19 I travelled to New York and ate at the best restaurants, including Le Cirque and Alain Ducasse at Essex House,” he recalls. “I spent five days at the Culinary Institute of America and realised it wasn’t for me. I decided I needed to go and work with one of the best chefs in the world – either Thomas Keller or Alain Ducasse - and learn on the job.”
Back in California, he approached Keller about a job at the French Laundry. With no formal training and little experience but an abundance of determination, he persistently called the restaurant until he was eventually invited for a day’s trial. “After that I called and called again and finally I received a letter in the mail saying I’d been hired as a commis chef,” he says. Over the next 13 years, Hollingsworth rose up the ladder, working every station and spending the last four years effectively running the French Laundry kitchen as chef de cuisine.
Today he credits Keller with instilling in him a drive and ambition to constantly improve. “It’s a tough place to work. The standards are so high and every day you are expected to do something different, something better,” he says. “But it was a great place to work. [Thomas] gives you the freedom to do the food you want to do. He’s not the kind of person who watches over you all the time but lets you have your own successes and your own failures. He trains people to be chefs not cooks and allows you to be creative no matter what station you are working on.”
During his time with Keller, Hollingsworth was chosen to represent Team USA at the Bocuse d’Or, the world-famous cooking competition in Lyon, in 2009 where he placed sixth – the USA’s best result to date. “The Bocuse d’Or was really difficult,” he admits. “The pressure of representing America, having all these huge chefs around you and everyone expecting you to be successful because you come from the French Laundry where we don’t fail, it was really tough. But in retrospect I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to have done it.”
Hollingsworth left the French Laundry in 2012 and went on to consult on restaurant projects around the world, including in Lebanon and Korea. With the world as his oyster, why the move to LA? “I could easily have stayed in Napa or gone to San Francisco but it would’ve been too easy, too comfortable,” he says. “I wanted to move to a big city, where I’d be out of my comfort zone.
“LA is possibly the most exciting city for food in the US right now. You have a lot of young chefs
moving here, there are a lot of restaurants opening and there are a lot of people doing great things. LA is a little bit behind the times and there’s a lot of room to educate people about food, which is exciting.”
Looking ahead to his Broad Museum restaurant project, Hollingsworth says it will cater for the typical LA diner of today. “We want to make it approachable for people on a daily basis, make it a neighbourhood restaurant where you don’t just go for a special occasion but a place where you can go any day of the week,” he explains.
The food, he adds, will be light and healthy. “I like to eat lighter. I don’t want to walk away from a restaurant and feel heavy. Yes, I love a great piece of grilled meat, but I also like a tartar of some sort on the menu, seafood that has been marinated and is bright, fresh and acidic. I know I have a delicate touch in my cooking and I want to make sure that I express this with the new restaurant.”
Kerstin Kühn is a freelance food and travel writer, specialising in restaurant and chef stories. The former restaurant editor of
Caterer and Hotelkeeper, she relocated from London to Los Angeles last summer, where she lives with her husband and two cats. With a vast network of chefs from around the world, Kerstin has profiled the likes of Michel Roux, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, the Roca brothers and Massimo Bottura. She has been a contributor to publications including
FOUR Magazine, the
Evening Standard Food and Travel Magazine,
M&C Report,
Design Week,
Frame Magazine and
City and
Canary Wharf Magazines and also writes her own blog,
La Goulue. You can follow Kerstin on Twitter @LaGoulue _
