“What’s irreplaceable — what you should ideally be paying for — are the chef’s judgment and palate; the difference between good and great may be a half teaspoon of lemon juice. The point of having a chef in situ is that a brilliant one isn’t going to allow a dish to be sent out unless that half teaspoon of lemon juice is there. Not everyone can do that; only a few can. And even fewer great chefs can afford to hire other great chefs to work for them, and when they do, most of those No. 2s will go off on their own before long. In 95 percent of the world’s restaurants, where dishes are standardized and even corporatized, this doesn’t matter. But it does matter at the very narrow top.”
shaun james bockert 