Jean-Georges Vongerichten Quotes

I would still like to own and run a restaurant serving Indian food with a good dollop of Parsi cooking - which you can't seem to get anywhere.

My parents owned a soul food diner. It inspired me to go to culinary school.

I'm not a TV guy. I'm a restaurant chef and a businessman.

I want to go to culinary school because I love cooking. One day I'd love to open up a restaurant or cafe.

Whether it's books or TV, or whatever the case may be, the backbone of what I do is my restaurants.

One thing I always say is being a great chef today is not enough - you have to be a great businessman.

I started waiting tables in college and realized how much I loved the business and loved to cook. I decided to go to culinary school and never looked back.

It's tough, you know: I'm a chef first, and a restaurant owner, way before I was ever on Food Network, and it's a tough business.

There are so many things you can do with a culinary degree.

I had thought that maybe I will go into hotel business because our family loves food. And North Indian food is very famous in Hyderabad.

If I wasn't acting, I would want to be in the food and restaurant business. I really love to cook and am fascinated by the art of cooking in general.

I started in the restaurant industry when I was 22, so I've had quite a long tenure, if you will.

I love creating new things. It's difficult to be creative once a restaurant's open. People want the same dishes. For me, the creativity is in opening a new place and starting a new menu.

Let me ask you: Who do you prefer, a clown organizing your menu - with all due respect to Mr. McDonald - or a chef? I do believe it's a very simple answer.

A good chef has to be a manager, a businessman and a great cook. To marry all three together is sometimes difficult.

If my daughter wants to get into this business, I would support that decision. She's going to have a hard time not being in it. She loves food and she's around it all the time.

I got my degree in culinary arts in 1978.

My first proper kitchen was this funny little club that we set up in Mercer Street in Covent Garden. It got shut down. Then I worked at a club in Notting Hill.

So I quit my job and went to the New England Culinary Institute for the full two years and worked in the restaurant industry after that until finally I thought I had a grasp on what I needed to do what I do.

I wanted to learn everything I could about what it takes to be a great chef. It was a turning point for me.

If I wasn't an actress, I'd be a chef. I'd love to open a restaurant.

I love cooking. I'm in the restaurant business.

Although the skills aren't hard to learn, finding the happiness and finding the satisfaction and finding fulfillment in continuously serving somebody else something good to eat, is what makes a really good restaurant.

I was working in restaurants as a captain and as a waiter.

All my jobs have been with food in one way or another since 1948. My parents were in the hotel business, and I just loved the warm hearted people who worked so hard with such good humor.