Quote

It's not easy to have success with restaurants in different cities, but I like the challenge.

You know, for 300 years it's been kind of the same. There are restaurants in New Orleans that the menu hasn't changed in 125 years, so how is one going to change or evolve the food?

Each city should have its own type of restaurant.

It's one thing to execute dishes on your own time for family and friends, but quite another to perform and be judged in a competition. And that's what cooking in a high profile restaurant is. It's a competition. You're up against every other three-star restaurant in your city, and if you want to stay in business, you'd better deliver.

I like a restaurant called Bruci, and there's some really nice people who work there and good food. They change their menu a lot, so maybe that's what keeps me coming back. I never know what I'm going to get.

I'm not asking any of you to make drastic changes to every single one of your recipes or to totally change the way you do business. But what I am asking is that you consider reformulating your menu in pragmatic and incremental ways to create healthier versions of the foods that we all love.

There's always room to improve in a restaurant. A restaurant is better or worse every day than it was the day before. It's impossible not to be, because it's human.

If somebody doesn't want to cook at home or has more family members than they have room for, then it's great to be in a city that's got restaurants that are actually busy on the holidays.

In San Francisco, the majority of the restaurants are ingredient-driven. In New York, that is true as well, but there's also a greater focus on technique.

I hate menus, I hate choosing food. I just want to be brought. Bring me dinner!