I don't do social events, I don't do award ceremonies, I don't do charity dinners. I live my life off-radar.

I've paid my price, a high price, I watched my mother die. I look at everything I've been given now as a form of compensation. A person who has regrets is a person who casts anchors.

Today there are very few chefs at that high level who are behind their stoves. You don't feel their presence within the room. Where's the romance? Where's the show? Where's the theater? The modern day restaurant - it's like dining in a chapel. It's boring.

If you are not extreme, then people will take shortcuts because they don't fear you.

There are many times in my life, when I could've thrown in the towel. Many times in my life when I was on the floor. And when you're on the floor, never allow anybody to pick you up. It doesn't matter how long you stay there, make sure you pick yourself up and dust yourself down. Whatever happens, whether you go home today or you don't go home today, that's irrelevant. What's relevant, is you take the knowledge from the experience and you grow as a person.

A lot of my reputation is a product of exaggeration and ignorance.

It's extraordinary these obsessions. You conquer one but then you move onto another.