Classic Cuisine Quotes

I don't think I've ever seen pie advertised. That's how you know it's good. They advertise ice cream and other desserts. They advertise the bejeezus out of yogurt, but I haven't seen one pie commercial.

When I was at the Cordon Bleu things took hours and hours and hours to make. And they were beautiful dishes - and I know how to cook that way - but I was like, 'no one is cooking like this.'

Classics can be phenomenal when done right. A simple roast chicken dish could be the best thing you ever eat.

I just signed to do my next book with Ecco Press, a new primer or encyclopedia. This will be my take on what classic Italian cooking is.

A steak is a steak, so I tried to experiment with different side dishes, such as truffle croquettes, and unusual condiments, but I learned that people don't want you to change the steakhouse.

I'm a carb queen. I'll always order macaroni and cheese, but I don't want it to be fancy. I want it to be as close to Kraft Services as it can possibly get!

In each restaurant, I develop a different culinary sensibility. In Paris, I'm more classic, because that's what customers like. In Monaco, it's classic Mediterranean haute cuisine. In London, it's a contemporary French restaurant that I've developed with a U.K. influence and my French know-how.

You have to know the classics if you want to cook modern food.

Since 1890, the Tour d'Argent's basic recipe hasn't changed. If you find yourself at the restaurant tomorrow, you will eat duck in the confidence that it was what someone ate a hundred years ago. You will eat it in the expectation that someone else will be served it a hundred years from now.

Steakhouses sort of have this old-school nature to them; they're like museums full of good food. It's fun hearing the waiter share his expertise on the different cuts of beef and how they're going to cut up your baked potato.

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.

There is nothing like a good old recipe. If it has lasted, then it is good.

A poet could write volumes about diners, because they're so beautiful. They're brightly lit, with chrome and booths and Naugahyde and great waitresses. Now, it might not be so great in the health department, but I think diner food is really worth experiencing periodically.