A chef shares the 3 most important lessons he learned while working at 3-star Michelin restaurant The French Laundry

• The French Laundry is one of only 14 restaurants in the US to hold three Michelin stars.
• Chef Joe Garcia of Hotel Bel-Air spent six years working at The French Laundry in Napa Valley.
• Garcia shared with Business Insider the three most important lessons he learned at the restaurant.

As one of only 14 restaurants in the US to hold three Michelin stars, The French Laundry has become a legendary fine-dining establishment and the crown jewel of the Napa Valley culinary scene.

Under the guidance of Thomas Keller, the restaurant has also been a launchpad for decorated American chefs, including Grant Achatz, Tim Hollingsworth, and Joe Garcia.

Garcia — who was chef de cuisine of the Michelin-starred Manzke in Los Angeles before taking over for Wolfgang Puck as the culinary director of Hotel Bel-Air — recently sat down with Business Insider and shared the most important lessons he learned while working as a sous chef at The French Laundry.

Writing a new menu every day was the ultimate culinary education

The French Laundry changes the menu daily for its 12-course dinner, which ranges in cost from $390 to $425 a person. Garcia told BI that only two signature dishes on Keller’s menu always stay the same: oysters and pearls, and coffee and doughnuts.

“I joke that my brain still hurts from trying to come up with a new menu every day because, at a certain point, it gets daunting to not be repetitive,” Garcia said. “How many things can you do with a carrot once you’ve already made a soup, a purée, and a salad? But that’s what pushes you, that’s what challenges you.”

During his six years at the restaurant, Garcia learned “all the different ways and methods of utilizing ingredients and the combinations of ingredients” at The French Laundry, which has helped him throughout his career.

“It’s prepared me to where it’s now relatively easy to write menus,” he said. “Sometimes, the dish writes itself, and there are other times where I get stumped; I get writer’s block. But usually, within a day or two, I can work it out.”

Nothing beats freshly-picked ingredients

“You get spoiled at The French Laundry because right across the street, we have a garden,” Garcia said. “The vegetables wouldn’t even see the refrigerator.”

Garcia recalled how the chefs were given a daily catalog of what was available from the garden, allowing them to write the menu for the following day. They had to list the exact number of vegetables they needed for every dish so the ingredients could be freshly picked the next morning without anything going to waste.

“You’d write exactly how many carrots you want, exactly how many pea pods, even the microgreens,” Garcia said. “Then they were harvested the morning of.”

Being able to work with such fresh ingredients changed the way Garcia thought about food.

“That same carrot or microgreen — if for whatever reason we had too many and put some in the fridge — if you tasted it the next day, it just wasn’t as good as being hours out of the ground,” he said.

Since Garcia doesn’t have his own garden at the Hotel Bel-Air, he goes to the Santa Monica farmers market twice a week — every Wednesday and Saturday — to get the freshest ingredients possible.

“I speak to the farmers directly. They have things to taste. We talk about what’s coming and what’s going out of season,” Garcia said. “That’s why it’s so valuable for me to physically come down here and have a relationship with the farmers because, in the end, whatever I put on the plate is going to be either great or OK. I want it to be great.”

Mentorship is integral to any successful kitchen

Garcia’s biggest takeaway from The French Laundry wasn’t the plating, the sauces, or even the food; it was the importance of good mentorship, training, and systems in the kitchen.

“If you have those things in place, and they’re solid and they’re bulletproof, the food almost comes second,” Garcia said.

“There still needs to be talent. There still needs to be vision,” he told BI. “But my biggest takeaway is the importance of setting up a kitchen properly and mentoring the team so that they make your life easier. That’s where everything just kind of falls into place.”

Garcia said he knows a kitchen has succeeded when the entire team can perform at a high level — whether or not the head chef is present.

“That is what truly makes The French Laundry and all other restaurants that operate at that same level,” he added.