Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it's a start.
Anthony Bourdain
What nicer thing can you do for somebody than make them breakfast?
For a dinner date, I eat light all day to save room, then I go all in: I choose this meal and this order, and I choose you, the person across from me, to share it with. There's a beautiful intimacy in a meal like that.
You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.
Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go.
Anyone who's a chef, who loves food, ultimately knows that all that matters is: 'Is it good? Does it give pleasure?'
You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I'm not going to freak out about it. I'm not that bad. I'm certainly not a boy, and it's been a while since I've been a chef.
I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food.
If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it's the restaurant business.
I don't have much patience for people who are self-conscious about the act of eating, and it irritates me when someone denies themselves the pleasure of a bloody hunk of steak or a pungent French cheese because of some outdated nonsense about what's appropriate or attractive.
I feel that if Jacques Pepin shows you how to make an omelet, the matter is pretty much settled. That's God talking.
Nobody in Singapore drinks Singapore Slings. It's one of the first things you find out there. What you do in Singapore is eat. It's a really food-crazy culture, where all of this great food is available in a kind of hawker-stand environment.
I'm not afraid to look like an idiot.
If I'm in Rome for only 48 hours, I would consider it a sin against God to not eat cacio e pepe, the most uniquely Roman of pastas, in some crummy little joint where Romans eat. I'd much rather do that than go to the Vatican. That's Rome to me.
Bad food is made without pride, by cooks who have no pride, and no love. Bad food is made by chefs who are indifferent, or who are trying to be everything to everybody, who are trying to please everyone... Bad food is fake food... food that shows fear and lack of confidence in people's ability to discern or to make decisions about their lives.
Understand, when you eat meat, that something did die. You have an obligation to value it - not just the sirloin but also all those wonderful tough little bits.
Sometimes the greatest meals on vacations are the ones you find when Plan A falls through.
I, personally, think there is a really danger of taking food too seriously. Food should be part of the bigger picture.
I've seen zero evidence of any nation on Earth other than Mexico even remotely having the slightest clue what Mexican food is about or even come close to reproducing it. It is perhaps the most misunderstood country and cuisine on Earth.
Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.
Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one's life.
Oh yes, there's lots of great food in America. But the fast food is about as destructive and evil as it gets. It celebrates a mentality of sloth, convenience, and a cheerful embrace of food we know is hurting us.
Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you've got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it's a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way.
Every chef I know, their cholesterol is through the roof. And mine's not so great.
People are generally proud of their food. A willingness to eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice... they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get.
Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be.
I like the fact that Melbourne always seems to support their chefs and promote them in ways I find really admirable.
I often look ridiculous in Japan. There's really no way to eat in Japan, particularly kaiseki in a traditional ryokan, without offending the Japanese horribly. Every gesture, every movement is just so atrociously wrong, and the more I try, the more hilarious it is.
I'm not searching for hard news; I'm not a journalist, but I'm interested in pushing to boundaries of where we can do the kind of stories that we want to do. I mean, it's a big world and CNN has made it a lot bigger and they haven't flinched.
The Congo was the most difficult shoot of my life but was also maybe the greatest adventure of my life.
Don't dunk your nigiri in the soy sauce. Don't mix your wasabi in the soy sauce. If the rice is good, complement your sushi chef on the rice.
I do not have a merchandise line. I don't sell knives or apparel. Though I have been approached to endorse various products from liquor to airlines to automobiles to pharmaceuticals dozens of times, I have managed to resist the temptation.
I don't snack. I don't generally eat sweets or drink soda. I never eat between meals or even before big ones.
I could do nothing but Brooklyn shows for the rest of my career, and I could die ignorant.
I'm not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do.
One of life's terrible truths is that women like guys who seem to know what they're doing.
Tokyo would probably be the foreign city if I had to eat one city's food for the rest of my life, every day. It would have to be Tokyo, and I think the majority of chefs you ask that question would answer the same way.
I've been really fortunate in that I guess I was hired to do 'A Cook's Tour;' I was already a known quantity, meaning I had written a really obnoxious book and nobody expected me to be anyone that I wasn't already.
People's choice to become vegan, from people I've spoken to, seems motivated by fear.
I don't think people should be encouraged to look like Kate Moss; I think that's unreasonable. I think the normal human body should be glorified. By the same token, if you need a stick to wash yourself, you're not healthy.
My mom had Julia Child and 'The Fannie Farmer Cookbook' on top of the refrigerator, and she had a small repertoire of French dishes.
Being a vegan is a first-world phenomenon, completely self-indulgent.
I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence.
I'm very proud of the Rome episode of 'No Reservations' because it violated all the conventional wisdom about making television. You're never, ever supposed to do a food or travel show in black and white.
Anyone who doesn't have a great time in San Francisco is pretty much dead to me.
I can unload my opinion on anybody at anytime.
I learned a long time ago that trying to micromanage the perfect vacation is always a disaster. That leads to terrible times.
I don't like to see animals in pain. That was very uncomfortable to me. I don't like factory farming. I'm not an advocate for the meat industry.
I've sat in sushi bars, really fine ones, and I know how hard this guy worked, how proud he is. I know you don't need sauce. I know he doesn't even want you to pour sauce. And I've seen customers come in and do that, and I've seen him, as stoic as he tries to remain, I've seen him die a little inside.
I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.
