At the same time that Snøhetta was designing an addition to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the firm was in the thick of revamping another Northern California landmark— two projects of enormously different scales but equal intensity. Tucked away in the quiet Napa Valley town of Yountville, the small but world-renowned restaurant, The French Laundry, has been a gastronomic destination, and aspiration, for over two decades, and its owner, chef Thomas Keller, famous for his exacting standards. “The challenge with many of our projects is that our client is multiple people,” says Snøhetta founding partner Craig Dykers. “So with one person, it’s more specific, more precise, more focused.”
Chef Keller wasn’t looking to redesign the restaurant. In fact, nothing about the dining room was altered and not a single seat added. What he was after, instead, was a completely transformed kitchen. This wasn’t the first time he created a new cooking space since opening The French Laundry in 1994. He did so once before when he moved the original kitchen out of the restaurant itself, with a staff then that had grown from four to 50. It is now over a hundred.
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