Food, to me, is always about cooking and eating with those you love and care for.
David Chang
America is a country of abundance, but our food culture is sad - based on huge portions and fast food. Let's stop with the excuses and start creating something better.
As a child, I didn't see my dad that much because he was always working at the restaurant. He became pretty jaded after working at the restaurant for so long.
Life's too short to just breeze on by.
I love to eat sushi, and, you know, those flavors and wasabi and really eating spoonfuls of it... I would just mix it and put it on everything, literally.
To me, there are two types of celebrity: there's good celebrity - people that are attracted to the food and working and trying to create something great - and then there's bad celebrity - those who are working on being a celebrity.
Open your refrigerator, your freezer, your kitchen cupboards, and look at the labels on your food. You'll find 'natural flavor' or 'artificial flavor' in just about every list of ingredients. The similarities between these two broad categories are far more significant than the differences.
Chef Thomas Keller was an inspiration to me and many, many young cooks like me. He told us that the role of the new, modern chef is different.
There's the common misconception that restaurants make a lot of money. It's not true. If you look at maybe the top chef in the world, or at least monetarily, it's like Wolfgang Puck, but he makes as much money as an average crappy investment banker.
Fear is a driving force for most of the things that I do. I don't know if that's healthy.
I think the basic thing that home cooks can learn how to do is just season properly... If the home cook realized how little salt they use compared to what's needed, it would make their food taste better.
I work so hard that I forget to take care of myself.
I look forward to the spring vegetables because the season is so short. Mushrooms, edible foraged herbs, wild leeks, early season asparagus.
Shouldn't a three-course meal be 90 minutes? Do you know how hard you have to edit your menu to pull that off? Twenty-seven minutes. That's the average meal at Jiro's in Tokyo.
To eat well, I always disagree with critics who say that all restaurants should be fine dining. You can get a Michelin star if you serve the best hamburger in the world.
The Momofuku Culinary Lab started as a space where we could focus on creating and innovating. I didn't want us to worry about working on projects in a restaurant; there are just too many distractions in service and running a kitchen to be able to focus on creating your dishes.
I've never bribed my way into a restaurant. I've never slipped a C-note or greased a palm. In truth, I've never even considered it. I've assumed, of course, that people do such things.
I want to make simple food new.
Yes, natural is good and healthy, and whole foods are important. However, experimentation is important, too.
The process and organization leading up to cooking the egg can tell you a lot about the cook.
The one reason why I got into cooking was because I wasn't good at anything else - not that I was good at it, but it was considered honest work.
There are many things to admire about Japan but this is the one thing I love the most and probably the only time I eat breakfast. Fish, eggs, soup, salad, veggies; all in the tiniest bites. It's a full meal, but it's so refreshing.
Don't even get me started. I'm not against all vegetarians. But if you're a vegetarian for ethical reasons, you may be causing more harm.
My dad was in the restaurant business, but I didn't really think about following him. Had I done better at school, I don't know if I would have been a chef.
I love chicken. I love chicken products: fried chicken, roasted chicken, chicken nuggets - whatever. And going to Japan, I would see that these chicken were smoked and then grilled and then have this amazing crispy skin.
One of the benefits to ordering food in New York is that you can get food 24/7.
Cooking and gardening involve so many disciplines: math, chemistry, reading, history.
Waiting tables has never paid my bills, a fact which I prefer to hide from my colleagues with deep sighs about the price of just about everything.
I don't like eating in restaurants.
I hate to say 'chain restaurant,' but we're sort of a corporation now. How do we defy that concept, where people assume each restaurant can't be good?
I like eggs. My favorite way of cooking eggs is old school French.
Fine dining teaches you how to cook many different things, and it gives you the basic fundamentals, but these specialty restaurants, they're not teaching you the broad foundation you need to become a well-rounded cook.
'Tampopo's amazing. I think it's an absolutely fantastic movie, but I don't think it captures for me the meaning of food.
I learned so much more prepping vegetables than I ever did in cooking school.
If people ask me, 'What do you think could improve in Toronto dining,' I'd say there's nothing to improve on.
When you meet the farmers and go to the farms, you see that they treat their animals like they're family. It makes a big difference.
People are getting famous now for serving food out of a truck, or for, well, pork buns. I don't know if I'm really pleased to be a part of that. I'm somewhat terrified of what the future holds, especially in America.
Growing up, my dad owned a restaurant in Washington, DC, and food was something I was passionate about. But when I finally got into it, I felt like it was so late in the game; that's why I worked seven days a week at Craft and Mercer Kitchen. I wanted to see how far I could take it.
When I was in Japan, everyone wanted to work for Pierre Gagnaire, and they wouldn't miss a beat.
I think that the Japanese - and I do love Japanese cuisine and adore Japanese food culture - I think that they're going to plow through the entire world's fishing. They're going to eat everything anyways.
I was quite cocky, but having been hailed as this great young golfer, I couldn't even make the high school golf team once I got there. I had a big dose of humble pie then, and ever since, I've always known that there is always someone out there better than you, more talented. Always.
I think being Shaquille O'Neal would be the most amazing thing. There's nothing I would have done differently in his life. Everything he's done I think is pretty spot on, even, like, the bad rap videos, the shoes, the movies, everything.
Any processed chicken from any place - I'll order it in a heartbeat. I'm very picky about my pork, though.
Say a child raises this beautiful beet. It's going to give her a sense of ownership, and that changes everything. You stop taking things for granted; you become less wasteful.
Why can't it be awesome to work for a food company? Why can't we create an environment where people are trying to push each other to do great things, and we're not trying to steal from anybody - we're trying to be good to our farmers and run an honorable business, if there is such a thing anymore?
If you ask what people say what American cuisine is, they cannot really do it. I don't know what it is.
I find that there are a lot of similarities between French and Japanese food. I think they're two countries that have really systemized their cuisine and codified it.
When I first started to cook, I would cook these elaborate meals, but I rarely cook at home now.
I doubt I'd ever do television to the extent that, say, Gordon Ramsay has.
Everyone tries to compare cooks to rock stars. I see more comparisons to the fashion world.
