Roughly speaking, the more one pays for food, the more sweat and spittle one is obliged to eat with it.... Dirtiness is inherent in hotels and restaurants, because sound food is sacrificed to punctuality and smartness.
I love key lime pie, although it's never made the proper way.
In America, I would say New York and New Orleans are the two most interesting food towns. In New Orleans, they don't have a bad deli. There's no mediocrity accepted.
Early in my life I had made a pact with myself. I would never eat anything that moved when I cooked it, excited the dog, or inflated upon impact with my teeth.
I also like a great Caesar salad with anchovies, although I don't know why some places say 'with anchovies.' If you're making a proper Caesar salad, it's going to have anchovies.
People with chile peppers on their chef pants shouldn't be allowed in the kitchen.
'Fine casual' means taking the cultural priorities that fine dining, at its best, believes in.
I feel very passionate about maintaining the same level of standard and respect for the food as an Iron Chef myself.
Chefs don't do ponytails and we shouldn't do them because I guarantee that whenever there's a discovery of hair in the food, it's guaranteed it's from the chef's ponytail.
I never serve a dessert on Passover that I would not serve the rest of the year.
Charles preferred his deer to taste like meat and his pancakes to look like pancakes. Brother Wolf thought he was too picky. Brother Wolf was probably right.
I openly admit it: I am a diva with my food.
If it doesn't taste good it doesn't go on the menu.
I'm open to starting restaurants anywhere as long as the produce that's readily available is high quality. For example, I'm never doing a restaurant in Shanghai because I saw the produce available there, and it's just not good. I won't do a restaurant in Moscow for the same reason.
When new cooks come to work for me, they obviously make mistakes at the beginning or there's some messiness to the presentation. What I always say to them is: 'If you were cooking this for your mother or your girlfriend, would you make those mistakes?'
It's quite weird knocking that out of them and telling them to forget cooking for chefs; forget what chefs say about your food.
There's some really disgusting places out there who just throw some lentil together and think that just because you don't eat meat, you're gonna eat this slop.
Who cares if a carrot has a slight bend? They're all the same when they end up on the plate.
I get cross with foodies who think hospital food should be Michelin-star and caterers can fall into this trap.
Too much trouble," "Too expensive," or "Who will know the difference" are death knells for good food.
I went straight from college into restaurants, so, from the beginning, my idea of what a kitchen should be was the highfalutin' restaurant type - and what I had at home never measured up to that.
In London, the food critics are harsher, the clients milder; in Hong Kong, the clients are harsher, the critics milder.
A cookbook is only as good as its poorest recipe.
