The 7% Factor

Emily Luchetti is currently the executive pastry chef of the celebrated Farallon and Waterbar restaurants in San Francisco, CA; where she creates the pastry menus, oversees the production, and manages the departments. Prior to that, Emily was the pastry chef for Stars Restaurant for 11 years and co-owner with Jeremiah Tower of StarBake, a retail bakery.

Her most recent book, A Passion for Ice Cream was published by Chronicle Books in 2006. In addition, Emily Luchetti has authored several cookbooks, A Passion for Desserts, Stars Desserts, and Four Star Desserts. In 2004, Emily won the James Beard Pastry Chef of the Year award. Emily and her recipes appear regularly in national newspapers and magazines. She was co-host of the PBS show, The Holiday Table.

In 1984, I joined the opening team of Stars Restaurant in San Francisco. In 1987, I became one of the sous chefs. But after seven years, I started to lose my love for cooking. I came home one day and told my husband Peter, “I want to get into pastries.” He said, “How do you know?” And I said, “I just know.” It was one of those gut things.

The woman who was the pastry chef at Stars was going on maternity leave, so I had nine months to convince my boss to give me the job. In those days, you could get away with having no experience because no one was really paying attention. Now, if you want to be at a restaurant of this caliber, you would have to have years of experience.

No. I went to Australia on behalf of Stars Restaurant and among other things, I made the desserts there. When I came back, I was supposed to work under the pastry chef for two weeks before she left on maternity leave. There was a note waiting for me saying, “I’m sorry I can’t do this any more. I have to get off my feet. Here’s the recipe box.” I got up really early in the morning, so that if I botched stuff up I could do it again. I kept very close to the recipe box for about six months and then I started branching out.

I got into cooking when the food revolution was just starting to take off in the United States. When I started in this business, everyone in the kitchen had college educations. The “intellectuals” were starting this revolution. There were people cutting 40 pounds of tomatoes, with PhD’s. At that time, people were just starting to pay attention to things other than French menus. Obviously, there was New England lobster, or Tomales Bay Oysters, but no one paid attention to the regional delicacies. The attention was made mostly on French food—mostly in sauces.

By the time I was at the management level, people started paying attention to the woman chef. I rode that PR wave for a couple of years. Then, people really started to pay attention to pastry, so I rode the pastry chef pr for a couple of years. It was just great timing. There were probably only 2 or 3 people that were pastry chefs in restaurants and had also written books. Now, everybody does it. So, a lot of it was timing. It couldn’t have been better.

Everyone was well educated, but we got into food because we just loved food. We didn’t know where it was going to take us. We just knew we wanted to be around it all day. Whatever happened happened. You didn’t look that far ahead because you didn’t know what the possibilities or the options were. And now you look around today and they all want to be celebrity chefs. They are not even thinking of the day to day process, going in and just doing the work every day.

How did you get to be the executive pastry chef at two of the finest restaurants in San Francisco?

Well, I went to work for ten years with my head down for 16 hours a day; and one day I lifted my head up and I was quote unquote, “famous” in my industry.

I think it depends on who you are, what your personality is, because if you wake up every morning and the only thing that matters is how you’re going to garner an award—then that’s a sad way to live. Regardless of the career you’re in, you have to get pleasure out of the process. Process is the day to day. And those are things that come and you definitely feel the satisfaction, but awards and stature can not define who you are.

When you started your career, you didn’t have a view of where you were going to end up?

I knew that I wanted to make the best pastry desserts that I could make every day when I went to work. I didn’t think that far ahead. I didn’t analyze my opportunities because if I had, I would have found the real pastry departments were in big hotels run by European men.

Do you feel that your career success had to do with the deliberate steps you took? And making good quality products?

Yes, but I also think I was successful because I followed short term goals. My goal was to get the job, then it was to get good reviews, then it was to write a good book, and then more books. Goals like that. I did have the goal of some day I’d like to get that national recognition. And while you have those goals, you have to be in the now, the present and in the day to day with staff. You can’t be so goal fixated that you lose sight of what may come up.

So many have their blinders on and they can’t see what’s in their path. When I started working, I didn’t think about writing books, it didn’t cross my mind. But after a couple of years, doing production, it wasn’t as interesting, so when I had gotten it under my belt, I wanted a new challenge. I thought these were my original recipes; I need to put them in a book. I always loved cook books, so I wrote a book back then when there weren’t many books written by pastry chefs.

I wrote the Ice Cream book a couple of years ago and recently Rachel Ray magazine called and asked if I would do an article on ice cream. Because of my books I have been a spokesperson for several large companies and associations. So the exposure is really good, because all of a sudden you’re an authority. Authoring books has opened a lot of doors and has helped me, propelled me to do other things.

I love this quote from you. “After eating chocolate you feel godlike, as though you can conquer enemies, lead armies, and entice lovers.” There is a know-all confidence in the expression. Besides chocolate, what other dessert makes you feel that way?

Summer fruit, especially in California. The question in making fruit desserts is how do I turn this dessert into something bigger and better than the fruit on its own without messing it up. That’s my driving force when I make desserts. You take that bite, it’s usually sweet, sugary and sweet, it doesn’t have an essence. How do you make it so that when you take a bite, you say it’s worth every bite?

When you talk about top women executive chefs, it’s a fine when business to be in when they are younger, but when they want to have a family and raise kids, it’s hard. You either have to have a husband that’s home or a team of support because you have to work nights and weekends. That being said, I’ve seen many women who are mothers and have made it work.

Did you find the food service industry was open and fair to you as a woman?

I think in San Francisco, it was very open. I mean, you could be as successful as a woman, as you could as a man. I think in New York and Boston, it was harder. Everywhere now there are more opportunities. Being the fact that this is a smaller, more creative type industry, you can be more successful. No one’s trying to be a CFO of Pepsi-Co. for instance. If you’re one of the independents, you can say this is America, I can do anything.

What keeps me coming back is getting back into the actual baking—if I need to chill out, just put me in a kitchen and let me bake some simple brownies. To be singularly focused. It also has two rewards, I get to create something, but you also get the reward of when you give it to someone to enjoy. I also like that restaurant work is accomplished by a team, all for a common good. It’s very addicting, and very exciting.

As a supervisor of two restaurants, I also like working with women, who are just starting out. I like to encourage them, giving them the confidence to achieve their goals. At this phase in my career, I find that really rewarding.

If you had some inspiring advice to give women on how to succeed at their work, what would it be?

Interview with Emily Luchetti