The menu de degustation is the finest expression of avant-garde cooking.

Salt is the only product that changes cuisine. There's a big difference between food that has salt and food without it. If you don't believe that, ask people who can't eat salt.

A chef is a chef, a cook is a cook; a lorry driver is a lorry driver and a designer is a designer. I've never heard anyone say that Philippe Starck is a chef. The important thing is dialogue. If I said to Norman Foster that he was a chef he'd say "No", but he might have a dialogue with chefs. People have said to me for many years that I'm not a chef and that I'm an artist instead, but I always say, "No, I'm a chef." I just have dialogues with designers.

When you talk about avant-garde cuisine, the surprise factor is really important. For example, I love looking at blogs and the photos, but I'm not that keen on other people taking photos of my dishes.

There is not a good or a bad cuisine, just the one you like the best.

You can't please everyone, especially if you're doing very radical things at the vanguard of cooking. That's life; it's a polemic I've lived with since I started cooking.

Creativity means not copying.