Top 100 Chefs Quotes

Out of culinary school, I worked as a pastry cook in amazing restaurants for years. I ended up leaving the pastry cook scene because, though I loved the industry, the restaurants and the chefs I worked for so much, I had to be honest with myself. I was never going to be them.

The New Nordic diet originated in 2004, when the visionary chefs Rene Redzepi and Claus Meyer called a symposium of regional chefs to address the public’s increasing consumption of processed foods, additives, highly refined grains, and mass-produced poultry and meat.

I have met a lot of top chefs around the world during my travels. Each one of them has said ‘Ratatouille’ is their favorite movie and the only movie that truly captures what they do.

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

My mum and dad are pretty amazing chefs and they spent most of my childhood cooking really extravagant things for my sister and me.

Salt is one of the flavors that makes food taste good – salt, sugar and fat. So it’s a natural thing for all chefs and cooks to add salt, because it enhances the flavor of the food. If you go out to eat, I guarantee you’re going to be eating a lot of salted foods that you are going to have no idea.

Straight up, Oreos, sodas, chips, salsa dips, egg white omelets, yogurts, breads, ketchups, mustards, barbecue sauce, frozen pizzas, hot pockets, ice cream, all these things that you eat in your normal life – I think if chefs got more involved in that, then it could be better. Because we’re the ones that know flavor.

No one raps about food like I do. I rap about fine dishes – like, all kinds of things that only real chefs and real foodies are going to know about.

I’ll basically eat anything that a chef puts in front of me. One of the reasons is respect for the chef. I watch chefs eat at other chefs’ restaurants, and they’re very aware not to leave anything over because the chef is watching very closely. It’s a very sincere interaction when two chefs are cooking for one another.

I came to the U.S. in the 1990s. I worked all around, including at Stars, and in 1996, I became the chef of Yoyo Bistro, which used to be Elka. During my one-year tenure there, I met a lot of French chefs at the time.

I don’t know any group of professionals that mobilize as fast and as often as chefs do when there are people who are in need.

Chefs are fond of hyperbole, so they can certainly talk that way. But on the whole, I think they probably have a more open mind than most people.

A chef’s palate is born out of his childhood, and one thing all chefs have in common is a mother who can cook.

I know pastry chefs who are overwhelmed by the idea of tasting, rather than measuring, their way to a balanced vinaigrette.

More and more, museums will look at restaurants and chefs differently – as if they are curating art.

Food-wise, oh man, I tend to really indulge on vacation because a lot of my friends are incredible chefs. One friend makes an eggplant parmesan that is heavenly and melts in your mouth, and another makes a chocolate pudding that I can’t resist.

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.

Chefs don’t use white pepper just to avoid spoiling the whiteness of pommes puree or bechamel. It has a more peppery aroma, with sharpness and sweetness, too.

I launched Chefs for Humanity, a national nonprofit, with my voice, heart and money from my own pocket. Money gives you the ability to make a difference in the world and, when used in a positive way, is a lot of fun.

All great chefs have two things in common. First, they respect nature as the true artist, and they are just cooks. Second, everything that they do is an extension of them as a person.

TV chefs are not responsible for people’s consumption of fibre; this is not our job.

I’ve been fascinated by the world ever since I read ‘Kitchen Confidential’ by Anthony Bourdain. I’ve watched ‘Top Chef’ and watched interviews with chefs on ‘Charlie Rose’… I thought they’re really intriguing characters, and they really encapsulate that tension between vision and commerce, art and commerce.

Most chefs only use and need a handful of knives – even if they own 25, they usually grab the same four or five.

Bayern is a big club and a big brand, but on a daily basis, it’s a family club. You get to know the physios, the kit man, the chefs. It’s also a club that’s very close to the supporters. That proximity to the fans makes it special. That was surprising. In Liverpool and Madrid, there’s more distance.

All the great chefs I know – Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten – they are technicians first.

As chefs, we cook to please people, to nourish people.

A big thing to me was to be able to be in a situation where I could speak my mind freely especially when it came to my character. Get the actual right feedback and not have too many chefs in the kitchen and allow me to be me.

Whether dealing with children or chefs, they are all giant babies in need of nurturing.

There are divisions between a culinary chef and a dessert chef, also called a pastry chef. There are specializations within the pastry chef field. Some pastry chefs specialize in baking breads, while others are master cake designers. Each field requires an exceptional level of creativity and attention to detail.

Chefs don’t have a union. We don’t have a Screen Actor’s Guild.

My biggest role models are not chefs, but women like Coco Chanel, Simone de Beauvoir, Nina Simone.

Modern cookbooks are marketing tools for chefs. They’re in the bestseller lists but no one cooks from them.

When we talk about chefs, we often talk about their love of food or their passion for it, but cooking is also about making a living; it’s a job.

Anybody can cook for chefs. I cooked for a three Michelin star chef when I was cooking at home.

Organizing ahead of time makes the work more enjoyable. Chefs cut up the onions and have the ingredients lined up ahead of time and have them ready to go. When everything is organized you can clean as you go and it makes everything so much easier and fun.

I was lucky enough to have great mentors both in the culinary world and in the world of chefs who became celebrities. Bobby Flay is one of my dearest friends and a tremendous mentor for me. Mario Batali is the same way. They began doing TV a little before me and they showed me the way.

I love food and lots of my friends are chefs. I love dishes from my Russian-Polish Jewish heritage. I like to make a big pot of meat and vegetable soup, and for dessert it’s anything with chocolate.

I either like reading fun war-based sci-fi, books about the lives of chefs, or dry historical non-fiction.

Chefs don’t become chefs just to earn stars – that’s not the goal.

I think a lot of chefs are afraid of media outlets, and especially web outlets, because they’re afraid there’s some ‘Borat’ situation going on.

Chefs become attracted to being able to get product and then clientele – those are the two things that attract you as a chef.

Both my parents are chefs… I grew up in a restaurant and was always surrounded by cooks. I love food.

Honestly… I only get starstruck over chefs.

There’s not a lot of chefs in the kitchen and very few people are involved in ‘Hot Ones.’ There’s no research team or anything like that.

A lot of young chefs today get carried away by trends, by influences, by movements.

One really interesting thing for me was learning about kitchen etiquette, and the differences between an Indian kitchen and a French one. They’re different in atmosphere, and also in how chefs maneuver within them.

With chefs, the problem is we have to be very confident because people are looking at us for that. So pretty soon, you think you’re a plumber, you think you’re an electrician, you think you’re an accountant.

All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It’s an eagerness to please.

When chefs like Wolfgang Puck became household names, that became a compelling reason for an intelligent young person to go into the cooking profession. There have been no waiters who have turned into household names. The service and hospitality aspects have clearly lagged behind the kitchen.

I do most of the cooking at home, and both my mom and my mother-in-law are excellent chefs. However, I wouldn’t call myself a chef.

I hated the Naked Chef. Fine, yes, he did good things for school food or whatever, but, you know, I don’t want my chefs to be cute and adorable.

I’m obviously very hippie-like, and I’m always in a different city and town and country, and I thought, ‘Why is it that the big food chains are always so promoted? I want the whole ingredients. I don’t want preservatives. I want what this town and these farmers produce and see how their chefs create.’

I’m evangelical on the subject of some chefs and writers.

I have always been fascinated by chefs and I make it a point to meet them at all the hotels I visit.