Rene Redzepi Quotes

You know, from age 17 on, my paycheck was coming from cooking and working in kitchens.

I like cooking, but I don't think I could be a chef. Everyone from the ground up does terrible hours, whether you've just walked in off the street and you've got no experience, to whether you're the head chef. You can work 14 or 15-hour days. It's really, really intense.

I have worked in kitchens since I was 15 years old and never had a break.

I know my way around the kitchen. I like to cook, so I can fry an egg. I guess I could be a fry cook at Bob's Big Boy or something, or maybe a sous chef somewhere a little nicer. I would like to do that. I think I can probably pick that up pretty quickly.

Who needs one more chef in one more building with four walls and a kitchen?

When we talk about chefs, we often talk about their love of food or their passion for it, but cooking is also about making a living; it's a job.

You don't go into being a chef for the money.

You can't be a chef and appear on television all the time. It's impossible. At least when I earned my stars, I was always behind my stove.

I'm obsessed with cooking! I want a degree in the culinary arts!

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.

Now everybody thinks that once you do Top Chef, then 13 weeks later you're a chef. Nobody wants to learn to cook anymore.

You have no choice as a professional chef: you have to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat until it becomes part of yourself. I certainly don't cook the same way I did 40 years ago, but the technique remains. And that's what the student needs to learn: the technique.

Growing up, my dad owned a restaurant in Washington, DC, and food was something I was passionate about. But when I finally got into it, I felt like it was so late in the game; that's why I worked seven days a week at Craft and Mercer Kitchen. I wanted to see how far I could take it.

Being a cook doesn't necessarily mean you are a competitor.

Ever since I read 'Kitchen Confidential,' I saw a little light bulb go off. Being a chef is like being on a pirate ship; it's not like 'Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?' or whatever my impression was as I was growing up.

You don't become a chef to become famous.

Very good cooks who are employed as 'chefs' rarely refer to themselves as 'chefs.' They refer to themselves as 'cooks.'

I hope the cooks who are working for me now are getting that kind of experience so they can use what they're learning now as a foundation for a great career.

It helps immerse yourself in what you potentially want to do. Being involved, learning firsthand and observing the craft and absorbing all you can, makes it easier to define what you want. It will also ultimately make you a better Chef. Culinary school, or even a single class, is a great bet too.

I never even dreamed of being a chef, and that's fundamental.

When you look at a kitchen, you tend to see that the people who are doing really well are those who have worked with the same chef or stayed in one restaurant for a significant amount of time.

I think I could be a cook. Everybody always says I'm good, though I think it's quite gruelling as a profession.

I call all chefs 'cooks.' They're all cooks. That's what we do, we cook. You're a chef when you're running a kitchen.

I started cooking in kitchens right out of high school, and I was lucky to work with a lot of great people, but I had no idea it would turn into this. Of course no one should go into this business because they want to be the next Emeril.

If acting doesn't work out, I'm probably going to be a professional chef.