The great thing about chefs as celebrities is it gives you a larger stage to let people know how important great food is. You're able to reach a nation. The hardest thing about being a celebrity chef is you go from working 18-hour days in your kitchen to it pulling you out of your kitchen here and there. I used to be in my kitchen six or seven days a week, and for ten years I never even took a vacation.

You've always got to work to your highest ability level. When times are great and restaurants are jamming, that's when some restaurants get sloppy and take things for granted. Never take things for granted.

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.

For the longest time, chefs and restaurateurs were able to get products home cooks couldn’t get, but that’s not the case anymore.

I love doing demonstrations. I think to be a great chef you have to be a great teacher. I love doing classes with people who love food and enjoy food, bringing them all around one table so to speak.

Every lesson I learned as a kid was at the dinner table. Being Greek, Sicilian and Ruthenian - we are an emotional bunch. It is where we laughed, cried and yelled - but most importantly, where we bonded and connected.

Never let the pressure get so big that you stop cooking and being who you are. I'm going to win or lose doing my food. Because when the pressure's on, you need to do food that you're very comfortable with.