I love strong flavors too. Like I don't mind if it looks clean and clear and you know what you are eating if it has Italian, Chinese or Japanese flavor I love them all.

Omelets are about technique. Now, different people make it different ways, but, if you're a chef in Europe, an omelet has to be cooked on the outside, with just a simmer of color, and the inside has to be soft. It should be cooked like a steak - medium rare.

What I don't like is breakfast in the morning. I have a double-espresso cappuccino, but no food.

It was a revolution, but now it is an evolution. People know more ingredients, people know more techniques, and people look for more ingredients they've never looked for before. In the '80s, you couldn't find raw tuna in any restaurant that wasn't Japanese. Now, you can't find any restaurant without it or sashimi.

There's a lot of processed food in America and I know that can make some tourists who're used to fresh food feel sick.

My passion for writing cookbooks really came from my love of collecting cookbooks.

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.