Chef Thomas Keller

Thomas Aloysius Keller (born October 14, 1955) is an American chef, restaurateur and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, the French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, including Best California Chef in 1996 and Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant was a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World;[1] the voting process has since been changed to disallow previous winners from being considered. In 2005, he was awarded the three-star rating in the inaugural Michelin Guide for New York City for his restaurant Per Se, and in 2006, he was awarded three stars in the inaugural Michelin Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area for The French Laundry. He is the only American chef to have been awarded simultaneous three-star Michelin ratings for two different restaurants.[2] His restaurants currently hold seven Michelin stars in total: three at Per Se, three at the French Laundry, and one at the Surf Club Restaurant