Great Chefs Quotes

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

Thomas Keller

#2. A consensus slowly gathered among us. We had given up something important, we believed: the fire, the vigor, that came with a lack of ease. We had lost some of the difficulty of our lives, and we wanted it back.

Kevin Brockmeier

#3. 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

#4. A lot of writers and artists are like chefs who eat their own cooking in the kitchen and then deliver an empty plate with assurances that it's great.

Peter Schjeldahl

#5. The question is: until reinforced, can we learn the ways of church mice.

Al Swearengen

#6. The internet has become such a great tool not just for chefs but for everyone. The net has given everyone the tools to see and almost experience new and different ideas.

Graham Kerr

#7. I've seen cookbooks from lots of great chefs that have been disappointing. A book, to me, it has to have a story. Some of these people, they open a restaurant, and one year later, there's a cookbook. There's not much of a story yet.

Wylie Dufresne

#8. 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.

Michael Symon

#9. The great chefs understand human desire. They can balance nurturing with the desire to dazzle or seduce or impress.

David Blum

#10. In my early days, I copied the great French chefs, like most chefs do. Copying is not bad. Copying and not recognizing that you are copying is bad. For me, when I go to a restaurant and am served a dish influenced by something we created at elBulli, if it's well done, it makes me extremely happy.

Ferran Adria

#11. If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.

Gordon Ramsay

#12. Probably a mistake, you know, that people make in America, to think that all great chefs are a male ... I'm still the only male in the family who went into that business.

Jacques Pepin

#13. Writing is getting killed by too many chefs. Back in the Bogart days, it started with great scripts. You had a writer, and he wrote a script, and that was your movie. I think that's been watered down a bit lately.

Peter Dinklage

#14. Tears don't make you a girl, but they sure make you human.

Mansi Tejpal

#15. I kind of think of engineering like the chefs at a restaurant. Nobody's going to deny chefs are integrally important, but there's also so many other people who contribute to a great meal.

Ben Silbermann

#16. If you were to go to a restaurant and disagree with Daniel Boulud, he'd probably throw something at you. Restaurant chefs have a problem with caterers because we accommodate special requests, but great service is about getting exactly what you want.

David Castle

#17. I think all chefs who pursue great flavor have good ethics.

Dan Barber

#18. Lord John: 'The court has suffered most sorely for your absence. We hardly know where to find our amusement now.'
Lady Nora: 'I am sorry to hear that, I suppose it takes some wit to produce one's own entertainment. Are you often bored?

Meredith Duran

#19. Ever since I read 'Kitchen Confidential,' I saw a little light bulb go off. Being a chef is like being on a pirate ship; it's not like 'Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?' or whatever my impression was as I was growing up.

Jon Favreau

#20. Great chefs know it's the appearance of food that counts ... but great eaters know its the amount of food that counts

Jim Davis

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

Jacques Pepin

#22. The history of prevailing status quos shows decay and decadence infecting the opulent materialism of the Haves. The spiritual life of the Haves is a ritualistic justification of their possessions.

Saul D. Alinsky

#23. Great food needed more than chefs; it needed gourmet diners.

Nicole Mones

#24. The problem is that there is many great chefs and many great cookbooks, but none of them work at home.

Daniel Boulud

#25. You have come nearer to mastering a good many aspects of cooking than anyone except a handful of great chefs, and some day it will pay off. I know it will. You will just have to go on working, and teaching, and getting around, and spreading the gospel until it does. (Avis DeVoto to Julia Child)

Joan Reardon

#26. A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart.

Peggy Noonan