'Top Chef' is a very smooth-running machine. All the people working there are incredibly professional and absolutely at the top of their game.
I've been experimenting more and more with LN2, liquid nitrogen. I've used it in battle on 'Iron Chef America,' but have also made some great ice creams at home for my family. Since it freezes basically on contact, you can have ice cream ready in mere minutes.
The first year I sold a photo to was a lady who thought I was a chef, for some reason. I've no idea why.
You have to balance, but you can be aggressive as a chef. It benefits the food. You have to be passionate. You can't be angry cooking.
I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword - two jackets, one that's driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.
I know my way around the kitchen. I like to cook, so I can fry an egg. I guess I could be a fry cook at Bob's Big Boy or something, or maybe a sous chef somewhere a little nicer. I would like to do that. I think I can probably pick that up pretty quickly.
My mother was an enthusiastic chef but wildly disorganized, and often preferred purchasing yet another jar of mace or chili powder rather than having to hunt down its last incarnation.
I train my chefs completely different to anyone else. My young girls and guys, when they come to the kitchen, the first thing they get is a blindfold. They get blindfolded and they get sat down at the chef's table... Unless they can identify what they're tasting, they don't get to cook it.
I think 'Chef' is about somebody who's in the middle of his life, and he's kind of lost his passion and his voice, so he seeks out some refinement and redemption.
Whenever a chef cooks for his own ego rather than his guests, he/she set themselves up for ridicule and failure. In the end, it's the service industry. Our goal is to make our guests happy through our cooking.
My grandfather was a chef for a Baron in Sicily before he came to America. I grew up with him. I used to do my homework at one end of the kitchen table while he cooked at the other end.
As a chef, you need to respect your guests and their needs. If they decide that they want to eat certain things and not eat others, if for religious reasons or just decide they don't want to eat certain ingredients, you have to respect that.
Everybody has their role in the food world and what they choose to appreciate. I'm not a fine dining chef. I appreciate it. I think Thomas Keller is amazing. But I really like where I'm at; I like what I do. I like how it makes people feel.
Many of them have accomplished a lot before they ever get to 'Top Chef' although they're not well known. The show just provides them with a platform. There's just one winner and on some seasons you can get numerous chefs that are really good. Even if they don't win, they're all talented.
Whatever you do, do with determination. You have one life to live; do your work with passion and give your best. Whether you want to be a chef, doctor, actor, or a mother, be passionate to get the best result.
It's very different doing a food show in America and doing one in Britain. I did a 20-part series for the BBC series called 'Eating With the Enemy.' The budget for all 20 episodes was probably the budget for a single episode of 'Top Chef.' It's the difference between making a home movie in your backyard and going to Hollywood.
I have a pet lizard named Puff, five goldfish - named Pinky, Brain, Jowels, Pearl and Sandy, an oscar fish named Chef, two pacus, an albino African frog named Whitey, a bonsai tree, four Venus flytraps, a fruit fly farm and sea monkeys.
America gave me the opportunity to open successful restaurants, start a TV show, and write books. I can even fill an auditorium when I give a speech, which in America is rare for a chef.
I love food shows: Anthony Bourdain, Iron Chef, Chopped, you name it.
If I weren't a matchmaker, I'd be a chef.
If you've attended the Cordon Bleu, you would know that no woman is supposed to be a chef - only men.
Marcus Samuelsson is a chef who inspires me everyday. He has such a deep understanding of flavors and techniques. His food is representative of the diverse world that we live in. What he has done in Harlem with Red Rooster is very special. Marcus is not just a chef, he's a food activist.
I was actually going to be a chef before I got sidetracked. I used to make deserts for restaurants as a young teenage mother to make money.
When you have a chef that wants to be in the spotlight, maybe after one or two appearances on a show, they think they're at a certain level that they haven't reached yet in the kitchen. Shows like 'Top Chef', 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world.
Just because I am a chef doesn't mean I don't rely on fast recipes. Indeed, we all have moments when, pressed for time, we'll use a can of tuna and a tomato for a first course. It's a question of choosing the right recipes for the rest of the menu.
When you look at a kitchen, you tend to see that the people who are doing really well are those who have worked with the same chef or stayed in one restaurant for a significant amount of time.
I don't like to sit still for long at all, which has probably helped me along the way, and partly why I was drawn to the heat of a restaurant kitchen. The rush of service means that you're always on your toes and keeps a chef pretty active.
I decided to do something I've been wanting to do for a long time - go get a chef and a nutritionist - and I brought them on board.
This kitchen is completely calm. Some of the old-fashioned chefs - they become kings in their kitchen, they've got to be called chef. But I don't care if someone calls me chef or Heston, it really doesn't bother me.
Your parents would not be happy if you came home and said you wanted to grow up to be a chef or a rock star.
I am a chef who happens to appear on the telly, that's it.
The type of cuisine I do, especially after being on 'Iron Chef' for several years, is a lot of global cuisine. My strength has always been Mediterranean cuisine across the board from Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, but I think now I'm doing a lot of very different cuisines all the time.
A chef is a mixture maybe of artistry and craft. You have to learn the craft really to get there.
My aunt is a famous L.A. chef, Susan Feniger, and she's got Street and Border Grill. So a fun night out for me is to go to my aunt's restaurants.
As a chef, a mom, and a member of Team No Kid Hungry, I believe that every child deserves three meals a day, every day.
It's tough, you know: I'm a chef first, and a restaurant owner, way before I was ever on Food Network, and it's a tough business.
