Marco Pierre White Quotes

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

I started my cooking 'career' aged 15, almost 20 years ago. At the time it was quite a shock suddenly working 75 to 80 hours a week, without time to play football or other sports.

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 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.

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.

You don't become a chef to become famous.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

I didn't harbor a huge desire to become a chef until I graduated from college.

When I graduated from cooking school, I went to work at Stars, which was one of my favorite restaurants in the country at the time, and that's where I really learned to cook and to taste food in a discerning way.

You don’t spring into good cooking naked. You have to have some training. You have to learn how to eat.

I am not a chef. I can't claim that title. The difference is a cook doesn't have a degree. A chef has formal education. It has nothing to do with talent or actual preparation - one just can't claim the title if you don't have degree.

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

I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence.

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

Fine dining teaches you how to cook many different things, and it gives you the basic fundamentals, but these specialty restaurants, they're not teaching you the broad foundation you need to become a well-rounded cook.

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

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.

I am very proud of Jim Leiken. He has worked with me for six years and has been patient enough to learn the ropes. He's now matured into a true chef and is working on building his team.

It's very important to me that people who are actual chefs and other professionals in the culinary world, understand that I'm not, and have never held myself out as being, like a CIA trained chef.

I am a chef through and through. Everything I do - whether it is cooking for kids in Harlem or cooking in a fine dining establishment - all my days are consumed by food.