If you want the meaning of families and life and religion and philosophy rolled into one package, all you need to read is The Brothers Karamazov.

What I was reading was already part of my psyche, but finally someone else was saying it's okay to walk alone.

Well, I kind of think that the opposite is true. The customer is rarely right. And that is why you must seize the control of the circumstance and dominate every last detail: to guarantee that they're going to have a far better time than they ever would have had if they tried to control it themselves.

I’m all about making money. It’s the greatest thing, because it means you get money to spend.

It's a challenge to demonstrate that you can prepare some really interesting food with humble ingredients.

I have always looked at it this way: If you strive like crazy for perfection - an all-out assault on total perfection - at the very least you will hit a high level of excellence, and then you might be able to sleep at night. To accomplish something truly significant, excellence has to become a life plan.

Cuisine is only about making foods taste the way they are supposed to taste.