The exposure from 'Iron Chef' has been helpful, but at the end of the day your product and your service determine whether you get customers or not. If people decide to eat out less during a recession, the first restaurants that they will cut out are the ones that don't do a great job.

As the competition goes further along, you start to see who's rising and who's falling.

I'm a firm believer that all this packaged stuff that Americans are buying up in gobs is making them fatter.

Because I'm so known as a meat-chef, when I talk about Meatless Monday some people look at me like I've lost my mind. I'm like, look, I'm not saying beef and pork is bad, I love it and I eat it six days a week.

When I met my wife 20 plus years ago, she was a vegetarian, so I was the closest thing to the devil that she had ever met.

I was lucky enough to have great mentors both in the culinary world and in the world of chefs who became celebrities. Bobby Flay is one of my dearest friends and a tremendous mentor for me. Mario Batali is the same way. They began doing TV a little before me and they showed me the way.

I think that any city created to be that over-the-top tends to be slightly inspiring, if not frightening. Vegas is all about people being amped up and winning or losing. With all that energy comes additional pressure.