Keller, Thomas

Thomas Keller (1955–) is an award-winning American chef known for his restaurant The French Laundry in California’s Napa Valley, as well as seven other restaurants throughout the United States, and for his four cookbooks. Born in 1955 in Oceanside, California, to Edward and Betty Keller, he spent his childhood in Palm Beach, Florida, where he lived with his mother and four brothers after his parents divorced. He began cooking at nineteen, making hamburgers and hollandaise sauce at the Palm Beach Yacht Club, which his mother managed. Keller credits his mother with inspiring him to execute simple dishes perfectly.