Top 44 Wylie Dufresne Quotes

We have a funny sort of love/hate relationship with critics because, unfortunately, in the art/commerce dance that we do, they drive people to the restaurant. Regardless of sometimes how well we prepare the food, if people don’t know that we’re out there, if someone isn’t talking about us, you guys aren’t coming.

There will never be a right or wrong way to cook something, but there will always be a more informed way.

It turns out that life in the kitchen is very similar to life on a team. Sports and kitchens are about teams. I found my alternate team sport in the kitchen.

I present classics in an unfamiliar way or unfamiliar ingredients and preparations in a classical way.

I like all cheese, but my guiltiest pleasure is definitely American cheese.

I think things like ‘farm to table’ are misleading. I think sometimes that becomes a pedestal or a soap box to get people into your restaurant but is not… it’s almost empty in a way. I mean, my food comes from a farm, and I serve it on a table.

Eggs are one of my all-time favorite foods, and making the over-easy egg is a test of skill.

Fish butchering means a lot to me as a chef; I take pride in it and get a lot of joy from filleting fish, working with fish, breaking down fish, trying to understand fish.

It wasn’t the traditional cooking most people do. For me, as a young chef, Thanksgiving meant going to work in the kitchen at places like Gotham, JoJo and Jean-Georges.

The spirit of pickling is one of adventure and fun.

I don’t think of eggs as being fundamental to the flavor of mayonnaise, but they are to Hollandaise.

There’s nobody you can call and say, ‘So, can you maybe send me your formula for frying Hollandaise?’ because to the best of my knowledge, it didn’t exist before we did it.

There will never be a universal way of cooking, but information will always be universally useful.

My mother made the best scrambled eggs, super-loose and soft.

I have strong feelings about cookbooks because I am a lover of them and student of them and devourer of them and collect them. I find them to be a great source of inspiration. When I was a cook and not making much money, I always used to spend most of what I had on cookbooks.

I can fry hollandaise, I can fry ketchup, I can fry mustard.

Green vegetables are something that fascinate chefs; the ability to keep vegetables green. How do we keep them green? What makes them green? Why are they green? And then that sort of army green. Why do they go from bright vibrant electric green to army green, and how can we avoid that?

It’s been a struggle to get people to come eat for fun. You know, the way they listen to music. You can do all kinds of things with music. But food – it’s something people need, and that changes everything. You start playing with it, people have all sorts of reactions.

I’ve been asked to endorse lots of different pieces of equipment. It’s not necessarily that it’s an awful thing to be asked to endorse something, because it’s inherently a compliment to your skills, your abilities, on a level. But sometimes it’s just not the right fit.

My job has changed over the years, 22 years roughly I’ve been cooking professionally. When I was younger, I aspired to be the star player. Now, it’s more I like to sit in the dugout and make sure the team wins the game.

I really don’t do much on the night of Thanksgiving other than bring the wine and carve the turkey. My contribution comes the day after, in the form of breakfast. I usually just forage through the leftovers for things that will go well with eggs.

American cheese is the perfect soft taco.

Being a chef isn’t the ideal career to intersect with parenting, but I try to be in my kids’ lives as much as possible.

When ramps are in season, we pickle a bunch of ramps and fold that into soup. Pickled pearl onions are great chopped up or pureed.

As a pure source of reference, ‘Modernist Cuisine’ is incredibly helpful. It’s like a modern-day encyclopedia, except for a single subject. It’s not always the answer, but it’s always a starting point. I feel honored to have been able to contribute to it.

Whites cook at a lower temperature, set at a lower temperature than yolks. That, to me, is very interesting. That has opened up – as an egg lover, that has opened up sort of a world of possibilities, of applications.

Extremely ripe things are not ideal for pickling. If you pour a hot liquid over super ripe strawberries, you’re going to have strawberry soup.

The East Village is where I cut my teeth as a kid. I ran around here on a skateboard.

Typically, you learn how to cook, but you don’t know why. We were looking for a deeper understanding of what was happening to our food as we roasted it, boiled it, grilled it, chopped it, etc. And it turned out, as we began to really say what is cooking, what does it mean to cook, there’s a lot of science involved.

Neighborhoods change. In some ways, it’s part of the beauty of New York City. It’s in a constant state of flux.

People have been manipulating food ever since they realized cooking a whole animal was difficult. Cows don’t come in hot dog form.

We have fried things in cubes, historically. We tried bars of Hollandaise, we tried different shapes, but it ultimately seemed like the cube was the right shape.

I think I can poach a pretty mean egg the old-fashioned way.

I’ve always had fond memories of cooking Thanksgiving.

It’s just about asking why. We as cooks historically have been very, very technically proficient but not technically informed as to why we do what we do. Modernist cuisine is about that knowledge.

Hollandaise, I would like to pour over my head and just rub all over myself. Eggs Benedict is genius. It’s eggs covered in eggs.

I have no interest in vegetarians whatsoever. Zero. Less than zero.

I would say that molecular gastronomy is a field of science. I would – I would say that it’s probably lumped under chemistry, maybe. Because cooking, while it has certainly biology and some physics, it’s mostly chemistry.

It’s a funny thing, but it’s often overlooked that I’m a huge devout lover of French cooking. I have the utmost respect for them, though they have lost their respect for me because they think the way I cook is nutty.

Whether it be cereal technology or candy technology or snack technology, puff snacks, I’m always curious to know how those things are made and how we can take that technology, those ingredients, and apply it to a stand-alone restaurant.

The most important thing with turkey is to let it rest – most people don’t let it rest long enough. It will get juicier the longer you let it rest.

I find it much more compelling to make a four-biter that leaves you wishing that you had a fifth. I think ‘the tyranny of the entree’ is the right way to put it. I don’t want to build this giant plate of food.

Okay, a lot of people think that I’m someone known for a love of eggs and egg cookery. Being asked to endorse an egg yolk separator, I mean, I understood where it came from, but it didn’t seem necessarily like something that was ultimately worth pursuing.

I would like to, at some point, do a cookbook.