Quotes & Sayings About Chefs
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Top Chefs Quotes
I take apart restaurant menus everywhere I go. I kind of tick off a lot of chefs in restaurants because I'll say, 'You can keep all of the sauce, keep all of that garbage - just give me that piece of fish. Forget the salad dressing, I don't need all of that extra stuff. Just give it to me straight up, and I'll eat it.' — Montel Williams
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. — Anne Burrell
There was no Internet, not even many cookbooks except the old reference books. So we would sit down at night, a group of six chefs, and we'd exchange recipes and each talk about how we were doing things. It was the only way to learn new ideas. — Daniel Boulud
Techniques are not the most difficult to teach. The attitudes chefs take are much more important. — Alain Ducasse
It's okay if you finish cooking something easy after your guests arrive - some dishes must be prepared a la minute, as chefs say. Just remember to keep talking. — Ted Allen
I believe Fernand Point is one of the last true gourmands of the 20th century. His ruminations are extraordinary and thought-provoking. He has been an inspiration for legions of chefs. — Thomas Keller
People complain that chefs aren't at their restaurants anymore, but I don't think that's the case at all. You see them on TV and you assume they're not working but they are. — Michael Symon
Chefs who cook in these ivory towers are in control in their own world. We try to approximate that world as best we can, but ultimately our goal is to please our clients. — David Castle
I cannot bear the language TV chefs use - they don't seem able to look at a plate of vegetables without accusing it of sexual activity. — Ann Widdecombe
The men on the show have it easy, in part because men on TV have uniforms: There's the jacket, in black, blue, or gray. There's the shirt, the pants. I can never tell whether Tom is gaining or losing weight beneath his boxy suits. He always looks the same. Tom also has the benefit of being Tom, a decorated veteran of the restaurant kitchen. Like so many chefs, he is practiced at the taste-of-this, taste-of-that eating regimen. I'm the one who has to look like a glorified weathergirl, with formfitting dresses and all, which, don't get me wrong, I love - at least until I don't. — Padma Lakshmi
Management is a far more homely business than its would be scientists suggest, more closely allied to cookery than any other human activity. Like cooking, it rests on a degree of organisation and on adequate resources. But just as no two chefs run their kitchens the same way, so no two managements are the same. — Robert Heller
My biggest bit of advice would be to spend some time actually helping caterers or Chefs, even if it has to be for free or as an intern of culinary externship. It helps immerse yourself in what you potentially want to do. — Giada De Laurentiis
It's more common for people to get fire tattoos. Symbols of passion, transformation, change. But I wanted smoke because it's what remains. After the fire, after everything is destroyed, you're left with smoke and ash. You've gotta make somethin' out of it. — Kate Meader
My mum and dad are pretty amazing chefs and they spent most of my childhood cooking really extravagant things for my sister and me. — Jake Gyllenhaal
I've discovered the burger is a crazy thing in Vegas, but I was one of the early chefs to do a lot of burgers. — Daniel Boulud
Japanese chefs believe our soul goes into our knives once we start using them. You wouldn't put your soul in a dishwasher! — Masaharu Morimoto
Both my parents are chefs ... I grew up in a restaurant and was always surrounded by cooks. I love food. — Ming-Na Wen
Chefs are at the end of a long chain of individuals who work hard to feed people. Farmers, beekeepers, bakers, scientists, fishermen, grocers, we are all part of that chain, all food people, all dedicated to feeding the world. — Jose Andres
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. — John Lasseter
For the longest time, chefs and restaurateurs were able to get products home cooks couldn't get, but that's not the case anymore. — Michael Symon
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
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. — Michael Mina
The pressure, the heat, the almost impossibly fast pace at which you need work - this is the reality of working in the culinary industry. This is what professional chefs do night after night. — Joe Bastianich
There are divisions between a culinary chef and a dessert chef, also called a pastry chef. At Zomick's 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. — Zomick's Bakery
All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It's an eagerness to please. — Padma Lakshmi
I don't think the rating system places too much pressure on chefs. I prefer to put the pressure on my chefs to perform to the top standards. — Alain Ducasse
Cookbooks have all become baroque and very predictable. I'm looking for something different. A lot of chefs' cookbooks are food as it's done in the restaurants, but they are dumbed down, and I hate it when they dumb them down. — Mario Batali
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. — Manish Dayal
With the long list of supposedly health-endangering
meals on our menus, 'starving' seems like
a healthy option to have on our list of safe-to-eat meals. — Uche Mac-Auley
The country's top chefs, designers, media personalities and businesses are part of this dynamic city. We know that Chicagoans are used to the highest standards. — Ivanka Trump
Chefs don't become chefs just to earn stars - that's not the goal. — Alain Ducasse
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. — Action Bronson
Male egos require constant stroking. Every task is an achievement, every success epic. That is why women cook, but men are chefs: we make cheese on toast, they produce pain de fromage. — Belle De Jour
When I'm back in New York - and this is a terrible thing to complain about - I eat a lot more really, really good food than perhaps I'd like to. So many of my friends are really good chefs. It's kind of like being in the Mafia. — Anthony Bourdain
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. — Jon Favreau
I like the fact that Melbourne always seems to support their chefs and promote them in ways I find really admirable. — Anthony Bourdain
Everywhere Gage looked, his fingers itched to touch and his brain raced to keep up. A snake coiled beneath his right pec, an eagle took flight over his left. Stars, numbers, and Celtic symbols fought for real estate. Gage would need weeks to explore the storied terrain of Brady's body.
Better put in for some vacation time now. — Kate Meader
There are very few chefs both in Britain and the States that really identify the secret of being consistent. And combine consistency with flavor. — Gordon Ramsay
The strongest language to be found in The God Delusion is tame and measured by comparison. If it sounds intemperate, it is only because of the weird convention, almost universally accepted (see the quotation from Douglas Adams here), that religious faith is uniquely privileged: above and beyond criticism. Insulting a restaurant might seem trivial compared to insulting God. But restaurateurs and chefs really exist and they have feelings to be hurt, whereas blasphemy, as the witty bumper sticker puts it, is a victimless crime. — Richard Dawkins
The birds are in their trees,
the toast is in the toaster,
and the poets are at their windows.
[ ... ]
The proofreaders are playing the ping-pong
game of proofreading,
glancing back and forth from page to page,
the chefs are dicing celery and potatoes,
and the poets are at their windows
because it is their job for which
they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon. — Billy Collins
We define content very broadly. Representing chefs, designers, makeup artists - it's all important. — Ari Emanuel
I always say this to the young chefs and mean it: The customer is excited, he says you are an artist, but we are not, just craftspeople with a little talent. If the chef is an artist, he doesn't succeed. Why? Because he is inspired today but not tomorrow. We cannot do that. — Andre Soltner
Many of them have accomplished a lot before they ever get to 'Top Chef' although they're not well known. The show just provides them with a platform. There's just one winner and on some seasons you can get numerous chefs that are really good. Even if they don't win, they're all talented. — Tom Colicchio
I spent time at my grandfather Dino's gourmet store where he brought in chefs from Naples to cook. I thought of them as rock stars. — Giada De Laurentiis
Something I didn't even know was on my bucket list has been achieved. I have cooked Thanksgiving dinner with Martha Stewart. I vow to follow the gospel of her teachings and do my very best in the remarkably less glamorous kitchen of my own home ... without the luxury of magically appearing prep bowls filled by a staff of sous chefs. — Jesse Tyler Ferguson
But our goal, remember, is to feed around our table the people we love. We're not chefs or restaurateurs or culinary school graduates, and we shouldn't try to be. Make it the way the people you love want to eat it. — Shauna Niequist
I am climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa this Summer as a personal physical goal for myself, but also as a way to bring on sponsors and raise awareness and funds to help benefit the programs and initiatives of Chefs for Humanity. — Cat Cora
A sampler of England's hottest 'chefs' would include a mostly hairless young blond lad named Jamie Oliver, who is referred to as the Naked Chef. As best as I can comprehend, he's a really rich guy who pretends he scoots around on a Vespa, hangs out in some East End cold-water flat, and cooks green curry for his 'mates'. He's a TV chef, so few actually eat his food. I've never seen him naked. I believe the 'Naked' refers to his 'simple, straightforward, unadorned' food; though I gather that a great number of matronly housewives would like to believe otherwise. Every time I watch his show, I want to go back in time and bully him at school. — Anthony Bourdain
All the Ping-Pong and pool tables, on-site chefs, Nerf hoops, and stereo systems cannot make up for the truth that some places work people like dogs. — Ken Wilber
Trying's good. Trying's sexy," Gage murmured against Brady's ear. "Now try telling me what you need. — Kate Meader
We can't all be bakers or chefs. Many of us have modest ambitions. But we can all buy a piece of the pie. — Amah Lambert
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
I think that a lot of us at home are iron chefs in their own right in that we have to come up with meals real quickly. — Jose Garces
In recent years, I've been writing because I'm fortunate enough to work in the world of food television, to travel and taste and learn about cooking from the best chefs in the business. — Ted Allen
Skinners guts were in turmoil from the beer and curry at the weekend and a viscous, silent eye-stinging killer of a fart slipped out of him, as poignantly weeping as a lover's last farewell, just as the lift stopped at the next floor to let in two men wearing overalls. Everybody suffered in silence. As the workmen got off at the following level, Skinner seized the opportunity, announcing, - That is minging, looking towards the departing workers. He knew that when it came to farting everybody turned into Old Etonian High Court Judges. Men would always be suspected before women and men in working clothes would always be blamed before men in suits. Those were the rules.
From "The Bedroom Secrets Of The Master Chefs — Irvine Welsh
What's fun about chefs is that they're big guys, often, and they might not look like the most athletic people, but they're very powerful people, and they have tremendous stamina ... It takes a toll on their body, too. — Jon Favreau
I love Italy. For hundreds of years, if not centuries, the people of italy (Italians) have been living here." [Audrey's insight] — Tom Gleisner
To be tempted and indulged by the city's most brilliant chefs. It's the dream of every one of us in love with food. — Gael Greene
As chefs, we work with organizations like Oxfam to enrich their projects with culinary tools, recipes and ideas. — Jose Andres
When France was the only reference for chefs to learn, you could go everywhere in the world, and they would copy dishes directly because they didn't have much expanded imagination or technique or knowledge. — Daniel Boulud
Cupcakes The first time you bake cupcakes, you will certainly follow the recipe with rigor. The third time, you might improvise and screw up. Learning your lesson, you will follow the recipe again and again as closely as you can. At this point, by the fifth time, some people actually learn to bake. They improvise successfully. They understand the science and the outcomes. They develop a kind of gracefulness in the kitchen. Others merely plod along. They're cooks, not chefs. A cook follows a recipe. A chef invents one. We have too many cooks. The world is begging for chefs. — Seth Godin
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
In the past few years, we've been doing amazing stuff with desserts. Pastry chefs have been using herbs and spices in their desserts. So vanilla cake doesn't have to be just vanilla, it can have a little thyme. Or you could have a custard with a little lavender in it, which is just amazing. — Ron Ben-Israel
One thing that makes me very happy is to see the growing activism among chefs in America. Chefs like Tom Colicchio, Bill Telepan, and Rachel Ray and food writers like Michael Pollan have gone to Congress, indeed sometimes even have testified before Congress, have lent this support to Mrs. Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity. — Jose Andres
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
The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator, somebody with ideas of his own who is going to mess around with the chef's recipes and presentations. Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions. — Anthony Bourdain
You see fewer and fewer chefs who are really big - most stay in shape. — Wolfgang Puck
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. — Rachel Platten
Cooking is work that is traditionally done by working-class people. The work itself is not glamorous. It's repetitive, and it's a lot closer to factory work than art, whatever level you're doing it at. Certainly chefs are used to living like rock 'n' rollers to some extent, inasmuch as we get a lot of those fringe benefits without having to learn how to play guitar. — Anthony Bourdain
I'd love to cook. It's something I've got into since I've grown older. I'm mates with Jamie Oliver and he's been a real inspiration. I've cooked for Jamie a few times - most people are too frightened to cook for him. Chefs are really easy to cook for. They're just pleased not to be the one who's cooking. — Jason Flemyng
A lot of chefs don't have a natural sense of economy. I was with one guy the other day, and I had to show him how to peel a turnip, because the way he was peeling turnips, he was throwing half of it in the garbage. It's not about being cheap. It's about being proper. — Daniel Boulud
I didn't want to be a chef: just a cook. And my experiences in Italy had taught me why. For millennia, people have known how to make their food. They have understood animals and what to do with them, have cooked with the seasons and had a farmer's knowledge of the way the planet works. They have preserved the conditions of preparing food, handed down through generations, and have come to know them as expressions of their families. People don't have this kind of knowledge today, even though it seems as fundamental as the earth, and, it's true, those who have it tend to be professionals
like chefs. But I didn't want this knowledge in order to be a professional; just to be more human. (313) — Bill Buford
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. — Kate Christensen
But constantly thinking and talking about food is what makes werewolves some of the best chefs in the world. Think about it. Have you ever seen Emeril Lagasse during a full moon? — Molly Harper
The food being presented at the most expensive restaurants, by the most sophisticated chefs, was not always recognizable as food to the diner - it required a leap of faith, and I felt curious about that phenomenon. — Dana Goodyear
What's frustrating more than anything is when chefs start to cut corners and believe that they are incognito in the way they send out appetizers, entrees, and they know it's not 100 percent, but they think the customers can't spot it. — Gordon Ramsay
Don't put too many chefs to work. Sometimes they get too involved in the ingredients and are of no help. — Jose Andres
I train my chefs with a blindfold. I'll get my sous chef and myself to cook a dish. The young chef would have to sit down and eat it with a blindfold. If they can't identify the flavor, they shouldn't be cooking the dish. — Gordon Ramsay
Economic theorists, like French chefs in regard to food, have developed stylized models whose ingredients are limited by some unwritten rules. Just as traditional French cooking does not use seaweed or raw fish, so neoclassical models do not make assumptions derived from psychology, anthropology, or sociology. I disagree with any rules that limit the nature of the ingredients in economic models. — George Akerlof
I think that more and more and more really talented restauranteurs and chefs from the fine dining world are going to try their hand at fine casual. They're going to say, 'Why not us?' — Danny Meyer
had put them up to it, perhaps the chefs — David Nicholls
Great food needed more than chefs; it needed gourmet diners. — Nicole Mones
We [chefs] are competitive, although I think you need to be careful with competitiveness as it can become quite negative. — Paul Rankin
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
I still cook at home. A lot of chefs I think don't cook at home. But I still do, I love cooking at home, I love having friends. — Rene Redzepi
There are chefs who are spectacular technicians, and often their food is worth eating once or twice, but if there's no heart in it, if there's no personality in it, it's not something you want to go back for. But heart without any skill at all? All the heart in the world ain't gonna help you if you can't peel an onion, or if you don't understand how to apply heat properly. A well-done steak is a well-done steak. — Anthony Bourdain
In the civilization of our times, it is normal, and almost obligatory, for cookery and fashion to take up most of the culture sections, for chefs and fashion designers now enjoy the prominence that before was given to scientists, composers and philosophers. Gas burners, stoves and catwalks meld, in the cultural coordinates of our time, with books, laboratories and operas, while TV stars and great footballers exert the sort of influence over habits, taste and fashion that was previously the domain of teachers and thinkers — Mario Vargas-Llosa
I'm not a purist. Coffee drinking minus cream and sugar is an acquired taste. I'm still not sure it isn't like telling chefs to dispense with spices in cooking. — Kevin Sinnott
I'm a Twitter addict. Jose Andres is a serial tweeter. It's funny to see which chefs have embraced it, and the different paths they take. — Anthony Bourdain
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. — Anthony Bourdain
Television is kind of a disappointment. I often want to watch it, but I find it quite hard - I don't like soaps, reality TV or celebrity chefs. — Quentin Blake
We parked in back and walked down the stairs with their polished brass railings, past the old-fashioned kitchen. We could see the chefs cooking. It smelled like stew, or meat loaf, the way time should smell, solid and nourishing. — Janet Fitch
Too often, chefs just want to experiment - they want to use liquid nitrogen before they know how to use heat. — Tom Colicchio
...anyone who willingly turns their life upside down by becoming a cook is totally insane to begin with. So many chefs that I have met are dyslexic and totally not school people or intellectuals. That could be symbolic of the kind of lifestyle that they choose to live. They all drink a lot, do a lot of drugs, drink a shitload of coffee and espresso. They don't sleep much, and obviously don't have much of a life outside the kitchen. A cook's friend is a cook, there isn't much time for a non-cook friend or girlfriend. And time really isn't the issue so much as it's a lifestyle and a culture that is very hard to understand or identify with unless you are on the inside. Cooks hang out with cooks because there is nobody else awake, hungry and totally wired at 2am on a Tuesday. — Jennifer Topper
It's really an honor to be included in such an incredible lineup of chefs. The team Borgata has assembled is by far one of the best on the East Coast. — Geoffrey Zakarian
I've always hoped 'Chopped' would telegraph our enormous affection and love and admiration for chefs and food, but at the same time, we are inflicting extraordinary cruelty on them. — Ted Allen
I think there are a lot of chefs in D.C. who have made D.C. what it is today. I am very respectful to them. I'm very admiring of what they've done. — Daniel Boulud