“I wanted to work in a restaurant. Le Cirque was looking for a chef and they approached me. I was excited to be able to be part of this restaurant with an amazing reputation, but not a good one for food at the time. I made it clear that if I was coming to Le Cirque it was going to change.” ExcitedReputationChef Author:Daniel Boulud
“I think that's what being a chef is all about: camaraderie and teamwork. I never feel that it should be so cutthroat that you can't help the other chefs.” ThinkingHelpingTeamworkChefCamaraderie Author:Michael Symon
“Things are going to go wrong. The great chefs are the ones that don't let it fluster them. They just move through it.” MovingChef Author:Michael Symon
“Some of the greatest chefs in the world aren't classically trained. Thomas Keller - probably the greatest American chef ever to walk the earth - never went to culinary school. You know?” WorldSchoolEarthCulinaryChef Author:Michael Symon
“I think a lot of chefs can definitely think about great flavor combinations and stuff, but then they'll pass it along to their pastry chef to actually do it in the end. Pastries, you actually do using recipes, and it's got a little more of a science to it. It's something that a lot of times, chefs aren't really involved in coming up with throughout their career, so it makes it a little more challenging.” ThinkingChallengesChef Author:Stephanie Izard
“Part of being a good chef is being able to work well with others and make things work under different circumstances.” DifferentCircumstancesChef Author:Stephanie Izard
“The great thing about chefs as celebrities is it gives you a larger stage to let people know how important great food is. You're able to reach a nation. The hardest thing about being a celebrity chef is you go from working 18-hour days in your kitchen to it pulling you out of your kitchen here and there. I used to be in my kitchen six or seven days a week, and for ten years I never even took a vacation.” PeopleGivingImportantWeekSevenGreat ThingsKitchenVacationChefGreat Food Author:Michael Symon
“As a chef and someone who's been in the restaurant business for almost thirty years now, if there's one thing I learned early on: Never eat at a buffet. I don't want to eat yesterday's food and whatever they're trying to get rid of from their cooler for my lunch, dinner, or breakfast, thank you very much.” TryingChef Author:Michael Symon
“Chefs hate desserts. The smartest thing a chef can do is hire a great pastry chef. Cooking savory food is all about feel - you season something, you taste it, you go back in and adjust, more butter, more olive oil, more acid, whatever you want to get it to taste the way you want. Pastries are like a science project. To me, the greatest chefs are the ones who have the greatest feel for food, while the greatest pastry chefs have to be people that are extremely precise.” PeopleHateCookingChefDessert Author:Michael Symon
“People have no idea how much work it is for a man to produce an ejaculation. You have this seminal vesicle churning out this fluid, the prostate gland producing an alkaline solution. It's like having five iron chefs in your crotch working to cook up this stuff.” PeopleMenSolutionsChef Author:Mark Leyner
“When I first started writing cookbooks, I remember thinking to myself, what makes me think I can write a cookbook? There are these great chefs who are really trained. And, as I started, I realized, actually, what is my lack is actually exactly right, because I can connect with - cooking's hard for me. I never worked on... And that's why my recipes are really simple, because I want to be able to do them.” ThinkingWritingRememberSimpleI RealizedChefCookbook Author:Ina Garten
“I'm not an actress; I'm not a singer. I guess I'm in the entertainment industry, but I'm in a different category. Hopefully, a young girl will see me and think, Oh, I want to be a chef! Or, She's a mom, too? Oh, cool, I didn't know you could do both! I want to empower people so they don't have to feel like they're putting themselves in a box. Growing up, I only saw one thing, and it's great that we're changing the mold and paving our own paths.” PeopleThinkingDifferentGirlGrowing UpPathMomHopefullyEmpoweringChef Author:Ayesha Curry
“The pendulum of cookery techniques became more significant than the actual experience. And when that happens, the customer's satisfaction becomes secondary to the chef's satisfaction. And in that case, you have an upside-down equation. Because the customer is the basis of our restaurant, first of all, and if the chef becomes the most important person at the table - even more so than the guests - then suddenly you're left with something that doesn't really work.” ImportantSignificantChef Author:Mario Batali
“What I like to do when I go out is enjoy my friends and the food around it. If we have to stop and give five minutes to the chef, then I'm down with that. But if the chef has to interrupt every course to tell us how important this new revolution that's happening is, then I'm not so much interested in that.” GivingImportantEnjoyRevolutionChef Author:Mario Batali
“Italy itself has 21 different micro-regions. You go within each of those regions, there's even super-micro-regions; and the beauty is that when you go from place to place, although there's a common thread of pasta and joie de vivre - in the way that they approach their meals and the simplicity of cooking, celebrating more the product than the chef - there's still so much variety that as you go, it's always an exciting moment.” DifferentMomentsCommonExcitingCookingSimplicityCelebrateVarietyChef Author:Mario Batali
“Even though you'll see gnocchi or linguine everywhere in some of the regions of Italy, each of those chefs has their own expression of that which expresses more about the place they were exactly born than it does about trying to be a part of the greater mass. And that's the Italian culture.” TryingCultureItalianChef Author:Mario Batali
“When you think of a chef you think of somebody that could cook - you don't think of chef that says, 'Yo, I make only steaks'. No. A chef knows how to bake, he knows how to fry, he knows how to sautee, he knows how to do everything that's pertaining to food, and that's how I felt about my lyrical position. It's like I would say, 'Today I'm gonna make a hot salmon. Tomorrow I make you spaghetti. The next day I make you baked fish'. This is how my lyrical content in my head was already bein' reciprocated to the world, bein' given to y'all like that.” ThinkingWorldTomorrowHotChefLyrical Author:Raekwon
“When you'd get a note from someone, the government, it meant something was wrong. This was the way it was. Just goes to show you the way that being a chef has changed, you know - being on the bottom of the social scale and now being what we are, it's incredible, it's terrific.” ChangedBottomIncrediblesChef Author:Jacques Pepin
“If there was ever a food that had politics behind it, it is soul food. Soul food became a symbol of the black power movement in the late 1960s. Chef Marcus Samuelsson, with his soul food restaurant Red Rooster in Harlem, is very clear about what soul food represents. It is a food of memory, a food of labor.” SoulBlackMemoriesLaborChef1960s Author:Marcie Cohen Ferris
“I'm not just a female chef. I'm a woman in a brand new hotel, and that's why I think it's so perfect to be at the Cromwell, in a corner of one of the busiest intersections of the world, with my name in lights. It's different in all those sorts of ways, and I'm hoping I'll be able to carry that through. Because if I can't, it's a step back for women in general. People will say - men will say - "See, that's why it's mostly men".” PeopleThinkingMenWorldDifferentPerfectFemaleHotelChef Author:Giada De Laurentiis
“Many chefs of a certain caliber do not see me as a chef. I don't have a restaurant. They see me as a TV food personality, not a chef. I've gotten respect, trust me, they respect me, but I think that I can't hit that particular level of respect from them until I have a successful Vegas restaurant that not only makes money but creates unbelievable food and a fabulous experience. I don't think people think I can cook, and they don't think I know what the hell I'm doing.” PeopleThinkingHellSuccessfulPersonalityMaking MoneyChefFabulousUnbelievableTrust MeRespect Me Author:Giada De Laurentiis
“Any time you do anything different in this life, it's risky. But I've only done things differently, and it's gotten me quite far. If you want to make a splash, you've got to step out on that ledge and jump. And I could land flat on my face and it would be the biggest nightmare of my life. I'm willing to risk it. I want to help change the way male chefs see females. I want to show them that, yes, we're emotional and, yes, sometimes we make irrational decisions, but we're passionate about what we do, and that passion will propel us to the next level.” DifferentSometimesDoneHelpingPassionDecisionRiskEmotionalFemalePassionateNightmareIrrationalChefRisk It Author:Giada De Laurentiis
“In a dream world, I would love to be a master pastry chef, because it combines something I love doing baking with something I'm not good at doing baking. BUT! Practically, if I weren't writing and doing comedy things, I'd like to teach kids to read. I would be good at that in real life.” WorldWritingRealDreamKidsTeachComedyBe GoodReal LifeChef Author:Josh Gondelman
“I'm not a TV guy. I'm a restaurant chef and a businessman.” GuyTvsRestaurantsChefBusinessman Author:Emeril Lagasse
“All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It's an eagerness to please.” WantMotherInspiringPleaseImpressChefMothers DayEagernessJewish Mother Author:Padma Lakshmi
“During the course of filming 'Top Chef,' I gain 15 lbs., so I'm used to needing two dress sizes.” TwoUsedCoursesGainsDressesSizeChef Author:Padma Lakshmi
“Cookbooks have all become baroque and very predictable. I'm looking for something different. A lot of chefs' cookbooks are food as it's done in the restaurants, but they are dumbed down, and I hate it when they dumb them down.” DifferentDoneHateI HateDown AndDumbRestaurantsChefPredictableCookbookBaroque Author:Mario Batali
“I don't want to do panel games or adverts. I really like challenges. I always get roles as an art teacher or a photographer. In the future I want to play something like a mugger/assassin/pastry chef.” WantArtPlayGamesChallengesRolesTeacherPhotographerChefAssassinsPastriesAdvertsArt TeacherMuggersPastry Chef Author:Dylan Moran
“I was good at math and science, and I got lots of degrees in lots of things, but in a parallel universe, I probably became a chef.” UniverseDegreesMathChefParallelsMath And ScienceParallel Universe Author:Nathan Myhrvold
“Chefs think about what it's like to make food. Being a scientist in the kitchen is about asking why something works, and how it works.” ThinkingScientistAskingKitchenChefAsking Why Author:Nathan Myhrvold
“Cooking is for chefs. Science informs us and lets us cook while knowing what we are doing, but it is not a replacement for the skills of a chef.” KnowingSkillsCookingCooksChefReplacements Author:Nathan Myhrvold
“If I want popularity, I go to a chef's convention.” IfsWantConventionsPopularityChef Author:Nathan Myhrvold
“With cult foods, there is an underlying assumption that the best cooking ideas came generations ago. Yet culinary innovation is nothing to be ashamed of. When a chef tells me he is cooking with his grandmother's recipe, I always wonder why. Did talent skip the past two generations?” TwoIdeasPastWonderGenerationsTalentInnovationCookingAssumptionAshamedGrandmotherCulinaryChefCultRecipesSkip Author:Nathan Myhrvold
“I believe that if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around.” IfsBelieveEnoughMightI BelievePracticeFoodAdversityCookingManageCulinaryChefBeardCannibalCannibalism Book:Delights and Prejudices Source: Delights and Prejudices
“By the time I was 30, nobody would work with me. I was friendless, I was hopeless, I was suicidal, lost my family - I mean, it was bad. Bottomed out, didn't know what I was going to do. I actually thought I was going to be a chef - go to work in a kitchen someplace.” KnowsMeanLostMy FamilyKitchenHopelessChefSuicidalFriendless Author:Glenn Beck
“My palate is simpler than it used to be. A young chef adds and adds and adds to the plate. As you get older, you start to take away.” YoungUsedAddUsed To BePlatesChefPalate Author:Jacques Pepin
“One of the biggest problems with young chefs is too much addition to the plate. You put cilantro and then tarragon and then olive oil and then walnut oil or whatever. It's too much.” ProblemYoungToo MuchOilPlatesChefOlivesOlive OilWalnuts Author:Jacques Pepin
“Just because I am a chef doesn't mean I don't rely on fast recipes. Indeed, we all have moments when, pressed for time, we'll use a can of tuna and a tomato for a first course. It's a question of choosing the right recipes for the rest of the menu.” FirstsMeanMomentsUseCoursesRelyChefRecipesTomatoesMenusTuna Author:Jacques Pepin
“My mother likes what I cook, but doesn't think it's French. My wife is Puerto Rican and Cuban, so I eat rice and beans. We have a place in Mexico, but people think I'm the quintessential French chef.” PeopleThinkingMotherWifeMy WifeLikesCooksMexicoChefRiceBeansCubanQuintessential Author:Jacques Pepin
“I have a pet lizard named Puff, five goldfish - named Pinky, Brain, Jowels, Pearl and Sandy, an oscar fish named Chef, two pacus, an albino African frog named Whitey, a bonsai tree, four Venus flytraps, a fruit fly farm and sea monkeys.” TwoBrainFiveFourTreeSeaFruitFishesPetFarmsOscarsChefMonkeysPearlsFrogsVenusPuffSandyLizardsGoldfishFruit FliesBonsaiSuperstorm Sandy Author:Chris Pratt
“I think the most wonderful thing in the world is another chef. I'm always excited about learning new things about food.” ThinkingWorldWonderfulExcitedNew ThingsChefWonderful ThingsLearning NewLearning New Things Author:Paul Prudhomme
“A lot of chefs are traditional and do it very well. But the ones who are the most successful are the ones who change things. That is why someone like Heston Blumenthal is a genius.” WellsSuccessfulGeniusTraditionalChef Author:Wolfgang Puck
“If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.” IfsWantChef Author:Gordon Ramsay
“I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword - two jackets, one that's driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.” ThinkingMenWorldTwoSelfAmericaHateDrivenChefJacketsIncompetencePerfectionistStovesFamily ManThoroughbreds Author:Gordon Ramsay
“Chefs are nutters. They're all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them.” LittlesSoulSelfLastsAbsolutesObsessedDelicateChefInsecurePsychopathSelf ObsessedDainty Author:Gordon Ramsay
“I don't think it's a good advert for any restaurant, a fat chef, and secondly, who wants to eat a dessert when the chef's a fat pig.” ThinkingWantFatsRestaurantsPigsChefDessertAdverts Author:Gordon Ramsay
“As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner's medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it's three-Michelin's stars, there's no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.” WantShowsWantedThreeActorsStarsGreaterPlayerPressureExtremesCupsSoccerWinnerExcitementPushingPlatesOscarsChefMedalPush YourselfSoccer Player Author:Gordon Ramsay
“There's a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.” ThinkingKitchenMore TimeStaffChef Author:Gordon Ramsay
“The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen.” NeedsTodayYoungStrongSocialTermGreaterPersonalityFitSkillsPressureCookingMarketingKitchenPlatesChefDeliveringSocial SkillsPhysically Fit Author:Gordon Ramsay