If you could learn how to make a perfect lemon tart then you got a story. If you don't feel like that, make a perfect chocolate chip cookie, but have five go-to dishes like that and you can move them around, change them up just a little bit, and always have something in the can.

In America, I would say New York and New Orleans are the two most interesting food towns. In New Orleans, they don't have a bad deli. There's no mediocrity accepted.

If I hear something's not quite going right, then I'm there quicker than if I hear something's going wrong.

I would challenge any American cook, regardless of what they've learned from their mom, to operate a restaurant and not have spent any real time in Italy.

What I like to do when I go out is enjoy my friends and the food around it. If we have to stop and give five minutes to the chef, then I'm down with that. But if the chef has to interrupt every course to tell us how important this new revolution that's happening is, then I'm not so much interested in that.

I think Tabasco brings me pure heat and Southern kind of familiarity, along with the vinegar and the barrel-aged spices.

The pendulum of cookery techniques became more significant than the actual experience. And when that happens, the customer's satisfaction becomes secondary to the chef's satisfaction. And in that case, you have an upside-down equation. Because the customer is the basis of our restaurant, first of all, and if the chef becomes the most important person at the table - even more so than the guests - then suddenly you're left with something that doesn't really work.