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.
Mario BataliI 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.
Mario BataliI might use milk if I was using a touch of milk to make like a lasagna or a baked pasta. But cream? That is totally not the way they do it in Italy, and it's not a very good thing. It's kind of a blanket for flavor.
Mario BataliLarousse Gastronomique is a veritable dictionary of cooking terms for the French kitchen. If a chef were allowed only one book, this would have to be it.
Mario BataliRecipes are just descriptions of one personโs take on one moment in time. Theyโre not rules.
Mario BataliYou 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.
Mario Batali