Todd English Quotes

Honestly... I only get starstruck over chefs.

When you have a chef that wants to be in the spotlight, maybe after one or two appearances on a show, they think they're at a certain level that they haven't reached yet in the kitchen. Shows like 'Top Chef', 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world.

In 1981, we opened Felidia, and the newspapers, the city papers, the big timers came, and I got invited on the 'Today Show' and so on. A lot of food luminaries would come to Felidia - Julia Child, James Beard, they all came.

'Top Chef' is always entertaining - it's hard to stop watching, like a good hockey fight, but no one gets hurt. It's great that the format is so inherently dramatic and can make cooking so entertaining to people who might not ordinarily be interested in a cooking show. Good for the industry all round.

Restaurants and chefs have become followed by such a broad swath of the public, in a way that used to be reserved for sports stars, movie stars, and theater actors. Restaurants are in the firmament of today's common culture.

The celebrity-chef thing, even at its worst, its most annoying, its silliest, its goofiest, its most egregious and cynical, has been a good thing.

I am so proud of 'Top Chef' - I think it's got great cred.

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.

Shows like 'Top Chef,' 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world on a whole, but you have to be cautious it doesn't get out of hand.

When I'm back in New York - and this is a terrible thing to complain about - I eat a lot more really, really good food than perhaps I'd like to. So many of my friends are really good chefs. It's kind of like being in the Mafia.

I'm obsessed with 'Top Chef'.

You'll see me on 'Top Chef' someday. My Midwestern hospitality needs an outlet, you know?

Is it OK to admit to being slightly obsessed with the TV programme 'Great British Menu?'

My most famous show is the 'Kitchen Show.' More famous than any gallery show or museum show I curated.

I am a chef who happens to appear on the telly, that's it.

I was at a party, and some squiggly looking dude with a bow tie came up and said, 'How'd you like to be on TV?' Turns out he was the programming guy at the Food Network. They had me come into the office, and I did a 'Ready, Set, Cook' with Emeril Lagasse, I believe.

Food trends have been around as long as people have had the ability to choose between different things to eat, but the modern, interconnected media has made food trends a viral phenomenon. Once upon a time, it was just a few newspapers and a few select gourmet magazines that were writing about food. Today, it's every single publication.

I watch Letterman. Once in a while, on the odd night, I'll catch the Food Network and watch 'Ace of Cakes,' which I'm kind of obsessed with.

The first glimpse I had of what Mario Batali's friends had described to me as the 'myth of Mario' was on a cold Saturday night in January 2002, when I invited him to a birthday dinner.

'Man v. Food' was the biggest career-defining opportunity. I went from anonymity to someone of note with access to amazing eateries.

The album 'Kelis Was Here' sucked the life out of me, and so I went off and studied to be a Cordon Bleu chef. What's great about food is that it's less about who you know and what you look like, and more about if you're any good.

Rachael Ray is probably the most watched kitchen personality in the history of American television.

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.

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 remember the Food Network when it was first starting out: Emeril Lagasse and all those people who helped make it when it was on a shoestring budget. It actually encouraged me to start cooking.