Chef

A lot of restaurants serve good food, but they don't have very good service.

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.

I think the time of the formal dinners is over.

When I was 27, if I didn't put 15 things in one dish I wasn't happy.

For me, cooking is an expression of the land where you are and the culture of that place.

A chef is a mixture maybe of artistry and craft. You have to learn the craft really to get there.

I grew up so poor in Austria that we never took a vacation with my family.

I like to be firm. But it is easier to be nice than to be nasty.

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

I tell everybody the same thing: You have to make every dish so when you taste it, you should remember it when you go home.

When I'm in Los Angeles, my wife and I go to the farmers' market with the kids every Sunday.

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

The most important thing for me is to really buy the best ingredient.

Restaurants are like having children: it's fun to make them, maybe, but then you have them for good and bad. You are going to have to raise them and if something goes wrong when they are 30 years old, they will still be your little boy.

It's very important in a restaurant to really do the right hiring because there's no restaurant that you have one cook and one chef and nobody else in the kitchen. Generally you have five, ten, 15 people with you. So that's really important is to train them right, but first you have to hire the right people.

I believe that London is the most exciting food city in Europe.

You see fewer and fewer chefs who are really big - most stay in shape.

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

In L.A. you live in a big city, but you feel like you're in the countryside. For example, I can be at home in the swimming pool and be five minutes from everything.

You know, I never really thought of myself as a 'celebrity.' One of the titles that I like least is 'celebrity chef.'