Students need to learn how to think critically, how to argue opposing ideas. It is important for them to learn how to think. You can always cook.

The art of cooking is among the most intimate things that we can do for another.

Excellence is about fighting and pursuing something diligently, with a strict and determined approach to doing it right. It's okay if there are flaws in the process - it makes it more interesting.

My fantasy is to have a restaurant where there are no written menus, but where you just ask people, What are you in the mood for? Fish? Meat? White wine?

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

I never considered Miles Davis a perfectionist; I always considered him as an excellence-ist, where deviation is actually kind of cool.

I love faltering. I love, in a sense, coming up short. Because you learn nothing from success. You learn so much from failing.