Best 188 quotes in «chef quotes» category

Since I don't have access to the White House pastry chef anymore, it's done wonders for my figure.

Strange people like chefs, musicians, and politicians affect me.

The better the ingredients, the more farmers I can buy from, the closer I feel to the food I want to make that represents what I care about as a chef.

The chef that grew up with the grandma who cooks tends to always beat the chef that went to the culinary institute. It's in the blood.

The pendulum of cookery techniques became more significant than the actual experience. And when that happens, the customer's satisfaction becomes secondary to the chef's satisfaction. And in that case, you have an upside-down equation. Because the customer is the basis of our restaurant, first of all, and if the chef becomes the most important person at the table - even more so than the guests - then suddenly you're left with something that doesn't really work.

The best way to learn to cook is to do some serious eating.

The design of a restaurant should embrace the identity of the chef, the nature of the cuisine, and the context of the restaurant itself.

The most poisonous source in any kitchen is a chef's ego.

There are very few chefs both in Britain and the States that really identify the secret of being consistent. And combine consistency with flavor.

The reason that chefs become chefs is that they're not allowed into rooms with windows.

There's not a single chef I know of that does not think about the politics of the food they're serving.

The worst food you'll ever eat will probably be prepared by a 'cook' who calls himself a 'chef.' Mark my words.

Very good cooks who are employed as 'chefs' rarely refer to themselves as 'chefs.' They refer to themselves as 'cooks.'

There are many places that people can produce really good food. I wouldn't limit it to an area of the country, it's what the chefs have in them.

There's a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

There's not much you can do about time - it just keeps on passing. But experience? Don't tell me that. I'm not proud of it, but I don't have any sexual desire. And what sort of experience can a writer have if she doesn't feel passion? It'd be like a chef without an appetite.

To have 95% of the ingredients sourced, food and wine, within 100 miles radius, that's a dream come true for any chef.

Well, yeah. You said you wanted Italian. See. Chef Boyardee. He makes one the best stuff. (Tabitha)

We define content very broadly. Representing chefs, designers, makeup artists - it's all important.

With more exposure comes more recognition. I can honestly say I wouldn't have gotten a lot of things had no one seen me on "Top Chef", win or not. It cast a very wide net for me. And fortunately in a great way. I love that I have been able to cook side by side with so many of my idols.

What you're going to be eating in the next year is decided by chefs. If the consensus is that pot-bellies are in next season, that's what's on your plate. And I think that's a good thing, because we know, obviously, about food.

You can enjoy a $15 bottle of wine as much as you can enjoy a $100 bottle of wine.

You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I'm not going to freak out about it. I'm not that bad. I'm certainly not a boy, and it's been a while since I've been a chef.

Young chefs, famous chefs, home cooks, and everyone who loves food and cooking-we all depend on Larousse Gastronomique. It is the only culinary encyclopedia that is always up-to-date.

You probably would not choose to dine at a restaurant whose chef always ate elsewhere. I do eat my own cooking, and I don't "dine out" when it comes to investing.

You don't have to be a chef or even a particularly good cook to experience proper kitchen alchemy: the moment when ingredients combine to form something more delectable than the sum of their parts.

You're getting to know who the great chefs are through their books.

A burnt and experienced hands are more important than the vessels in the kitchen.

A chef’s magic is his ingredients, how he can substitute one for another, then break with convention by changing it all around again without once referring to the recipe. And then just at the death complete the beauty by adding another element never previously thought of. Well words are the writer’s sorcery, our dark arts and our sleight of hand. They’re our enchantment and our temptation. Sometimes both the chef and the writer overindulges himself and it gets out of hand, but that’s how we like it, it’s how we’ve ghosted some of our best creations.

As a cook, your station, and its condition, its state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system - and it is profoundly upsetting if another cook or, God forbid, a waiter - disturbs your precisely and carefully laid-out system.

A sampler of England's hottest 'chefs' would include a mostly hairless young blond lad named Jamie Oliver, who is referred to as the Naked Chef. As best as I can comprehend, he's a really rich guy who pretends he scoots around on a Vespa, hangs out in some East End cold-water flat, and cooks green curry for his 'mates'. He's a TV chef, so few actually eat his food. I've never seen him naked. I believe the 'Naked' refers to his 'simple, straightforward, unadorned' food; though I gather that a great number of matronly housewives would like to believe otherwise. Every time I watch his show, I want to go back in time and bully him at school.

A sous-chef with dreams of her own restaurant empire may have mastered the art of classical French sauce making, but not yet have developed the signature cooking style she imagines as the cornerstone of her own chain of restaurants. She gauges her progress not only by whether she is moving toward her aspirations, but also by her improving skills. Our chef may not yet have the stature of Chef Auguste Escoffier or Emeril Lagasse, but she can remember a time when she could not name the five French mother sauces, let alone execute them. She's made progress. Appreciating the skills she has developed is a marker along the path toward her culinary aspirations. The sense of accomplishment that accompanies improved skills is one of the rewards we reap when we dedicate ourselves to mastery.

Aucun destin ne justifierait une quelconque exaltation de quiconque

A leader is someone who can gather people around himself who are smarter and more skilled than he is.

Bakushan had only been open for a couple of months, but expectations were already sky-high. Still, few people had mentioned the food. Instead, everyone was writing about the up-and-coming chef, Pascal Fox. According to nearly every article, he'd dropped out of college and worked at top French restaurants around the world. Then, at twenty-five and on every "30 under 30" list in existence, he had received an offer to take over L'Escalier, a cathedral-ceilinged white-tablecloth institution in Midtown. But just as New York was ready to inaugurate him into a realm of Immortal Chefs synonymous with a certain level of luxurious precision, Pascal had said he would open a place on his own. He didn't have a location or a concept- or so he'd said in his interviews- just a conviction that he didn't want to fall into the trap of being yet another French chef at another fancy restaurant. So there we were, in front of his brand-new place. It was hard to label it. I had read neo-modernist and Asian-American eclectic. The food was hard to pin down, but the inside was just cool, at least from my sidewalk vantage point. It was 5:45 and already there was a forty-five-minute wait for a spot at one of the communal, no-reservation tables. I looked at the crowd while we waited and saw a couple of girls dressed in tight, short dresses. One of them held a food magazine with Pascal Fox's face on the cover against a blurred kitchen background. I stole a peek at the photo. His eyes were a deep black-brown with a streak of gold. His hair was charmingly messed up, longish bits going every which way, casting shadows on his sculpted cheekbones. That was the other thing. Pascal was exceedingly good-looking. I hadn't paid attention to the hype around his looks, but seeing these girls swoon over his photo made his handsomeness hard to ignore. And... the pictures. I'm only human.

Cooking is an art and also science.

Every week I want to learn something new. And every week I want to teach someone something new.

As a chef you have the possibility of traveling the world

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Carly stopped, pencil hovering over the page for a minute before she frowned and crossed the repeat offender off her shopping list. For God's sake, how was she supposed to get anything done with all that racket going on outside? Not to mention the racket her libido was making every time the man she swore she'd avoid crossed her line of sight. Looks like there's something inside the house that needs fixing. Betcha he's got all the right power tools for the job. Carly sent a panicked look around the room, as if her dirty subconscious had broadcast the unexpected thought out loud. It wasn't her fault that no matter where she went in the bungalow, Contractor Guy ended up in her line of sight, hard at work. And she could forget turning a blind eye, because staring at the man was just a foregone conclusion. Carly might still be irritated that he'd embarrassed her, but let's face it, she was aggravated, not dead. And Contractor Guy was 100 percent red-blooded man.

Do you remember your favorite dish your mom always prepared for you?

Failure is detour, not a dead end!...

Hockey and cooking are similar in so many ways, especially if you are a player-coach, the guy in charge on the ice, a role I would closely relate to that of a chef in the kitchen - they are both contact sports. You've gotta keep your head up, keep moving and communicate well. Even though you might be the leader in the kitchen or on the ice, you need to understand that that you're part of a working machine and that machine stops working if one of the pieces isn't working in unison with the others. I learned from a very young age the importance of being part of this team dynamic and how hard work can take you to so many different places. (Chef Duane Keller)

Garlic is divine. Few food items can taste so many distinct ways, handled correctly. Misuse of garlic is a crime. Old garlic, burnt garlic, garlic cut too long ago and garlic that has been tragically smashed through one of those abominations, the garlic press, are all disgusting. Please treat your garlic with respect. Sliver it for pasta, like you saw in Goodfellas; don't burn it. Smash it, with the flat of your knife blade if you like, but don't put it through a press. I don't know what that junk is that squeezes out the end of those things, but it ain't garlic. And try roasting garlic. It gets mellower and sweeter if you roast it whole, still on the clove, to be squeezed out later when it's soft and brown. Nothing will permeate your food more irrevocably and irreparably than burnt or rancid garlic. Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screw-top jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don't deserve to eat garlic.

Hunger gives flavour to the food.

I am much more than what you see. An artist who can wow you with a tasty squid ink tortellini and weave a tall tale.

...if you can't find any grappa, half a cup of cough medicine should achieve similar results." [Audrey's advice]

I'll be right here. Until they drag me off the line. I'm not going anywhere. I hope. It's been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn't miss it for the world.

If you don’t change, you are afraid of yourself...

Inspiration, I found out, only comes from within you.

I've swallowed fish-eyes whole like an endoscope. I once ate a trout cooked inside a dolphin. Felt like a shark eating another shark, inside the cold-blooded womb of yet another shark.