Cooking for my family is always a pleasure when I'm able to do it. My favorite thing to make is really whatever my kids ask for on any given day. It's more about being with them and doing something together.

It's one thing to execute dishes on your own time for family and friends, but quite another to perform and be judged in a competition. And that's what cooking in a high profile restaurant is. It's a competition. You're up against every other three-star restaurant in your city, and if you want to stay in business, you'd better deliver.

He brought a sensibility and a hard-edged reasonableness to operating restaurants that had a lasting impact on me and still affects how I run all our restaurants today. The passing of 'Restaurant Man' - the original gangsta 'Restaurant Man,' my father - was the passing of an era. No one can replace him.

Frankly, Milan kind of sucks as a restaurant city. Its so fashion-obsessed that people dont pay that much attention to the food.

I think that, by comparison with $2,000 bottles of grand cru Burgundies, first-rate barolos, which sell for under $100, are undervalued ten-fold.

At home, I make a large batch of tomato sauce and freeze it in meal-size portions in freezer bags.

The stories of wine lords who trade wine on intimidation or food critics who trade free meals for reviews those are the stories of my life. I am telling the stories of my life in a true way.