Top 73 Jean Georges Quotes
#1. All the great chefs I know - Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten - they are technicians first.
Jacques Pepin
#2. One thing I love most about New York is the variety of amazing foods you can eat. My all-time favorite is the Chicken Parmigianino at Jean Georges.
Melania Trump
#3. 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.
Wylie Dufresne
#4. I cannot avoid condemning all those who, from self-conceit have the pretension to imitate great artists of the past. If their powers of emotion be weak, their powers of expression will be likewise.
Jean-Georges Noverre
#6. It is shameful that dancing should renounce the empire it might assert over the mind and only endeavor to please the sight.
Jean-Georges Noverre
#7. Pound Ridge is about five miles from our country house. When you go every weekend for the last ten years without fail, well, that starts to feel like a home.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#8. I think we're always going to be based in New York. So I would say 50 percent New York and the other 50 percent around the world.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#9. Actually, I'd really love to do something in Bali, up in the mountains. A little restaurant with that scenery would be beautiful.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#10. The dish that changed my life was tom yum kum. You start with a pot of water, add lemongrass, lime leaves, lime juice, coriander, mushrooms, and shrimp; ten minutes later, you have the most incredible, intense soup.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#11. I think, as a chef and restaurateur, that you have to take care of your business. Otherwise, you're only as good as your last meal. You have to watch if your food costs are too high, or you could be out of business in no time.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#15. A steak is a steak, so I tried to experiment with different side dishes, such as truffle croquettes, and unusual condiments, but I learned that people don't want you to change the steakhouse.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#16. My kitchen in New York City is in the Richard Meier building on Perry Street, so it's ultra-modern: white, glass and transparent. It's 180 square feet, with an induction stove. Everything's hidden, so you don't see the microwave or the fridge.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#17. I was a big fan of Jean-Claude Van-Damme growing up, and I always wanted to be a martial artist 'cause of him.
Georges St-Pierre
#18. It is not a question of skimming the surface of the art, it must be probed to its depths, for to seize upon superficial things only is to degenerate into mediocrity and obscurity.
Jean-Georges Noverre
#19. My two essential ingredients are chilies, any kind, dried or fresh; and acid, whether it's citrus - lemon, lime, yuzu - or vinegars. Food has to pop.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#20. When I went to London, they told me I spoke with a funny accent - English with a Chinese accent.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#21. The Hamptons remind me of my childhood vacations. I love the beach, restaurants, and produce found on the East End.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#23. At ABC Cocina and Kitchen, 90 percent of our produce and vegetables come from Union Square, and that's all from upstate New York farmers. We are simply committed to this idea of local, organic food.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#24. When the music and dance create with accord ... their magic captivates both the heart and the mind.
Jean-Georges Noverre
#25. When you do a menu at a restaurant, you have to be the engineer of that menu. It has to be a crowd-pleaser.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#26. Cooking at home is easier than cooking in the restaurant because you don't have to write a menu or try to please everybody.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#28. For my 16th birthday, my family took me to L'Auberge de L'Ill, which was family-run but had three Michelin stars. It was a revelation. After that meal, I realised this is what I want to do.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#33. For friends, I love to make bruschetta. I grill country bread with Frantoia olive oil and make toppings, like crab, roasted squash, mushrooms, whatever's seasonal.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#34. If our ballets be feeble, monotonous and dull, if they be devoid of ideas, meaning, expression and character, it is less the fault of the art than that of the artist.
Jean-Georges Noverre
#36. This is what I grew up on in Alsace. It's choucroute. I'd wake up every morning with the smell of cabbage and potatoes and pork.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#37. A chef and a restaurateur are different jobs: One is about pleasing people with what's on the plate; the other is about understanding the market. I'm a chef, but I think I'm a savvy businessperson, too.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#38. When I arrived in New York, I was at the Drake hotel for five years; so, yeah, I really miss hotels. It's like having friends stay at your home. Every day you get to treat them, not only to dinner, but for breakfast, and everything throughout the day.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#39. In order to dance well, nothing is so important as the turning outwards of the thigh; and nothing is so natural to men as the contrary position.
Jean-Georges Noverre
#40. I think food is getting lighter and healthier because people eat out so often. It's about quality ingredients because that is the root of good food.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#41. My presence in California will bring a new, inspiring culinary environment to life, and I'm delighted to share my creative techniques and evolving fresh ideas with the Beverly Hills community.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#42. Applause lavished at a whim and without discernment, often proves the ruin of young people training for a stage career.
Jean-Georges Noverre
#43. There is so much more vegetable use in Thailand, India and China than meat. Yes, when you go to the markets or buy street food, you see shrimp or chicken - but mostly vegetables.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#44. My grandmother taught me how to make the basic pate brise pastry crust when I was young. The one thing I learned simply by eating her endless variations on delicious tarts for dinner every night is that this dough can be used for just about anything - sweet or savory.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#46. This art, born of genius and good taste, can become beautiful and varied to an infinite degree.
Jean-Georges Noverre
#47. My father was in the coal and heating business, and he wanted me to take over his business, and I resented every moment of it. So I would never force my kids to do what I do.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#48. My mother worked in a chocolate factory, so when I came home from school, I had a piece of baguette with dark chocolate in it. I remember her smelling like chocolate.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#49. At home, I never plate. Things go in the middle of the table, and you serve yourself. In the restaurant, every day I plate things, but at home, I want to enjoy my company.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#51. The toughest decision is always whether to open a restaurant. Two or three bad months, and you could be out of business.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#52. I landed in 1980 in Bangkok, and I stopped to eat ten times between the airport and the hotel. It was all lemongrass and ginger and chilies.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#53. If we put a vinaigrette together, every part of it is weighed. For the burger, we do a bit of arugula, olive oil - everything is weighed. To the gram.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#54. A fine picture is but the image of nature; a finished ballet is nature herself.
Jean-Georges Noverre
#55. The house is always full, and we're always cooking - outside, inside, for six, eight, a dozen, 20 people.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#56. I love creating new things. It's difficult to be creative once a restaurant's open. People want the same dishes. For me, the creativity is in opening a new place and starting a new menu.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#57. I spent seven years in France. Then, I went to Asia for five years. I came to London in 1984 and then America in 1985. In 1991, I opened my first restaurant in New York City.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#58. I arrived in New York in 1986, when I was 28. The market here was nothing. In the Union Square farmers' market, it was a couple of potatoes, everything from California. So the only place I was comfortable shopping was in Chinatown, because it all came from Hong Kong.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#59. I love cooking, but I love the business, too. It's important because a lot of chefs forget the business side and have to shut down after six months.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#62. I think, when I was younger, I was cooking to impress. Sometimes the dish would have 15 things on the plate. That's cooking only for yourself. As you get more mature, you take all the superfluous things away, and you get the essential flavor. Now I cook for people, not for myself.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#63. Food is important for me, but as a restaurant group, to expand, you know, we have to look where the best market are - where the best markets are.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#66. Dancing and ballets would undoubtedly take on a new lease on life, if the customs established by a spirit of fear and jealousy did not in some way close the path of glory ...
Jean-Georges Noverre
#67. I grew up in Alsace - in Strasbourg, by the canal; the family business was coal handling. It was still in the days when three generations would live under the same roof. There were 15 people for lunch, 20 for dinner.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
#68. At lunchtime, our kitchen was like a mini restaurant: my grandmother and mother had to cook for as many as 25 people - extended family plus 10 employees. We ate a lot of cabbage and a lot of potatoes.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
