Toby Young Quotes

At the end of the day, it seems like there's a critic archetype for food movies, like with 'Ratatouille' or anything. You know, if you were doing a puppet show about chefs, one puppet would be the chef, one would be the critic.

Like baseball, food will never go out of style; we will always need to eat and we will always find it entertaining. I think of food TV this way - all the fun and none of the calories.

I love food shows: Anthony Bourdain, Iron Chef, Chopped, you name it.

I've been fascinated by the world ever since I read 'Kitchen Confidential' by Anthony Bourdain. I've watched 'Top Chef' and watched interviews with chefs on 'Charlie Rose'... I thought they're really intriguing characters, and they really encapsulate that tension between vision and commerce, art and commerce.

I'm hooked on food competition shows. It's unique, different... I definitely understand the importance of strategy.

However, I was a restaurant critic at Chicago magazine before I worked at Esquire, and I've been a really enthusiastic home cook for a long time. It's just something I'm passionate about.

Having grown up in the Middle East, eating beans for breakfast always seemed like a bizarre British eccentricity.

I was born in the '60s and grew up in the '70s - not exactly the best decade for food in British history. It was horrendous. It was a time when, as a nation, we excelled in art and music and acting and photography and fashion - all creative skills... all apart from cooking.

Nobody believed the 'Food Network' could last. Even I was short sighted and thought to myself, 24 hours of food on TV? They'll run out of things to talk about in four days! But that wasn't true. 'Food Network' continues to get better and evolve.

Food is entertainment now. People tune into 'Top Chef,' and they're not trying to replicate the recipes. Anthony Bourdain is entertainment. Instagramming your dishes is entertainment.

I love 'Top Chef.' I think it rewrote the book on how food shows are presented on TV.

I'm interested in food and sharing my passion with a community of like-minded people. All of the celebrity stuff that comes along with that is just an incidental byproduct of being able to do what I love for a living.

I am a foodie.

Oh yeah, the 'Chef' movie was awesome.

Instead of cartoons, I was the kid who was watching Food Network, falling asleep to Emeril and Rachael Ray.

I love food shows.

You know what, I don't really watch a lot of cooking shows, but what's great about them is that it inspires a lot of the younger generation so, you know, with cooking shows and reality shows and the social media, I think it really makes our industry a hotter industry.

Kitchen competition shows are so action-packed. They just get your adrenaline pumping.

I don't think I've ever read a food piece or a food book.

I had decided I wanted to write about food, and I knew the only way to do that is to speak with authority, which meant learning the language and knowing what that experience is like.

The truth is, as much as I loved writing restaurant reviews, it always felt very self-indulgent to me. It was so much fun, I loved doing it, but there's so much else to say about food.

I feel fortunate to be part of the cooking community. We learn from each other.

I became friends with a lot of chefs. I was a judge on 'Top Chef' last year. It was a dream come true.

It is great to add some glamour to the food industry, like television shows have done for the food world and inspiring people to work in the industry. The flip side of that is unfortunately people think that after they get their qualifications, they get their invitation to compete on 'Top Chef.'

In America, you look at food as bad and guilty. In France, we love food and we enjoy food; food is pleasure.