Charlie Trotter Quotes

It's very hard to be an innovator at the highest level in any discipline. For some chefs it's merely about combining ingredients, but that's something you can do with your eyes closed.

I'm always changing my work, as there are endless ways to think about food.

I like that talented chefs are able to keep coming up with new ways of preparing food - it really is an art form.

Chefs are artists, and I couldn't be happy with my art if I was forced to use cheap ingredients.

Ferran Adria making hamburgers... some thought it was crazy. But getting them perfect was a challenge. Plus I'm fascinated by all aspects of food.

I watch cooking change the cook, just as it transforms the food.

I've always been fascinated by chefs and the worlds of chefs - what they do is incredibly cinematic.

I didn't want to do just another set of recipes. I think that's useless.

The idea of old was to conform yourself to a style of cooking, it was not to create a style of cooking. Now the chef is so much into 'I want to sign that dish and say I am the one who made that dish.'

I have met a lot of top chefs around the world during my travels. Each one of them has said 'Ratatouille' is their favorite movie and the only movie that truly captures what they do.

I have real admiration for chefs who can maintain an edge and find new inspiration in their cooking after many years.

One of the things is challenging yourself to do a Rome show when everybody's done a Rome show. To find some aspect of food culture or chef culture that people can look at in a new way.

Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors - it's how you combine them that sets you apart.

I love the alchemy of cooking, the theatre of it. It's creating something.

Amuse-bouches are an opportunity to push boundaries.

Poultry is for the cook what canvas is for a painter, or the cap of Fortunatus for a conjurer.

What I really do is take real plums and put them in an imaginary cake. If you're interested in the cake, you get rather annoyed with people saying what species the real plum was.

At Babbo, each dish grew out of a conversation, trying to put something forth that was new and different. It was a combination of culinary adventurism and the dining-room experience with respect for the classic but with an eye toward innovation. And it was about eating locally, whether produce or fish or meat.

I have a goal so lofty it's almost embarrassing to talk about. And that's to be the best restaurant in the world.

I love showing my personality in my cooking.

I would try doing a dish 30 different ways.

Creating deluxe cuisine is like playing a sport. Always competitive. Always challenging. And if you slow down a bit, you can no longer return to the top level.

Chef Michel Richard is always at the top of his game.

At wd~50, we have carried on, I think, a very honest, legitimate European tradition of messing with foie gras.

Don't try to be the next Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay, we already have those people. We want someone who is going to make their own mark on 'Food Network.'