Daniel Boulud Quotes

I have experienced some amazing food! Yet when I think about the most luxurious and exquisite meals I have had, visions of simple food made from a few natural ingredients are what most excite me.

For my 16th birthday, my family took me to L'Auberge de L'Ill, which was family-run but had three Michelin stars. It was a revelation. After that meal, I realised this is what I want to do.

I think at Le Cirque I learned how to make real food, which is what people crave, not just gimmicky things on a plate.

All the great chefs I know - Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten - they are technicians first.

I cook. I did the Escoffier course in Paris when I was 21 in one of those periods when it was like a pause. I can cook anything Italian, Chinese.

I think that in our part of the world, Scandinavia, we are one of the pioneers of showing that gastronomy can be something - high gastronomy can be something very, very present and doesn't have to involve, you know, what is perceived as the normal luxury items that belong in a high gastronomy restaurant.

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

I'm sure that at no point in my life could I ever have shown the kind of focus and discipline and commitment necessary to work a station at elBulli or Le Bernardin. No. That ain't me.

Lots of the cooking classes open to non-professionals are too low-level for experienced foodies, or don't offer enough hands-on training.

Fifteen years ago, France was the promised land of cooking. So I looked at a map, found five restaurants and faxed them to ask for a job. Within five minutes, I got a reply from the then three- star Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier.

I love good food and I love to eat in nice restaurants. I love Japanese food. I love Gordon Ramsay in London; he is pretty amazing.

I think in France, for example, we can say whatever we want about the French, but going out and dining is more about the intellectual moment to share with the people you dine with than trying to figure out what the chef did with that little piece of salmon or lobster and all that.

Now the restaurants have begun to catch up with the wine-making; there are numerous great restaurants in Napa Valley, and it's wonderful because the people are there for just that: great food and great wine.

A gourmet meal without a glass of wine just seems tragic to me somehow.

I'd rather have Daniel Boulud have 20 restaurants than some restauranteur. It's going to make the food in our country better.

When I was at the Cordon Bleu things took hours and hours and hours to make. And they were beautiful dishes - and I know how to cook that way - but I was like, 'no one is cooking like this.'

One of my favorites to order in fancy restaurants is escargot.

A fellowship to Oxford acquainted me with the depths of English cooking. By the twenty-first century, London's best restaurants are as good as Paris's, but not in the 1950s.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I was cooking with two guys who became celebrity chefs, if you will. I became their sous chef for awhile. We'd go to all the big names in Hollywood.

I go to the fanciest restaurants in the world and try them out. I like to see these chefs that are wizards do their thing. I like two types of food: cheap fast food - In-N-Out Burger, Taco Bell, stuff like that - or expensive food. Anything in between just bothers me.

I don't go to fancy Michelin-starred restaurants often.

Anybody can cook for chefs. I cooked for a three Michelin star chef when I was cooking at home.

Cooking for yourself is the only sure way to take back control of your diet from the food scientists and food processors, and to guarantee you're eating real food rather than edible foodlike substances, with their unhealthy oils, high-fructose corn syrup, and surfeit of salt.

I love eating out. I don't deny that. But I don't want 12 or 15 courses because the chef wants me to taste this or taste that. I just want to be able to decide.

Her cooking suggested she had attended the Cordon Noir.