Pressure's healthy. It becomes stressful when you can't handle that. I mean, if you don't want to become pressurized in this environment, then don't be a chef.

If I relaxed, if I took my foot off the gas, I would probably die.

If you think customers are impatient in New York, wait to you see how impatient they are here in L.A.

Bake some bread. Make a focaccia bread or bake a whole mill loaf. Do something creative, and then put the labor of love into it in the beginning. When you take that bread out of the oven and you eat it an hour- and- a- half, two- hours later, you start to appreciate it more and then you eat less because you worked so hard to make it, you appreciate it in a much better way.

Stop taking things personally. Throughout the time with "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Hotel Hell," when they work, you don't get any praise. When they fail, you get blamed. You're f - ed either way, but it doesn't stop me doing them, I think.

I'm not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

Put your head down and work hard. Never wait for things to happen, make them happen for yourself through hard graft and not giving up.