Paul Rankin Quotes

#1. You need good energy and you need to be fit because it's very tiring. A lot of the work is quite heavy and quite smelly. That's why girls drift out of the kitchen because they get fed up smelling like fish and vegetables and things like that.

Paul Rankin

#2. This is wonderful for a young person, no matter what profession they're in. When you can see something and you can feel this attraction to it, then it becomes less of me trying to teach them as they teach themselves. They've got it and bang off they go.

Paul Rankin

#3. We [chefs] are competitive, although I think you need to be careful with competitiveness as it can become quite negative.

Paul Rankin

#4. One of the great awards from a chef's point of view are Michelin stars. The ultimate is three Michelin stars. For example, Gordon Ramsey has three Michelin stars. Having one Michelin star is a big deal, two is incredible and having three puts you in a bracket of maybe 30 chefs worldwide.

Paul Rankin

#5. Being a sport star and a chef both require passion, commitment, work and natural ability.

Paul Rankin

#6. What often separates the good from the great is a layer of innate ability, a gift, so it's partly that. There's many people with great gifts who don't work hard enough, or perhaps take it for granted, and therefore they don't have the passion and the commitment for it.

Paul Rankin

#7. There's a layer of satisfaction that I get from cooking that is more than the work itself. I think when you're too competitive sometimes you can lose the joy of what you do.

Paul Rankin

#8. Chef means boss and in France you get an office chef and you get a chef on a building site, etc. So I'm a chef de cuisine, chef of the kitchen, and that means that I'm in charge of a team.

Paul Rankin

#9. It really helps if you've got something like cycling, walking, running or swimming that can let your body release all that tension and keep your muscles fit.

Paul Rankin

#10. You had to work tremendously hard. You had to have that commitment to training, you had to have that innate ability. It's similar in my profession as well. You can have the ability, but without the work, passion and the commitment, you won't really get there.

Paul Rankin

#11. The work element comes into it as well - how much you train and how much work you put into your craft, in the same way a carpenter would perhaps work under a great teacher, etc.

Paul Rankin

#12. Sometimes I think you can lose the joy in what you do. It becomes a sense of 'I've got to beat him, I've got to beat him,' and you lose your own sense of joy.

Paul Rankin

#13. The thing that gave me most pride about it was to see the smiles and the pride on my staff's faces, because a restaurant is a team thing, and for the whole team it's very much that touchy-feely thing that I could have helped them achieve such an award.

Paul Rankin

#14. Sometimes someone coming in doesn't have the natural passion for it, but they find it through the coaching or mentoring I give them. I'm sort of opening curtains or blinds and all of a sudden they see it, they get it.

Paul Rankin

#15. A great cook is made from having a great sense of hospitality and trying to make people happy. Then there's natural talent. Perhaps you have a feel for ingredients, the pots, the pans and stoves, that type of thing.

Paul Rankin