan province, and the food is very rustic.
It's very spicy. This was, especially in the 70s, not what most Americans thought of when they thought of Chinese food.
Correct. Yeah. It was one of the first regional Chinese restaurants in San Francisco.
And what was it called?
It was called the Hunan Restaurant.
I mean, if that's any indication of how few regional restaurants there were, it was just the name of the province, right?
Two years after the place opened, a writer for The New Yorker named Tony Hiss stumbled on it and had a meal there.
The food was so good, he decided to write about it.
And called it the best Chinese restaurant in the world.
which is incredible hyperbole.
And, you know, it took off like a shot after that.
And they were able to open additional locations.
They were able to open a big restaurant with like a banquet hall.
And the power of that restaurant review and others that followed, I will never forget.
And no one in my family will.
Those reviews are still framed on the walls of the restaurant.
on. So McKenzie understands the power of a restaurant critic.
At The Chronicle, she covers everything from fine dining to burgers, bagels, and burritos all across the Bay Area.
In April, she decided to go to a restaurant that's not just famous in her neck of the woods, it's one of the most esteemed restaurants in the world, the French Laundry in Napa Valley.
It's owned by chef Thomas Keller.
Thomas Keller is arguably the most famous American chef.
Thomas Keller has two, three Michelin star restaurants.
Two, three Michelin star restaurants, which is an incredibly unique accomplishment.
Keller consulted on the movie Ratatouille, appeared on the hit TV show The Bear, and was profiled on the Netflix documentary series Chef's Table Legends.
Thomas Keller has led the way for several decades now.
He is the most important American chef in history.
When somebody tells you you have influenced them, that's why I do what I do.
Keller may be the face of fine dining in America, but he came from humble beginnings.
His father was a marine drill sergeant and his mother was a restaurant manager.
He moved out of the house at 15 and barely finished high school.
After working at a country club in Rhode Island, he knew he wanted to be a professional cook.
He climbed the ranks at top restaurants in New York, but he lost his job during the economic downturn of the 90s and moved to California to start over.
Here he is in a video story for the Washington Post. I lost my job at the hotel I was working at.
I was peddling olive oil at Gelson's or Bristol Farms. I was the guy standing at the end of the aisle with a little table in front of me and pieces of bread with toothpicks in it and a little cup of olive oil.
He was nearly 40 when he saw that the farm -to -table restaurant, The French Laundry, was for sale.
It's called that because the building was a French Laundry 100 years ago.
Keller had a dream to turn it into a fine dining destination.
He just had to figure out a way to raise money to buy it.
And I had people's names and phone numbers and I started calling.
Over 400 people I contacted.
Finally, it accumulated to about 51 who actually wrote checks.
He opened his version of the French Laundry in 1994.
And that's where he devised some of his most famous dishes.
Here again is McKenzie.
Many of the dishes Keller's known for are still on the menu at the French Laundry today.
One of them is the Tuna Tartare Cornette.
It looks like a tiny ice cream cone, except instead of ice cream, it's raw fish.
And, you know, that was kind of his hallmark, this very, like, playful, dad -jokey, punny style of cuisine.
You know, like, what American doesn't love an ice cream cone?
But this one is fine -dininged, you know?
It has, like, a tuile and then a little bit of creme fraiche, and then there's the raw fish.
And that really became his hallmark style.
He had a dish called tongue and cheek.
Get it? Let me guess, beef tongue and beef cheek.
Exactly, exactly. I was at a cocktail party in New York City last night, and they were serving tuna tartare cornets.
Of course they were.
That was one of the past hors d 'oeuvres.
Totally, it's trickled down to mass market catering.
His cooking really has changed the landscape of American cuisine.
Like a lot of the things that we think of now as just part of the culture, including, I would argue, these elaborate tasting menus, are because of him.
So Mackenzie decides she's going to go to the French Laundry.
A friend makes a reservation.
It would be her first visit since being named the Chronicle's restaurant critic.
I was not there to review the French Laundry, but I was there in a work capacity.
Like, I dine out all the time at restaurants that I'm not intending to review because that's part of my job.
It's part of my job to know the dining scene, including this incredibly important restaurant.
We're always scouting.
We just relaunched our top 100 best restaurants in the Bay Area list. So, you know, I'm considering it for that.
I'm considering it for maybe our top fine dining list. I should say, when you make a reservation at the French Laundry, you prepay.
For the meal, tax, and tip, Mackenzie and her friends each paid $457.
That does not include drinks or extras.
As a restaurant reviewer, the Chronicle does pay for Mackenzie's meals.
So she and her three friends arrived for their reservation at 7 .45.
We are greeted in the courtyard, we're brought sparkling wine, and the captain who brings us the sparkling wine introduces himself as Patrick, and I give my name as Margaret.
So your real name is Mackenzie, you say your name is Margaret.
That's right. And, you know, my friend had made the reservation under his name.
And this requires, I guess, a little bit of explanation.
So I'm not an anonymous critic.
There are photos of me out there.
I made that decision when I started, but I do try to fly under the radar for as long as possible when I'm in a restaurant, just so that I can simulate the experience that a normal diner might have for as long as possible.
But that doesn't mean that I am like trying to, you know, if somebody comes up and is like, are you Mackenzie?
I'm going to say yes.
But if someone asks you, what's your name?
I'll say Margaret. The group waits in the courtyard for half an hour, which seems uncharacteristic.
Usually restaurants at this level run on time.
Finally, they're seated at 8 .15.
And the first course comes.
Yes, it's a truffle vichyssoise.
That's like a cold soup, right?
Yeah, like a leek potato soup with a lot of truffle and a little espresso cup.
Oh, that does sound good.
It was good. It was good.
Yeah. Can you ask for seconds of these things?
What if something is really good?
That's a great question.
Like, is it a cruise?
You know, like, can you get the lobster and the steak?
I understand that you can't, I wouldn't ask for more and more, but some of those, I haven't been to many, very many meals like this, but like sometimes the things are so small and if it's really good, you're kind of like, ah, I'd really love one or two more bites of that.
I'll bet you could ask.
I think that at a place like that where you're paying a premium, they might be delighted if you wanted an extra espresso cup of it.
They finish their soup and wait for the next course, which once again seems to be taking longer than expected.
And then the general manager approaches the table and he says, will you follow me?
Just to you, not to everyone.
Just to me. And so I get up from the table and I say to my dining companions, if I'm not back in 10 minutes, send a search party.
Like you couldn't write that, you know, like very, very foreshadowing in the film adaptation.
What are you thinking in that moment?
Well, I know at this point I've been recognized.
I'm thinking that maybe Thomas Keller is there that evening and, you know, just wants to say hello.
Mackenzie is led to a courtyard outside where there are two benches.
She sits down. And then out walks Thomas Keller.
He shakes my hand and he says, Thomas.
And I say, Mackenzie.
And he says, I thought you said your name was Margaret.
And there's an edge to it.
There's an edge to it.
Now, to understand why Thomas Keller might have an edge in his voice when meeting McKenzie, gotta understand that in recent years, reviews of his restaurants haven't been as great as they used to be.
In 2016, New York Times critic Pete Wells re -reviewed Keller's other famous restaurant, Per Se, in New York.
Pete said the lobster was intransigently chewy, and a chestnut puree tasted like peanut butter to which something terrible had been done.
One cutting line especially stood out.
Pete wrote that the mushroom soup looked as murky and appealing as bong water.
The review sent shockwaves around the world of upscale restaurants.
In 2019, Soleil Ho, who was the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle before McKenzie, had a meal at the French Laundry.
Soleil was recognized as a critic, and Thomas Keller sent over a mushroom soup in a glass bong.
Soleil took it as a good -natured joke.
But it's worth noting that Keller got a bad review for his restaurant in New York with this line about bong water, then bought a glass bong and kept it in his restaurant in California for three years, waiting until another critic came in just so he could spring it on them.
Regardless, Solé ended up writing a negative review of the French Laundry.
Then, to top it all off, last year, Melissa Clark from the New York Times gave a mixed but mostly negative review of both Per Se and the French Laundry.
Basically, she said that his cuisine was tired.
expired and she didn't say that it necessarily was all his fault you know to your point about the salmon cornets at the event that you went to last night she was she said that because he had had such an impact on American cuisine that the food that he is still serving at per se in the French Laundry is no longer the type of delightful innovative surprise that it was when she first dine there and that it now feels a little bit stale.
So between these various reviews, Thomas Keller's restaurants have had a rough go in the last decade.
Mackenzie knows all of this as she meets Keller that night in the courtyard. He sits down on the bench that's sort of 90 degrees to mine.
And immediately I can tell that he's nervous and there's a little tremble in his voice and he seems just ill at ease.
He says, I'm nervous.
You know, I don't normally do this.
I don't know you, and I'm sure you're a nice person, but I don't know why you're here, and I'm not really comfortable having you in my restaurant.
He asked Mackenzie to leave. I told him, I understand where you're coming from, and if you want me to leave, I will respect that, but can I tell you a little bit about myself?
You're right, you don't know me, so can I tell you about myself?
And so I told him that I did have a relationship to the French Laundry.
I went there for my college graduation.
That's what I asked for from my parents.
And I have memories of my parents and my dad, who's since passed at the French Laundry.
You know, I own his cookbooks.
You know, I told him they came from a restaurant family and that I worked as a server.
I'm not coming in here as somebody who's unfamiliar with your work or who is interested in taking you down.
But Keller remains suspicious, especially since Mackenzie gave a fake name earlier.
He starts talking about the critic from the New York Times and he can't quite land on her name.
So I try to supply it.
I say Melissa, referring to Melissa Clark, and he says, yes, Melissa.
He says that, you know, they move in similar circles.
They had met before.
She had been to the French Laundry before.
And that when she came to visit last year, she lied.
And I remember that word very specifically.
She lied. She lied until the last minute.
What did he think she had lied about?
Well, that's a great question.
At the time, I didn't know.
I thought it was such an unusual word choice.
I couldn't really figure it out and drop a pin in that because later I would discover what he meant.
Oh, good foreshadowing.
Yes, the story is full of it.
We should go to break right here.
That's a cliffhanger.
Come to think of it, we should go to break.
Coming up, McKenzie finds out what Melissa Clark had supposedly lied about.
But before that, Thomas Keller's got a few more things to get off his chest, and a surprise.
That's after the break.
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Welcome back to the Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman. Now, as you may have heard, I announced in January that I am returning to Italy to lead another pasta tour this fall.
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Go to culinarybackstreets .com slash sporkful.
All right, let's get back to the show.
And a quick note that there is a tiny bit bit of profanity in this part of the episode.
When we left off, San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Mackenzie Chung Fagan was talking with chef Thomas Keller outside his restaurant.
He had asked her to leave, but then the conversation continued.
He wanted to talk about the French chef Michel Richard. Michel Richard was a well -known chef and restaurateur.
In 2016, he died due to complications from a stroke.
And he said that the New York Times had written a review of his New York restaurant.
he had had much success in dc in la and then he decided to open this new york restaurant and that the new york times had written this very brutal review he said that you know michelle was a friend of his and that two years later he was dead and that when he writes his memoirs he will write about how that review contributed to his death i mean that's a lot to put on you Right.
You know, in case it's not clear, I've never met him before.
I've never written about him before.
Wow. Yeah, that's intense.
And, you know, all of this is sort of in service of this larger theme, which is that he feels like food media and critics in particular in a previous era were on the same team as chefs and that there's been a shift. shift keller mentions a critic for the chronicle from many years ago who he says he considered a friend that critic wrote glowing reviews of the french laundry but back then everyone was writing glowing reviews of keller's restaurants that was true until pete wells reviewed per se in 2016 that was the one with the line about the mushroom soup looking like bong water keller still hasn't
forgotten that piece in fact he tells mackenzie how frustrated he is that the times continues to link to it whenever his name is mentioned i understand what he's saying like that must must be really awful to see your name in the New York Times.
Cool. And then no, what's going to follow it is a link to one of your most embarrassing moments as a chef, or, you know, just a review that you think is unfair, probably.
So we end up talking for about half an hour.
It's pretty wide ranging.
And then he kind of of draws the conversation to a close.
And he says, you know, okay, that's enough.
We've been talking out here for a while.
And it was true. You know, I was pretty cold at that point.
There was a heat lamp, but it was still, you know, a spring Napa evening and a server had brought out glasses of water, which I was very grateful for.
And, you know, it's now like nine o 'clock and I had an espresso cup of soup.
And I'm also just, you know, adrenaline's just like coursing through my body like this is i i just know in the moment i'm like this is such a crazy thing that's happening to me there's the conversation that's happening and there's the thoughts that are running through your head yeah i mean immediately when he asked me to leave and when he was showing me this vulnerability i just felt emotional like i could feel like tears gathering along my lash line i felt so embarrassed too i was like oh my god like i'm i'm sitting here with you know this this chef, and I'm like, I don't know, I'm getting emotional.
Because it's hard watching someone you respect, you know, a famous person, be nervous or be afraid of you in some way or, you know, just be vulnerable.
It's like your dad telling you that he's scared.
but also I'm, I'm feeling like this is so unfair.
Like I, I didn't write a negative review about you or your friend or, you know, I, I kind of just got here.
I'm new to the job.
I'm doing my best. And I don't know.
I just, I just felt like it was, there wasn't a sense of justice to it.
so after the conversation he says why don't I walk you back inside we'll feed you a little something before you go and I stop him and I say if you still feel like you don't want me here I respect that but I kind of want to get on my way I've got a long drive home and he said no no we'll feed you a little something that would be rude and then he walks me back inside and i see a shift in him from thomas keller live to thomas keller is now sort of like in media mode because he's decided he's gonna cook for me and then you sit back down and what happens well i sit back down and my dining opinions
are like what just happened where have you been have they been fed anything while you were waiting no no they've So they've been sitting there with no updates on your whereabouts for the past half hour.
Yeah, and they asked, you know, they did as they were told.
And after 10 minutes, they started asking.
And the best that they got was, you know, oh, she and Jeff are having a heart to heart.
So they're concerned, you know, and they're like, what just happened?
And, you know, I sort of managed to tell one of them, like, he asked me to leave. But I think we're like going to get like a grilled cheese sandwich before we go.
I have no idea what's about to happen, right?
And then a server comes by and says, you know, Chef Keller would like to cook for you.
Is that okay? And then the sommelier comes by and says, Chef Keller has asked me to select wines.
You know, what do you like to drink?
And then the food starts coming out.
And, you know, we get the tuna cornette comes out.
And he ends up sending an entire tasting menu.
And we get the extras, you know.
He comes out in person and shaves truffles, which, again, would have been a supplement on some of our dishes.
By supplement, she means an extra charge.
I should say, I did ask Mackenzie how the food was, but she declined to answer.
She said she didn't go there to review the restaurant.
She told Thomas Keller she wasn't there to review it, and she feels she should honor that by not commenting one way or another on the food.
Anyway, at this point, it's getting very late and dinner isn't close to being over.
Before the proteins arrive, around 11, we get pulled for a tour.
And so then we go on like a 45 -minute tour of the grounds and Thomas Keller is, you know, escorting us through the kitchen.
He's showing us the very cool geothermal system that he's had installed.
We get to see the office, which has this collection, very large collection of plates that have been signed by celebrities.
The first person to do it was Michael Jordan.
You know, he really wants to show off his things at this point.
the cigar collection, the wine room.
It's all, you know, very impressive.
Now, it must be close to midnight.
You get back to the table.
Get back to the table, you know, have the main proteins, dessert comes out, you know, when my guest is celebrating a birthday, there's like a beautiful sparkler in one of the desserts.
And then the check comes and you prepay at the French Laundry as at many of these, you know, fancy places, expensive places.
And the check comes and in the leather check presenter, it says dinner is courtesy of Chef Keller.
And we are told that he has refunded our prepaid meal.
This was like a $1 ,700 meal.
I mean, it was $1 ,800 that we prepaid.
So including tax and tip, you know, not including the wines.
All right. So including the wine that you drank, it could have been...
I mean, I have no idea.
You know, the wines were poured for us.
We didn't select them.
I don't know. And so now what are you thinking?
Now that you've comped your whole dinner.
I'm thinking, oh, crap.
Like, this is a problem.
I think that a lot of people don't quite understand the repercussions that might have for a journalist or a critic.
We have to maintain journalistic objectivity.
We can't accept gifts.
But especially if you're a restaurant critic, chefs do try to send out free dishes from time to time.
And I either have to add it onto the tip or ask for it to be added to my bill, because if this is a situation where I might be considering, am I going to review this restaurant?
It could be perceived as an attempt to curry favor.
It's a big no -no. This is one of the key differences between a professional restaurant critic at a major media outlet and a social media influencer.
You don't know whether the influencer was offered a free meal or special treatment in exchange for their post. They may even have have been paid by the restaurant and not disclosed it.
So for someone in McKenzie's job, it's really important that she does not accept free meals.
And Thomas Keller's dealt with critics for decades.
It seems fair to assume he knows this rule.
But he comped her meal anyway.
So, you know, I say, oh, you know, that is so generous.
You know, thank you so much. But really, we must pay.
And no, no, no, no, it's already done.
You know, you're welcome.
and then the server leaves the room.
And, you know, I say to my guests, I'm like, what do I do?
It's late at this point.
Thomas Keller's already said, good night.
You know, we're the only people in the restaurant.
Right, right. And, you know, I say, like, please, you have to help me.
Like, I could get in a lot of trouble here.
Like, can we pay for this meal?
How do we do it? The server leaves and comes back with a check for $1.
So McKenzie's group leaves an $1 ,800 tip.
tip. That is how we ended up trying to pay for our meal.
By basically paying for the whole thing as a tip.
Yeah. You leave the restaurant.
Now you kind of have a long ride home.
Like, what are you thinking that night as you're sort of processing what just happened?
There was a moment during the dinner where one of my friends leaned over and said, you have to write about this.
And I just felt ill.
I was like, Oh, my God, I guess I do.
Like, I really mean it when I say that I did not go to the French Laundry intending to write anything.
And then all of a sudden, it became clear that, like, I was in a story.
Mackenzie decides to write about her experience.
The first thing she does is try to figure out what actually happened when New York Times writer Melissa Clarke dined at the French Laundry.
She's the critic Keller said had lied to him.
So Melissa's visit was fascinating.
And when I heard about it, I felt I was right back in the French laundry.
It was so similar to my experience in some ways.
So Melissa had first dined up per se, not in disguise, and was recognized immediately.
And so when she went to the French laundry, she decided that she was going to go in disguise.
So she went with a wig.
She wore different glasses, and she, you know, wore a dress that she normally wouldn't have worn.
And she'd created a persona for herself as well.
So when she arrived at the French Laundry and Thomas Keller came out, he sort of, you know, looked at her and said, don't I know you from New York?
And Melissa felt that he was not certain.
And so she said, no, I live in Santa Monica.
Her party got a tour.
And, you know, the whole time, much like I felt initially, she wasn't sure if she had been recognized.
She felt like she probably had not been.
And then when she sat down at the table, that's when she realized, no, she had been made.
Servers started coming by saying, oh, you live in Santa Monica?
What are your favorite restaurants?
Where do you like to hang out in L .A.?
And then the bong comes.
She got the bong too, and in this case, there was a note on it that said, for P.
Wells. When Keller said, she lied, that's what he meant.
Yes. She used a fake name, she used a disguise, and even when he said, don't I know you're from New York, she said no. Yes, that's what he meant by, she lied.
Quick note, we did reach out to Melissa Clark for comment, but we didn't hear back.
This is one of the things I'm turning over in my head, Mackenzie, which is like, I certainly understand from your perspective and the perspective of other restaurant critics that your job is to try to evaluate a restaurant objectively.
So you don't want special treatment because that's not the experience average diners are going to have. So if you get special treatment, then your evaluation isn't really useful to your readers.
So that makes a lot of sense to me.
I also can understand from a chef's perspective how when somebody makes a reservation under a fake name, wears sunglasses, wears a wig, goes through any number of these various sort of strategic moves, I can understand from the chef's perspective how they could feel somewhat deceived or that someone is trying to deceive them.
And even if it's in pursuit of an honest review, from their perspective, I could understand how they might not love that.
Sure. Yeah, I can get that.
Restaurant critics have been wearing disguises for decades.
You know, like this is not a new thing.
I guess what is new is that all of our photos are broadcast over the internet.
So perhaps it's easier to spot critics.
but this idea that like um i don't know this has been like a weird fucked up dance that like critics and chefs have been doing since there were restaurants and since there were critics right right i mean i remember i think it was a profile of pete wells in the new yorker that talked about like some chefs recognize him but they have to pretend that they haven't recognized exactly it's kabuki theater and this is why when i became a critic i decided that i was not going to be be anonymous because I really don't think that anonymity, at least at restaurants like the French Laundry, is real.
So there's something a little bit disingenuous in both directions.
Totally. It's a charade.
It's a charade where it's like, okay, I'm going to pretend that you don't know who I am and you're pretending that I don't know that you know who I am.
And I don't know. I think that what has shifted in this case is the critical perception of Thomas Keller's restaurants.
restaurants i think like as the reviews have gotten negative the ways in which critics do or don't enter his restaurant has started to become more of a problem for him right but like one of the things i appreciated about your piece this piece could easily have been written as a hit piece and i don't think it was there was almost at points in the piece moments where i felt a little i have to admit i felt a little sorry for him i felt sorry for you at certain points because i felt like you were being placed in a very difficult situation situation.
But I also felt at some moments your characterization made him sound to me like a sort of wounded little boy.
It seemed like he really had had his feelings hurt by these bad reviews.
I think he has. And I don't think that he would admit that to me or to anyone else.
You know, in fact, when he said that he wasn't comfortable having me in his restaurant, he said, you know, I don't care about the reviews, but the young chefs who work for me, they care.
That's bullshit. We all know.
I mean, anytime anyone, especially any public person says, He says, I don't care what anyone thinks of me.
Who doesn't care what anyone thinks of them?
There's nobody who doesn't care at all.
Some people care more than others, but everybody cares a little bit about what other people think of them.
Of course. And look, I'm not going to equate, you know, what I do with what he does, but we do both create something and put it out in the world and then people have reactions to it, right?
And I appreciate your saying that you didn't think it was a hit piece.
Not everyone agrees with you.
I've been receiving plenty of emails that take issue with how I characterized this encounter with a beloved chef.
And, you know, of course, it's hard. It's hard to receive criticism from somebody you don't know.
And it can be hurtful.
It can make you defensive.
It can cause you to be, well, say, well, who are you?
Who are you to have an opinion?
union. But that's part of the act of creation is that you make something and then it's out there and people get to say what they want to say about it.
Right. That's true.
The other thing that I started thinking about as I was reading the piece is that, so I looked it up, Thomas Keller, 69.
He's been doing this a long time.
I think any driven, ambitious person, whatever field you're in.
We all want to feel like the arrows are always pointing upward. We're always building, we're always creating, we're always moving on to the next exciting thing.
But deep down, we all know that at a certain point, we're going to have to realize that we have more days behind us than ahead.
And most of the things we've done and created that anyone's going to ever remember are in the past. And as I get older, that's like a moment that I think about for myself, So you don't know whether you've hit that moment.
I mean, you probably don't know you've hit that moment until you're on the other side of the hill.
As I get older and sort of reflect on my own career like this, I think about it.
It's like everyone has that moment at some point in life.
I can imagine that being something.
So if you're in your 60s and you've been famous and successful for decades and then suddenly within several years, you get a few very bad reviews in top publications after having been this darling for decades, it's more than just a hit to your ego or hurt feelings.
failings. It's something like more existential.
It's like this could be pointing to the end of the run.
I agree with everything you said.
I do want to note, we reached out to Thomas Keller for comment and even invited him to come on the show.
A representative of his responded to our request with a two -word email that read, quote, utterly uninteresting.
As I wrapped up with Mackenzie, I had one more question.
You talked about the reverence you had for Thomas Keller and his restaurants before going to the French Laundry.
This was your graduation gift from college that you asked for your parents.
You said that's what you want.
You want to be at the French Laundry.
How did this experience affect your perception of Thomas Keller?
Celebrities have bad nights.
Celebrities make weird decisions based on what's going on for them at a given point.
I don't know. I'm sure many people have had an experience of meeting somebody who seems larger than life or who have had a significant impact on their lives or, you know, on their industry.
And it's always an eye -opening experience to meet the person behind the image, because it's just a reminder that we're all people people with feelings.
That's Mackenzie Chung Fagan, restaurant critic of the San Francisco Chronicle.
We'll link to her article about her experience with the French laundry in our show notes.
Next week on the show, I talk with Dr. Jessica B.
Harris. She's the author of High on the Hog and many other influential books that have uncovered the way that West African food and African American people have fundamentally shaped American cuisine.
While you wait for that one, check out last week's show.
It's a look at the biggest legal case you probably never heard enough about the lengths that Thomas's English muffins would go to protect their beloved nooks and crannies.
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This episode was produced by me along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O 'Hara Our engineer is Jared O 'Connell Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios.
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Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman and I'm Andrew from Downey, California reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
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