Now everybody thinks that once you do Top Chef, then 13 weeks later you're a chef. Nobody wants to learn to cook anymore.

Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors - it's how you combine them that sets you apart.

I think I generally try to buy the best quality and keep it simple. I don't try to make too many decorations, too many things with it.

Television in the '80s was very limited. There was no Food Network. When I opened Spago, I had the kitchen in the dining hall. It was probably the first restaurant to do so. The dining scene became more casual. All these cooking shows have transformed our profession one-hundred percent.

I think the most important thing when you are in a competition and you have, let's say, ingredients you have to use make something you did already because none of the judges, you know, probably had it in our lifetime, so I think do something you feel confident with, not something completely new where you are not sure how many hours or how many minutes you have to cook it or if the seasoning is right or if the combinations of spices and herbs are right.

Thirty-five years ago, being a cook was the same as being a used-car salesman.

Italian food is all about ingredients and it's not fussy and it's not fancy.