Although the skills aren't hard to learn, finding the happiness and finding the satisfaction and finding fulfillment in continuously serving somebody else something good to eat, is what makes a really good restaurant.

[If] we can celebrate that in a way that celebrates our love for New England as well as our love for the Italian culture as well as the American culture, then we've done something that's really good and supporting these fishermen who are doing the right thing in sustainability . . . paying attention to make sure we don't overfish our world.

One of the most important leadership lessons is realizing you're not the most important or the most intelligent person in the room at all times.

If you want your kids to listen to you, don't yell at them. Whisper. Make them lean in. My kids taught me that. And I do it with adults now.

The American Dream is ownership … a house, a car, a vacation home and, even better, your own business

You sit down at Katz's and you eat the big bowl of pickles and you're eating the pastrami sandwich, and halfway through you say to yourself, I should really wrap this up and save it for tomorrow. But the sandwich is calling you: Remember the taste you just had. So fatty. It's what you want. It's what you are! I've never gotten home from Katz's with a doggie bag in my hand. A pastrami sandwich at Katz's is what's bad and good about food. It's the sacred and the profane.

The Chinese five-spice works really well in the quantity that I used. It makes it almost imperceptibly just a little bit sweeter without making it really sweet or really even that Asian flavored.