Experimental Cooking Quotes

You don't see very many Irish-Cypriot pop-up restaurants kicking about!

I'm yet to attack French cooking, you know, where it's intense, following recipes and stuff. I'm more of a 'make it up' kind of thing.

What makes the food that we do at Alinea so interesting on the outside is that we really don't let ourselves say no to an idea.

Do you want to make a tamale with peanut butter and jelly? Go Ahead! Somebody will eat it.

When I came to El Bulli, right away I knew I was becoming part of something incredible. It was like watching the Big Bang happening right in front of me.

Fusion food as a concept is kind of trying to quite consciously fuse things that are sometimes quite contradictory, sometimes quite far apart, to see if they'd work.

I don't go for the nouvelle approach - serving a rabbit rump with coffee extract sauce and a slice of kiwi fruit.

The fact is that it takes more than ingredients and technique to cook a good meal. A good cook puts something of himself into the preparation - he cooks with enjoyment, anticipation, spontaneity, and he is willing to experiment.

What has impressed me the most about the Italians whose tables we've sat at is that they are traditional cooks but also outrageously innovative. These people are wild improvisers.

My husband is experimental, loves to cook, and is really good at it. If I do the cooking, I lose my appetite. Why is that?

No rules. Don't be afraid to do whatever you want. Cooking doesn't have to have rules. I don't like it that way.

In deference to American traditions, my family put our oven to rare use at Thanksgiving during my childhood, with odd roast-turkey experiments involving sticky-rice stuffing or newfangled basting techniques that we read about in magazines.

When I walk into a market I may see a different cut of meat or an unusual vegetable and think, ‘I wonder how it would be if I took the recipe for that sauce I had in Provence and put the two together?’ So I go home and try it out. Sometimes my idea is a success and sometimes it is a flop, but that is how recipes are born. There really are not recipes, only millions of variations sparked by someone’s imagination and desire to be a little creative and different. American cooking is built, after all, on variations of old recipes from around the world.

A dish should have flavor, texture, appearance and smell, but I'm doing it differently. We take Chinese food, play with your sentiments, memories of it, and then take you to the border; you won't fall over the edge, but you get excitement.

People wouldn't think of making avant-garde cuisine at home. When people play basketball at home, they can't play like Michael Jordan.

The menu de degustation is the finest expression of avant-garde cooking.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have never been shy about how important Ferran Adria has been in my life; he is a friend, a mentor, an inspiration.

I'll read a recipe but then decide, 'Well, it's sort of like this, then.' Or I'll go to the fridge and think, 'I'll see what I can put together,' and I'll combine beetroot and sausage and prawns with goat's cheese sprinkled on top and think, 'I like that they're all slightly pink. It looks fine and... actually, it is fine.'

My mother was really young when she had me, so she was a horrible cook, but we lived with my grandmother, who was fantastic. We eventually got our own place, and my mother started learning to cook. But it was also the '70s, so she was very experimental, and, well - thank God we had a dog.

Being a great baker and pastry chef requires the upmost open mind. I try every dessert that comes my way!

Every week I have a disaster in my kitchen. The fire alarm goes off repeatedly. But it doesn't stop me being adventurous.

When you talk about avant-garde cuisine, the surprise factor is really important. For example, I love looking at blogs and the photos, but I'm not that keen on other people taking photos of my dishes.

My dad cooks beef in Guinness, I don't know why he does that, he adds chocolate to his spaghetti Bolognese too, I'm scared about doing that, it would like chocolate Bolognese if I did it, he likes to make it look rich that's why, so yes, my dad experiments but I don't.

Why not mix this and that? If soy goes well with fish, how come no one does beef carpaccio with soy? Why do we have such a taste and not another? It's all about culture. There is something, however, that I really don't like: bell peppers.

The food being presented at the most expensive restaurants, by the most sophisticated chefs, was not always recognizable as food to the diner - it required a leap of faith, and I felt curious about that phenomenon.