ALAIN DUCASSE

It's striking and unique in London how you know to create this alchemy between the concept, the food, the music, the staff. From the beginning to the end, with all these different elements, it tells a full story that you know very well how to develop and cultivate.

What they've found so far in the Amazon is 5 percent of what there is yet to discover to eat in the Amazon because it's completely unknown. I've eaten things I've never eaten before over there.

When I started cooking the meal at home, after I had started cooking in restaurants, I usually would prepare bay scallops or lobster.

I don't like being a celebrity.

Everywhere in the world there are tensions - economic, political, religious. So we need chocolate.

Believe me, I did not come to London to cook farmed fish. All my fish are wild.

I travel the world, and I can see in Toronto the cooking is very personal. These people cook with their hearts.

I was brought up on a farm in Southwest France, eating farm-fresh produce three times a day. It was paradise on Earth, and it shaped my eating habits and my sense of taste.

My grandmother did all the cooking at Christmas. We ate fattened chicken. We would feed it even more so it would be big and fat.

I have restaurants, bookshops... but it's not an empire, more... a puzzle. If it were an empire, all my restaurants would be the same.

You need a good gardener and a good fisherman. The cook is not required.

When I was younger, I behaved a bit strangely sometimes - lost my temper, did silly things - but little by little, I've gotten better. As a chef, I think you need to do a lot of work on yourself and your temperament.

Gastronomy is my hobby. I'm simply the casting director. Once I've brought all the right people together, it is they who must work together to tell a story.

The world forgets about people who are not useful.

In each restaurant, I develop a different culinary sensibility. In Paris, I'm more classic, because that's what customers like. In Monaco, it's classic Mediterranean haute cuisine. In London, it's a contemporary French restaurant that I've developed with a U.K. influence and my French know-how.

With cooking, there's always the tangible and the intangible: that which is in the domain of sentiment, of the individual.

I have an obsession for quality. I work for my guests, not to obtain Michelin stars.

I love to pick tomatoes at the end of the day, when they're still warm from the sun.

In Paris we have bistros, then we have fine dining. In London, you have a very contemporary scene with mixed influences.

It is impossible to remain indifferent to Japanese culture. It is a different civilisation where all you have learnt must be forgotten. It is a great intellectual challenge and a gorgeous sensual experience.

I prefer to be able to identify what I'm eating. I have to know.

The Asian airlines have the best wine programs.

Given the number of restaurants I have, I could easily travel all the time - but I try not to.

I don't do the same food in Tokyo that I do in Vegas and vice versa. If I did that, two weeks later I would have no customers.

I have a passion for luggage - trunks and so on. I have a collection of them, but I can never resist buying another piece.