Grant Achatz Quotes

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.

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

One of my great teachers was the late Jean-Claude Vrinat of Taillevent in Paris.

In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.

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 still feel that French cooking is the most important in the world, one of the few that has rules. If you follow the rules, you can do pretty well.

I actually don't think there is any difference between French and American cuisine. French cuisine was always about discipline, about ingredient, about creativity, but also about simple. I see America as very similar in these rights.

When I am up in Paris then the restaurant which has remained my favourite for the past decade is Guy Savoy. The menu is huge, sophisticated and very creative but I keep to simple choices.

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.

France and Britain have large culinary differences, but one thing they do share is a relatively low tolerance for modernist cooking.

I used to not be into the fancy ones. I used to eat goo balls all the time.

Roberto Donna is a great Italian chef.

To be a gourmet you must start early, as you must begin riding early to be a good horseman. You must live in France, your father must have been a gourmet. Nothing in life must interest you but your stomach.

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 especially love French, Italian and Japanese cuisines.

Sushi is something very exclusive. It is not like a McDonald's, not like a hot dog, not like a French fry. It's very high-class cooking in Japan.

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.

I find that there are a lot of similarities between French and Japanese food. I think they're two countries that have really systemized their cuisine and codified it.

In Tokyo, we have more three-star Michelin restaurants than Paris.

I wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories.

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

The food being presented at the most expensive restaurants, by the most sophisticated chefs, was not always recognizable as food to the diner - it required a leap of faith, and I felt curious about that phenomenon.

My most memorable meal was with my parents at Joel Robuchon's Restaurant Jamin in Paris. It was Christmas 1982, and the flavors - from cauliflower and caviar to crab and tomato - astounded me. It was the first time I remember thinking that I would like to really learn how to cook.

When we were working on 'Julie & Julia,' I went back to the Julia Child cookbook and made some things I haven't made in a while, one being beef bourguignon, which to me is a hilariously 1960s dish that everyone felt they had to serve at a dinner party or they weren't a grown-up.

There is a history to Italian food that goes back thousands of years, and there's a basic value of respecting food. America is young and doesn't have that.