If you aren't born here, to be a real New Yorker, you have to bring your talent, be a successful mentor, and support the New Yorkers who made the city by giving back.

I appreciate the constant evolution in refining food, but not in making food gimmicky.

A beginner cook is going to have to be patient to really learn well. When you start to beat your master, that's when you're really starting to master the thing. But it's going to take a while. After that, you have to define what you want to be, who you want to be, where you want to be.

A lot of young chefs today get carried away by trends, by influences, by movements.

If you aren't born here, to be a real New Yorker, you have to bring your talent, be a successful mentor, and support the New Yorkers who made the city by giving back.

Loyal customers, or customers who recommend their friends, give me the most pride. I think that is the biggest compliment I can get. I think in the restaurant business, it takes patience from the customer to spark up a relationship with the restaurateur, but it takes also work from the restaurateur to spark up a relationship with his customer.

My favorite thing is when I go back and my mother cooks for me. Because it just throws me back the same flavor. And I try to modify things: I say, "Why don't you do this and that?" My mother is older, but she cooks a lot, and she doesn't want to change anything. She's a very good cook, and my grandmother was an amazing cook.