Great Chefs Quotes & Sayings

What we learn from our experience is something we called our attitude which make you stand different from the crowd". — Priya Rawal

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

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

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

My conversations with people who are just beginning to understand and include transsexual and transgender people in their plans or programs lean heavily on this. For them, the very fact of a transsexual who is a real student at their school or client of their agency can be new and surprising. But for queers and transfolk, who have institutionalized an additional set of queerly normative genders, it can sometimes be difficult to hear that we, too, must expand. If butch daddies want to crochet, if twinkly ladyboys are sometimes tops in bed, if burly bears can do BDSM play as little girls, if femme fatales build bookcases in their spare time, these things, too, are not just good but great. They bring us, I believe, wonderful news: news that gendered options can continue to explode, that the chefs in the kitchen of gender are creating new and imaginative specials every day. That we, all of us, are the chefs. Hi. Have a whisk. — S. Bear Bergman

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

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

You're getting to know who the great chefs are through their books. — Thomas Keller

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

Fighting is a sport if you're not humble it's going to bring humbleness to you. — Mike Tyson

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

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

Most beginning writers - and I was the same - are like chefs trying to cook great dishes that they've never tasted themselves. How can you make a great - or even an adequate - bouillabaisse if you've never had any? If you don't really understand why people read mysteries - or romances or literary novels or thrillers or whatever - then there's no way in the world you're going to write one that anyone wants to publish. This is the meaning of the well-known expression "Write what you know." — Daniel Quinn

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

I shut the security-center door, stepped over the giant's body, and went on my merry, murderous way. — Jennifer Estep

Great chefs know it's the appearance of food that counts ... but great eaters know its the amount of food that counts — Jim Davis

I live on a ranch in Utah for now, but I'm gonna move. I've got another ranch to move to, but its location is a secret. When I get there, I'm gonna plow the road in behind me. — Wilford Brimley

The great chefs understand human desire. They can balance nurturing with the desire to dazzle or seduce or impress. — David Blum

He picked up three long fresh stalks of timothy and braided them together. He upended the scythe and thrust the handle deep enough into the soft earth so it would stand upright. He tied the braided grass to one of the grips and slipped the whetstone into the loops so it would stay. Then he walked off into the woods. — Theodore Sturgeon

All the great chefs I know - Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten - they are technicians first. — Jacques Pepin

All the laws made for the betterment of workers' lives have their origin with the workers. Hours are shortened,wages go up, conditions are better
only if the workers protest — Mary Heaton Vorse

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

She said his music was tuned to the biggest music there ever was, the music of the stars. — Kurt Vonnegut

My children speak very good Chinese, and they translate for our American friends. — Wendi Deng Murdoch

It's not exactly under the radar, but when I'm in London, I love to visit Liberty. It's my favorite department store, and they have a room entirely dedicated to chocolate and truffles. — Ashley Madekwe

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

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

Great food needed more than chefs; it needed gourmet diners. — Nicole Mones

Sometimes I think her chest is made of ice, and she has to stay emotionally cold to hide the smell of a roting heart. — Anne Bishop

The problem is that there is many great chefs and many great cookbooks, but none of them work at home. — Daniel Boulud

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

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

For I am the daughter of Elrond. I shall not go with him when he departs to the Havens: for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so have I chosen, both the sweet and the bitter. — J.R.R. Tolkien

It depends as there's many different types of chefs, some who cook for awards and others who cook to make their restaurant a great business. There are those who cook for a lifestyle, they'll have come through pubs and they like to have the connection to the farmers and the chickens and the natural produce. So for each chef it'll be slightly different. — Paul Rankin

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

I think all chefs who pursue great flavor have good ethics. — Dan Barber

It's a good thing for a dog to have fleas; keeps his mind off being a dog. — Mark Twain

Southern food certainly carries a stereotype, but I feel like that's turning around a little. There are great Southern chefs who are finding ways to showcase our traditional recipes in deliciously healthy ways. For me, the key is to use fresh fruits and vegetables and cut some of the butter and fat without sacrificing the yumminess of the dish. — Kimberly Schlapman