Chef Quotes

‘Whatever you do, do with determination. You have one life to live; do your work with passion and give your best. Whether you want to be a chef, doctor, actor, or a mother, be passionate to get the best result.’ – Alia Bhatt

‘I’m not a chef. But I’m passionate about food – the tradition of it, cooking it, and sharing it.’ – Zac Posen

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

‘If you are a chef, no matter how good a chef you are, it’s not good cooking for yourself; the joy is in cooking for others – it’s the same with music.’ – will.i.am

‘Being a chef is about feeding people, which is part of the story of all humanity.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘If you’re a happy person around food, you can be a professional chef. It’s fueled by passion.’ – Ranveer Brar

‘To me, there’s no great chef without a great team.’ – Daniel Boulud

‘If you love being a chef then give it all you’ve got!’ – Monica Galetti

‘A great chef is an artist that I truly respect.’ – Robert Stack

‘I’ve been a cook all my life, but I am still learning to be a good chef. I’m always learning new techniques and improving beyond my own knowledge because there is always something new to learn and new horizons to discover.’ – Jose Andres

‘A chef is a mixture maybe of artistry and craft. You have to learn the craft really to get there.’ – Wolfgang Puck

‘Being a great baker and pastry chef requires the upmost open mind. I try every dessert that comes my way!’ – Christina Tosi

‘I always had a fantasy of being a chef, because I like kitchen life.’ – Geoffrey Rush

‘You have to be confident in who you are and what you’re doing. Of course, you try to evolve. I would never tell you, ‘Today is the best I will ever be.’ I’m always trying to be a better chef, a better dad, a better person.’ – Guy Fieri

‘Cooking is not difficult. Everyone has taste, even if they don’t realize it. Even if you’re not a great chef, there’s nothing to stop you understanding the difference between what tastes good and what doesn’t.’ – Gerard Depardieu

‘A chef’s palate is born out of his childhood, and one thing all chefs have in common is a mother who can cook.’ – Marco Pierre White

‘I don’t like food that’s too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I’d buy a painting.’ – Andy Rooney

‘I would love to date a chef. I’d probably get really fat, but I don’t care.’ – Elizabeth Olsen

”Chef’ doesn’t mean that you’re the best cook, it simply means ‘boss.” – Tom Colicchio

‘If you’re not the one cooking, stay out of the way and compliment the chef.’ – Michael Strahan

‘I always say that I don’t believe I’m a chef. I try to be a storyteller.’ – Jose Andres

‘I tell a student that the most important class you can take is technique. A great chef is first a great technician. ‘If you are a jeweler, or a surgeon or a cook, you have to know the trade in your hand. You have to learn the process. You learn it through endless repetition until it belongs to you.’ – Jacques Pepin

‘They say never trust a skinny chef, but the fact is, to stay healthy when you’re a chef means you have to work twice as hard.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘I wanted to learn everything I could about what it takes to be a great chef. It was a turning point for me.’ – Thomas Keller

‘I made a point of eating so fast I never kept the other people waiting who generally ordered only chef’s salad and grapefruit juice because they were trying to reduce. Almost everybody I met in New York was trying to reduce.’ – Sylvia Plath

‘I remember the first time eating my chef’s Caesar salad. It was just like one of those moments in the movie theater when everything gets quiet.’ – Rick Ross

‘I really don’t care for the proper chef coat.’ – David Chang

‘There’s a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.’ – Gordon Ramsay

‘Anyone who’s a chef, who loves food, ultimately knows that all that matters is: ‘Is it good? Does it give pleasure?” – Anthony Bourdain

‘My boyfriend’s a real chef, so I steer clear of him when I’m in the kitchen – I wouldn’t like him to catch me chopping an onion.’ – Alice Levine

‘Chefs have always been leaders, but now, because of social media and the evolution of the chef identity, we have a voice that expands beyond cooking.’ – Roy Choi

‘I’ve tried my hardest to bribe my chef, but my team have been clever and hired someone who not only is not bribeable but who chases me round the house and makes sure I eat what he’s cooked, and he lays out my vitamin pills and supplements in front of me so I can’t ‘forget’ to take them.’ – Usain Bolt

‘I want to be a chef, but I’m only a fat girl chef; like, I only like to make fat comfort food. I’m not, like, a healthy chef person.’ – Khloe Kardashian

‘When I am Naughty Chef, I’m definitely in focus mode, but once the food has been served I’m in a better place to party.’ – Naughty Boy

‘My contribution I hope is to get people to eat full-flavored food. If I could come away with that alone, that would be a fantastic accomplishment. I’m also very proud of being a very American chef.’ – Bobby Flay

‘A lot of my friends at home call me ‘Chef G.” – Gerrit Cole

‘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.’ – Anthony Bourdain

‘I’m not a chef, and I’m not an expert at anything. I’m just a mom and a wife.’ – Ree Drummond

‘I’m a bit of a gourmet chef. I love cooking – mostly Thai food.’ – Will Ferrell

‘It’s really unfair to working women in America who read celebrity news and think, ‘Why can’t I lose weight when I’ve had a baby?’ Well, everyone you’re reading about has money for a trainer and a chef. That doesn’t make it realistic.’ – Rachel Zoe

‘The type of cuisine I do, especially after being on ‘Iron Chef’ for several years, is a lot of global cuisine. My strength has always been Mediterranean cuisine across the board from Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, but I think now I’m doing a lot of very different cuisines all the time.’ – Cat Cora

‘I have dreams of becoming a professional pastry chef and having a little bakery – that’s how much I love baking. I love to cook in general, but my heart lies in desserts.’ – Kim Barnouin

‘The role of a chef isn’t to reinvent dishes but to tweak.’ – Jean-Georges Vongerichten

‘Im not the worlds greatest sea food chef, I just like fresh fish.’ – Rick Stein

‘Im a chef. Ive been cooking for 26 years, and, you know, theres probably not a lot of things that I havent tried in my life.’ – Jock Zonfrillo

‘I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword – two jackets, one that’s driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.’ – Gordon Ramsay

‘I always knew I wanted to be a chef.’ – Grant Achatz

‘I am a terrible chef; I’m not a good cook. I don’t have the talent, the patience, the desire even to cook the way these great artists that I meet around the world cook, and I’m very, very happy to support them. I invest in restaurants because I love them so much.’ – Philip Rosenthal

‘The biggest challenge of being a pastry chef is that, unlike other types of chefs, you can’t throw things together at a farmer’s market. When you’re working with baking powder and a formula, you have to be exact. If not, things can go wrong.’ – Carla Hall

‘A sushi chef has to spot the best-quality fresh fish instantly.’ – Nobu Matsuhisa

‘Learning about issues such as sustainability and locavorism are things that you need to have as part of you as a chef because it will make you cook more delicious food.’ – Rene Redzepi

‘I never even dreamed of being a chef, and that’s fundamental.’ – Ferran Adria

‘First of all, I can’t really claim to be a great chef.’ – Martin Yan

‘As a boss, as a CEO, as a creative director, as a chef, I’ve learned that failure will always come. I’ve learned to give it a big squeeze, smile at it, humble myself to it and then use it as a springboard to send me on my way to strength, success, and fulfillment.’ – Christina Tosi

‘When I moved to Los Angeles, I was cooking with two guys who became celebrity chefs, if you will. I became their sous chef for awhile. We’d go to all the big names in Hollywood.’ – Zach McGowan

‘I wasn’t that great a chef, and I don’t think I’m that great a writer.’ – Anthony Bourdain

‘When you’re a chef, you graze. You never get a chance to sit down and eat. They don’t actually sit down and eat before you cook. So when I finish work, the first thing I’ll do, and especially when I’m in New York, I’ll go for a run. And I’ll run 10 or 15k on my – and I run to gain my appetite.’ – Gordon Ramsay

‘My husband is the chef of the family; he’s a brilliant cook. Actually, it makes you quite lazy when you have somebody that’s so good at cooking under the same roof. It’s all beans or spaghetti when I’m left to run it.’ – Keeley Hawes

‘Get to know the Chef and you will start to enjoy dining out even more.’ – John Walters

‘We’re all equals – once you’ve got a jacket on, you’re a chef. It’s not about gender – it’s your ability to cook.’ – Monica Galetti

‘If I hadn’t become a chef I would have loved to be a top tennis player, although I was never good enough so it wasn’t really an option. But that has never dimmed my love of the game, which started in childhood when I was lucky enough to be a ball boy at Wimbledon.’ – Ainsley Harriott

‘My aunt is a famous L.A. chef, Susan Feniger, and she’s got Street and Border Grill. So a fun night out for me is to go to my aunt’s restaurants.’ – Ben Feldman

‘The painter, sculptor, writer, and musician are protected by law. So are inventors. But the chef has absolutely no redress for plagiarism on his work; on the contrary, the more the latter is liked and appreciated, the more will people clamour for his recipes.’ – Auguste Escoffier

‘A good chef has to be a manager, a businessman and a great cook. To marry all three together is sometimes difficult.’ – Wolfgang Puck

‘I have a pet lizard named Puff, five goldfish – named Pinky, Brain, Jowels, Pearl and Sandy, an oscar fish named Chef, two pacus, an albino African frog named Whitey, a bonsai tree, four Venus flytraps, a fruit fly farm and sea monkeys.’ – Chris Pratt

‘I enjoy what I do because it keeps evolving – when I was a cook, I wanted to be a chef de partie; when I was a chef de partie, I wanted to be a chef; when I was a chef, I wanted to be a restaurateur, and now I am a chef entrepreneur. I am still fulfilling my dream.’ – Daniel Boulud

‘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.’ – David Chang

‘I’ve met with a lot of nutritionists and have a good idea of nutrition and what I should eat and when to eat it. I would at some point like to get a chef.’ – Taylor Fritz

‘The most followed chef is Delia Smith. She is my age and doesn’t try to be entertaining, she encourages people to learn the basics.’ – Prue Leith

‘The people of Pennsylvania don’t owe me a mansion with a chef and a gardener.’ – John Fetterman

‘My husband cooks fancier food for himself than I’ve ever cooked on-air. I call him from the road, and he’s making champagne-vanilla salmon or black-cherry pork chop. Half of me is feeling unworthy. Not only am I not a chef, I’m not a better cook than my own husband!’ – Rachael Ray

‘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

‘It’s very important to me that people who are actual chefs and other professionals in the culinary world, understand that I’m not, and have never held myself out as being, like a CIA trained chef.’ – Ted Allen

‘I’d have worked with an orchestra, been a chef, or a zoo keeper.’ – Sue Perkins

‘The night before Tilbury, the Cordon Bleu gourmet dinner turned out Cordon Brown. Six out of ten to the chef for trying and ten out of ten to us for eating it.’ – Spike Milligan

‘As a chef, a mom, and a member of Team No Kid Hungry, I believe that every child deserves three meals a day, every day.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘I don’t think it’s a good advert for any restaurant, a fat chef, and secondly, who wants to eat a dessert when the chef’s a fat pig.’ – Gordon Ramsay

‘My palate is simpler than it used to be. A young chef adds and adds and adds to the plate. As you get older, you start to take away.’ – Jacques Pepin

‘You don’t have to be a chef or even a particularly good cook to experience proper kitchen alchemy: the moment when ingredients combine to form something more delectable than the sum of their parts. Fancy ingredients or recipes not required; simple, made-up things are usually even better.’ – Erin Morgenstern

‘I liked the energy of cooking, the action, the camaraderie. I often compare the kitchen to sports and compare the chef to a coach. There are a lot of similarities to it.’ – Todd English

‘I suppose that Ive got to point out that ‘Nomad Chef’ is not about survival in the wild. It is about celebrating remote communities and their food with them.’ – Jock Zonfrillo

‘No great pastry chef has sweet teeth.’ – Morley Safer

‘I wouldn’t call being a chef gratifying in a lot of ways. It’s an act of love.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘I was a part- time chef. I can cook you the best steak you’ve ever had.’ – Tom Walker

‘In ‘Ratatouille,’ there are two different themes that express the two sides of Remy’s personality: the creative side: the chef, and the ‘thief’ side: his nature as a mouse.’ – Michael Giacchino

‘I am the most unselfish chef in Britain today.’ – Gordon Ramsay

‘You have no choice as a professional chef: you have to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat until it becomes part of yourself. I certainly don’t cook the same way I did 40 years ago, but the technique remains. And that’s what the student needs to learn: the technique.’ – Jacques Pepin

‘Let’s face it: if you and I have the same capabilities, the same energy, the same staff, if the only thing that’s different between you and me is the products we can get, and I can get a better product than you, I’m going to be a better chef.’ – Thomas Keller

‘Having realised that in cooking there was a vast field of study and development, I said to myself, ‘Although I had not originally intended to enter this profession, since I am in it, I will work in such a fashion that I will rise above the ordinary, and I will do my best to raise again the prestige of the chef de cuisine.” – Auguste Escoffier

‘You know how kids dream of being soccer players or actors? Well, my dream was to be a sushi chef.’ – Nobu Matsuhisa

‘As a chef my sense of taste and smell are extremely important. But of all the senses, sight is the one I’d fear losing most.’ – Dave Myers

‘You don’t go into being a chef for the money.’ – Anne Burrell

‘I train my chefs completely different to anyone else. My young girls and guys, when they come to the kitchen, the first thing they get is a blindfold. They get blindfolded and they get sat down at the chef’s table… Unless they can identify what they’re tasting, they don’t get to cook it.’ – Gordon Ramsay

‘I kind of do not like the word chef. Chef, giving you a sense of hierarchy and power. To be a good cook and to be a good leader, it has to come from within and to understand others.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘I’m not a chef. I haven’t created any new technique in the kitchen. I’m not a rocket scientist. I think I’m good at writing accessible, fun, and affordable meals for the average American family. That’s what I think I’m good at.’ – Rachael Ray

‘The food wasn’t very good in the first kitchen I ever worked in. But it was very busy, so I learnt to be fast, absorb pressure, use a knife, and say, ‘Yes, chef.” – Marco Pierre White

‘I’m not a TV guy. I’m a restaurant chef and a businessman.’ – Emeril Lagasse

‘I’m not much of a chef, so people keep buying me cookery books to broaden my culinary horizons, but I’ve not got far past shepherd’s pie yet.’ – Guy Martin

‘As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner’s medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it’s three-Michelin’s stars, there’s no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.’ – Gordon Ramsay

‘I was always a good cook from my mum showing me when I was a young lad, but hiring a chef helped me to understand food better.’ – Ross Barkley

‘When I was younger, I behaved a bit strangely sometimes – lost my temper, did silly things – but little by little, I’ve gotten better. As a chef, I think you need to do a lot of work on yourself and your temperament.’ – Alain Ducasse

‘My father was a chef but hadn’t owned his own business. I didn’t like that. In my heart of hearts, I knew I wanted to be in business.’ – Andrew Cherng

‘As a chef, I love to travel and taste different cuisine styles and different flavours.’ – Jock Zonfrillo

‘My mother had been a solitary chef. It was her recreation and her escape.’ – Janet Fitch

‘If I wasn’t an actress, I’d be a chef. I’d love to open a restaurant.’ – Blake Lively

‘I am a chef who happens to appear on the telly, that’s it.’ – Gordon Ramsay

‘I was good at math and science, and I got lots of degrees in lots of things, but in a parallel universe, I probably became a chef.’ – Nathan Myhrvold

‘When I was a teenager, I worked in New Orleans for a chef named Paul Prudhomme. That was a very important time in my life as a chef. I developed my palate and learned a lot. And here I am now. I specialize in modern Mexican and contemporary Latin cuisines.’ – Aaron Sanchez

‘I do most of the cooking at home, and both my mom and my mother-in-law are excellent chefs. However, I wouldn’t call myself a chef.’ – Jen Lilley

‘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

‘Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef – but that’s only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn’t ever believe that I was good enough to be come one.’ – Ian Mckellen

‘A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that’s when cuisine is truly exciting.’ – Charlie Trotter

‘Just like if you were brought up on a farm, you would most likely carry on your father’s business as a farmer; I was brought up in the kitchen and ended up becoming a chef.’ – Martin Yan

‘I remember when I was in college, I used to watch Julia Child’s cooking show during dinner and joke with my roommates about becoming a TV chef.’ – Martin Yan

‘Gordon Ramsay makes me laugh because he knows that I’m not a chef.’ – Nigella Lawson

‘Mostly I enjoy the restaurants (my husband is a chef), though I wish we had a wider diversity of ethnic food.’ – Poppy Z. Brite

‘I have a chef who makes sure that I’m getting the right amounts of carbs, proteins and fats throughout the day to keep me at my max performance level.’ – Barry Bonds

‘I sometimes think the chef end of cooking is not the real end of cooking. Cooking is all about homes and gardens, it doesn’t happen in restaurants.’ – Delia Smith

‘My grandfather was a chef for a Baron in Sicily before he came to America. I grew up with him. I used to do my homework at one end of the kitchen table while he cooked at the other end.’ – Vincent Schiavelli

‘I think the most wonderful thing in the world is another chef. I’m always excited about learning new things about food.’ – Paul Prudhomme

‘A lot of people love the idea of improvising but are terrified of it, so I tried to make a book that was not a chef’s book about improvising but a real home cook’s book with a real home cook’s pantry, supermarket ingredients, that sort of thing.’ – Sally Schneider

‘Generally a chef’s book is like a calling card or a portfolio to display their personal work.’ – Sally Schneider

‘The restaurant chefs in Spain are breaking ground, but in terms of the everyday cooking in Spain I still hear people coming back and saying they were disappointed. I think it’s because they’re expecting the chef stuff.’ – Sally Schneider

‘The first year I sold a photo to was a lady who thought I was a chef, for some reason. I’ve no idea why.’ – Graeme Le Saux

‘First need in the reform of hospital management? That’s easy! The death of all dietitians, and the resurrection of a French chef.’ – Martin H. Fischer

‘All I watch is the Food Network. I took a cheesemaking class a few weeks ago, and I told my family and friends to only get me kitchen stuff on my birthday. I’m into every kind of cookbook and anything by Anthony Bourdain. I’d love to own a restaurant if I could find the right chef.’ – Jesse McCartney

‘It helps immerse yourself in what you potentially want to do. Being involved, learning firsthand and observing the craft and absorbing all you can, makes it easier to define what you want. It will also ultimately make you a better Chef. Culinary school, or even a single class, is a great bet too.’ – Giada De Laurentiis

‘Nobody makes bouillabaisse from scratch. It’s all a bunch of malarkey. Even the restaurants buy a commercial-grade product. I had a very famous chef tell me that.’ – Sandra Lee

‘If you’ve attended the Cordon Bleu, you would know that no woman is supposed to be a chef – only men.’ – Sandra Lee

‘The worst food you’ll ever eat will probably be prepared by a ‘cook’ who calls himself a ‘chef.’ Mark my words.’ – Alton Brown

‘Maybe one of the only things I do well: I cook like a maniac! I would be a chef if I weren’t an actor.’ – Ian Somerhalder

‘I was lucky enough to marry a wonderful chef.’ – Mehmet Oz

‘I was hired as a sous-chef at a restaurant on the Upper East Side. The chef liked to drink – some mornings we would find him sleeping. Two weeks after its opening, I became the chef. I was 20 years old, and way over my head. I had to hire the cooks and do the menus.’ – Bobby Flay

‘Even if the chef has a good business head, his focus should be behind kitchen doors. A business partner should take care of everything in front of the kitchen doors.’ – Bobby Flay

‘I probably use my chef’s knives more than any other tool in the kitchen. I’m not married to a particular brand, because they all work, they all have sharp blades.’ – Bobby Flay

‘I swear, I didn’t really go in thinking, ‘I’ll be the Simon Cowell’ of ‘Top Chef.’ I was just used to being a judge on British food shows where people are much more outspoken and rather rude. That’s the culture over here.’ – Toby Young

‘It’s very different doing a food show in America and doing one in Britain. I did a 20-part series for the BBC series called ‘Eating With the Enemy.’ The budget for all 20 episodes was probably the budget for a single episode of ‘Top Chef.’ It’s the difference between making a home movie in your backyard and going to Hollywood.’ – Toby Young

”Top Chef’ is a very smooth-running machine. All the people working there are incredibly professional and absolutely at the top of their game.’ – Toby Young

‘My mother likes what I cook, but doesn’t think it’s French. My wife is Puerto Rican and Cuban, so I eat rice and beans. We have a place in Mexico, but people think I’m the quintessential French chef.’ – Jacques Pepin

‘I was chef to the French Presidents between ’56 and ’59, finished with de Gaulle, and during de Gaulle I remember serving Eisenhower, Nehru, Tito, Macmillan; those were the heads of state at the time. I never saw anyone. No one would ever, ever, ever come to the kitchen. You couldn’t even see them.’ – Jacques Pepin

‘The idea of old was to conform yourself to a style of cooking, it was not to create a style of cooking. Now the chef is so much into ‘I want to sign that dish and say I am the one who made that dish.” – Jacques Pepin

‘You know, my parents had a restaurant. And I left home, actually, in 1949, when I was 13 years old, to go into apprenticeship. And actually when I left home, home was a restaurant – like I said, my mother was a chef. So I can’t remember any time in my life, from age 5, 6, that I wasn’t in a kitchen.’ – Jacques Pepin

‘Just because I am a chef doesn’t mean I don’t rely on fast recipes. Indeed, we all have moments when, pressed for time, we’ll use a can of tuna and a tomato for a first course. It’s a question of choosing the right recipes for the rest of the menu.’ – Jacques Pepin

‘You don’t have to look far to taste some of the best food the world has to offer. I’d pit my grandmother against a 3-star Michelin chef any day.’ – Nadia Giosia

‘Marcus Samuelsson is a chef who inspires me everyday. He has such a deep understanding of flavors and techniques. His food is representative of the diverse world that we live in. What he has done in Harlem with Red Rooster is very special. Marcus is not just a chef, he’s a food activist.’ – Aaron Sanchez

‘My family truly believes they are better cooks than I am. They see me as Giada, not as a celebrity chef. To them I’m just me – their granddaughter, niece, etc., and they’re older and wiser. I like that because it keeps you grounded.’ – Giada De Laurentiis

‘I’ve been experimenting more and more with LN2, liquid nitrogen. I’ve used it in battle on ‘Iron Chef America,’ but have also made some great ice creams at home for my family. Since it freezes basically on contact, you can have ice cream ready in mere minutes.’ – Cat Cora

‘I want to talk to the bullied kids of the world. Tell them to hang on, it will get better. Know that an ‘Iron Chef,’ actors, musicians, artists and all successful people have probably been bullied in their life. And the best part of your life is yet to come. Whatever it takes to live, do it!’ – Cat Cora

‘It is great to add some glamour to the food industry, like television shows have done for the food world and inspiring people to work in the industry. The flip side of that is unfortunately people think that after they get their qualifications, they get their invitation to compete on ‘Top Chef.” – Curtis Stone

‘For ‘Around the World in 80 Plates’ we got to travel all over, having what was like a cross between a culinary competition and races. And in each country we had a chef Ambassador. We went to London, Barcelona, Bologna, Hong Kong, Thailand, Morocco… It was amazing.’ – Curtis Stone

‘I don’t like to sit still for long at all, which has probably helped me along the way, and partly why I was drawn to the heat of a restaurant kitchen. The rush of service means that you’re always on your toes and keeps a chef pretty active.’ – Curtis Stone

‘Everybody these days wants to be a star, including myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a chef but you want to market yourself and your projects.’ – Geoffrey Zakarian

‘When you have a chef that wants to be in the spotlight, maybe after one or two appearances on a show, they think they’re at a certain level that they haven’t reached yet in the kitchen. Shows like ‘Top Chef’, ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ have helped bring attention to the culinary world.’ – Geoffrey Zakarian

‘A lot of people call me a celebrity chef, but I don’t think that I’m a celebrity. So I want to stay keeping just a chef. That’s more comfortable.’ – Masaharu Morimoto

‘When I was a kid, I have two dreams. I want to be a baseball player. Hometown, Hiroshima, has a Japanese baseball franchise team called Hiroshima Carps. You know, and then I want to be a sushi chef. I want to make own restaurant – sushi restaurant.’ – Masaharu Morimoto

‘Because I’m a chef, I eat out frequently, so it’s hard for me to control what I consume in terms of calories. But when I’m at home, I eat what my wife cooks for me. She works hard to avoid making foods that are high in calories and cholesterol, so most of the time, she makes vegetarian dishes.’ – Masaharu Morimoto

‘I love doing demonstrations. I think to be a great chef you have to be a great teacher. I love doing classes with people who love food and enjoy food, bringing them all around one table so to speak.’ – Michael Symon

‘The exposure from ‘Iron Chef’ has been helpful, but at the end of the day your product and your service determine whether you get customers or not. If people decide to eat out less during a recession, the first restaurants that they will cut out are the ones that don’t do a great job.’ – Michael Symon

‘I don’t consider myself a rock star chef, I really don’t. I cook for a living and I try to help out as many people as I can in my life and that’s all I care about. I don’t care about the fame of television, I use to a lot.’ – Robert Irvine

‘There are divisions between a culinary chef and a dessert chef, also called a pastry chef. There 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.’ – Ron Ben-Israel

‘As a chef, you need to respect your guests and their needs. If they decide that they want to eat certain things and not eat others, if for religious reasons or just decide they don’t want to eat certain ingredients, you have to respect that.’ – Joel Robuchon

‘I’m a home cook and love to read about food, but I’m not trained as a chef. I’m just really into cooking and passionate about it.’ – Ted Allen

‘When the idea of ‘Chopped’ surfaced, it was originally meant to be taped at some guy’s mansion with him and his crazy Chihuahua. A stuffy fellow in a tuxedo was to host, and the losing chef’s dish was then fed to the dog! I am not kidding, I saw it! I think it is genius! Twisted, but genius!’ – Ted Allen

‘First and foremost I am a chef, whether behind the stove at one of my Northern California restaurants or for the past 15 years in front of the camera on my Food Network cooking shows. Creating new dishes and flavor combinations that bring cooks and our restaurant guests pleasure is my job and I love it.’ – Tyler Florence

‘By the time I was 30, nobody would work with me. I was friendless, I was hopeless, I was suicidal, lost my family – I mean, it was bad. Bottomed out, didn’t know what I was going to do. I actually thought I was going to be a chef – go to work in a kitchen someplace.’ – Glenn Beck

‘All of the people who work in the kitchen with me go out into the forests and on to the beach. It’s a part of their job. If you work with me you will often be starting your day in the forest or on the shore because I believe foraging will shape you as a chef.’ – Rene Redzepi

‘I never cooked at home – my father was the chef.’ – Rene Redzepi

‘I had turned down other head chef jobs. I didn’t want to take over someone else’s cuisine. I wanted to start from scratch.’ – Rene Redzepi

‘Close interaction with farmers and scientists can expose the chef to new flavours that can be used to delight diners.’ – Rene Redzepi

‘I’ve been a model for 15 years, and I’ve been on ‘Top Chef’ for eight seasons, and before that I had other cooking shows, so I’ve learned a thing or two about how to camouflage certain areas and how to draw the eye to a preferable area of the body.’ – Padma Lakshmi

‘Part of my job as a food writer is to describe food. So my work on ‘Top Chef,’ I feel, is an extension of that. When we give a criticism to the contestant, we want to make sure we tell them why it’s not working and why it would work if they did it a different way.’ – Padma Lakshmi

‘I have great empathy for all the contestants that come on ‘Top Chef,’ whether they go home right away or they make it to the finish line. It’s a very vulnerable position they put themselves in and I feel for them.’ – Padma Lakshmi

‘During the course of filming ‘Top Chef,’ I gain 15 lbs., so I’m used to needing two dress sizes.’ – Padma Lakshmi

‘People say history is boring, and that is true because people are boring. We haven’t changed since time began. We’re still the same. We’ve obviously made some changes. When we started, it was all about food, clothing and shelter. Now we watch ‘Top Chef’, ‘Project Runway’, and ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” – Colin Hay

‘I have this wonderful personal chef who sources and stocks all my organic produce and I basically live on five smoothies a day. I’m totally vegan. I blend this green concoction with kale, cucumber, broccoli, string beans, avocado. My protein comes from protein powder. There is absolutely no milk, butter, cheese.’ – Larry Hagman

‘I think I’m going to give my baby her first food on Thanksgiving, make her some organic sweet potato. I’m very excited! It’s going to be a big day and my husband is in charge of the turkey – he’s the chef of the family!’ – Lily Aldridge

‘I did all the Chef Boyardee commercials, in America, when I was young.’ – Jane Seymour

‘This kitchen is completely calm. Some of the old-fashioned chefs – they become kings in their kitchen, they’ve got to be called chef. But I don’t care if someone calls me chef or Heston, it really doesn’t bother me.’ – Heston Blumenthal

‘I haven’t fully moved over to the iPad. At any given time, I have about four DVDs in my pocket. I’m constantly screening ‘Top Chef,’ ‘Housewives,’ and all the other shows we have in development, racing to meet a deadline. So I pretty much bring my laptop everywhere.’ – Andy Cohen

‘I am so proud of ‘Top Chef’ – I think it’s got great cred.’ – Andy Cohen

‘I’ve been nominated for 12 Emmys, and we won – for ‘Top Chef’ – the only time I didn’t go.’ – Andy Cohen

‘I love ‘Top Chef.’ I think it rewrote the book on how food shows are presented on TV.’ – Andy Cohen

‘I also want to go to an Italian island and do cuisine properly with some famous Italian chef and, like, his mother.’ – Elizabeth Olsen

‘My grandmother was a chef, and she taught me to cook. One day I want a restaurant, a small Italian grill. That’s my aspiration.’ – Jeremy Miller

‘You don’t have to be a chef or even a particularly good cook to experience proper kitchen alchemy: the moment when ingredients combine to form something more delectable than the sum of their parts.’ – Erin Morgenstern

‘I spend so much time in Los Angeles and normally stay at a corporate apartment when shooting ‘Top Chef: Just Desserts,’ but when I have the chance to stay somewhere more luxurious, I love The Montage in Beverly Hills.’ – Gail Simmons

‘There’s not a single chef I know of that does not think about the politics of the food they’re serving.’ – Gail Simmons

‘I became friends with a lot of chefs. I was a judge on ‘Top Chef’ last year. It was a dream come true.’ – Joe Jonas

‘My dad was a master butcher and I trained to be a butcher when I left school. I didn’t enjoy it at the time but I love cooking now, so perhaps I would have been a chef.’ – Brendan Coyle

‘If I weren’t a matchmaker, I’d be a chef.’ – Patti Stanger

‘If I didn’t ever model? I would be back in Kansas. I would probably end up being a pastry chef. My grandma taught me how to make a pie.’ – Lindsey Wixson

‘My husband is a musician. He cooks and he’s a chef but he also, he makes basement recordings. So many people in my life make basement recordings, so I feel very lucky, I’m surrounded by very creative people.’ – Dana Spiotta

‘I call all chefs ‘cooks.’ They’re all cooks. That’s what we do, we cook. You’re a chef when you’re running a kitchen.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘You hit a certain age and – especially because of TV – the young cooks coming up say, ‘You’re a sellout, because you’re doing something other than what you should be doing.’ ‘Top Chef’ is a double-edged sword for me: There’s a whole group of people who will not come to the restaurants because they assume I’m not in them anymore, all I do is TV.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘As a chef, I had started working with groups like Share Our Strength and various local food banks in New York, raising money for hunger-related issues. And not only me, but the entire restaurant industry has been very focused on this issue.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘I know from personal experience, if a chef yelled at me in a kitchen, the first thing I’d want to do is hit them with a pot.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘We are not really privy to all that crazy stuff that goes on in the show. I go to work, eat, and talk about food. The wild things happen when we aren’t around. I expected Top Chef to last three or four seasons and we are now shooting season ten.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘Every chef should have an understanding of pastries or desserts.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘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

‘My chefs don’t apply for ‘Top Chef’. They all know that there is no way. At the end of the process I look at the resumes of the last 25 options just to make sure they’ve never worked for me before.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘I’d like to see ‘Top Chef: Amateur’. Sometimes we have an amateur chef on the show and they just can’t cut it against the pros but there are some great stories there.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘Making ribs in Texas isn’t that unusual a choice for ‘Top Chef’. We played the stereotypes everywhere we go. It’s not only in Texas. We do it in New York; we did it in San Francisco. Listen if we shoot it in Seattle you know we’re going to be throwing salmon somewhere.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘Sometimes these challenges naturally select more chefs that can think on their feet very quickly. There are chefs I know who won’t put things on the menu unless they’ve tried it four or five times. So you just naturally select a certain kind of chef, people who maybe don’t win a bunch of challenges but they hang around.’ – Tom Colicchio

‘One thing I always say is being a great chef today is not enough – you have to be a great businessman.’ – Wolfgang Puck

‘It’s very important in a restaurant to really do the right hiring because there’s no restaurant that you have one cook and one chef and nobody else in the kitchen. Generally you have five, ten, 15 people with you. So that’s really important is to train them right, but first you have to hire the right people.’ – Wolfgang Puck

‘You know, I never really thought of myself as a ‘celebrity.’ One of the titles that I like least is ‘celebrity chef.” – Wolfgang Puck

‘Now everybody thinks that once you do Top Chef, then 13 weeks later you’re a chef. Nobody wants to learn to cook anymore.’ – Wolfgang Puck

‘The chef that grew up with the grandma who cooks tends to always beat the chef that went to the culinary institute. It’s in the blood.’ – Gary Vaynerchuk

‘I love ‘Gossip Girl.’ I used to hang out with Blake Lively and Jessica Szohr. I’m also addicted to Bravo and reality shows like ‘Top Chef.” – Jessica Stroup

‘My reasons for becoming a chef are somewhat of a cliche. I always loved to eat but it was watching my parents cook that really served as the impetus for my career choice.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘The better the ingredients, the more farmers I can buy from, the closer I feel to the food I want to make that represents what I care about as a chef.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘The hardest thing about being a full time chef is leaving my work behind when I go home at night. I’ll toss and turn about a menu item or forget to order produce and wake up at 4 A.M. in a cold sweat over some artichokes.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘It’s a very naive idea to think that the chef is cooking everything, and, on top of it, is irreplaceable. That would mean that basically he is the only genius, and there are idiots all around him, which doesn’t make sense.’ – Eric Ripert

‘You don’t become a chef to become famous.’ – Eric Ripert

‘Chicago is a lot of my background as a chef.’ – Jose Garces

‘Being a chef would be too much hard work.’ – Sophie Ellis-Bextor

‘I wanted to be a vet, a nurse, a chef – I mean, anything but the music industry. But once I hit high school, the bug really bit me. You can’t deny where you come from and what’s in your genes, and music definitely was. I haven’t looked back since.’ – Hillary Scott

‘I was once in a long relationship with a man who ran a vintage clothes store but had been a chef, so I’d come home each night to a different three-course meal. I was quite fat, but so happy.’ – Paloma Faith

‘I’ve never said I was a chef – I think I make great food. I will never open a restaurant to do, like, tasting courses.’ – Eddie Huang

‘I had no desire to be a chef, but I had a desire to be someone who was heard.’ – Eddie Huang

‘The truth is that since the first book, I have wanted to emulate Benjamin Franklin and put together a healthy, wealthy and wise trilogy and so healthy was ‘The 4-Hour Body,’ wealthy was ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ and then wise is ‘The 4-Hour Chef.” – Tim Ferriss

‘I like the idea of being so passionate about everything I do and the fact that I might wake up tomorrow and say ‘I want to be a chef,’ and just pour myself into that.’ – Kat Graham

‘I was dishwasher, then promoted to chef in a local kitchen in a restaurant in Seattle, and I was working on a building site as well, putting in insulation and painting houses, and then doing some classes at a community college nearby.’ – Alexis Denisof

‘You wouldn’t know it but I’m no good at… cooking. My chef does that.’ – Carolina Herrera

‘If I want popularity, I go to a chef’s convention.’ – Nathan Myhrvold

‘Cooking is for chefs. Science informs us and lets us cook while knowing what we are doing, but it is not a replacement for the skills of a chef.’ – Nathan Myhrvold

‘With cult foods, there is an underlying assumption that the best cooking ideas came generations ago. Yet culinary innovation is nothing to be ashamed of. When a chef tells me he is cooking with his grandmother’s recipe, I always wonder why. Did talent skip the past two generations?’ – Nathan Myhrvold

‘I’m a chef, I’m a cook, I was created by this industry, and I like to think I’m giving back. But I’m not giving back because I can make a scallop souffle, I’m giving back because I can make compost.’ – Arthur Potts Dawson

‘I’m obsessed with ‘Top Chef’.’ – Kate Winslet

‘It’s very tempting to have a nanny and live in a gated community and have a chef – I’d love to have a few dinners cooked for me. But I don’t want that for my children. When they’re older, if people say to them, ‘Did you have a chef?’ I want them to be shocked by the question.’ – Kate Winslet

‘I love food shows: Anthony Bourdain, Iron Chef, Chopped, you name it.’ – Donnie Wahlberg

‘I’m a decent cook; I’m a decent chef. None of my friends would ever have hired me at any point in my career. Period.’ – Anthony Bourdain

‘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.’ – Anthony Bourdain

‘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.’ – Anthony Bourdain

‘One of the things is challenging yourself to do a Rome show when everybody’s done a Rome show. To find some aspect of food culture or chef culture that people can look at in a new way.’ – Anthony Bourdain

‘I hated the Naked Chef. Fine, yes, he did good things for school food or whatever, but, you know, I don’t want my chefs to be cute and adorable.’ – Anthony Bourdain

‘Every chef I know, their cholesterol is through the roof. And mine’s not so great.’ – Anthony Bourdain

‘I am not a fine chef, but I can certainly get dinner on the table for 14 people. With that many, I try to keep it simple: salmon, mashed potatoes, sauteed spinach, and salad.’ – Cindy Crawford

‘I don’t want to do panel games or adverts. I really like challenges. I always get roles as an art teacher or a photographer. In the future I want to play something like a mugger/assassin/pastry chef.’ – Dylan Moran

‘I like cooking, but I don’t think I could be a chef. Everyone from the ground up does terrible hours, whether you’ve just walked in off the street and you’ve got no experience, to whether you’re the head chef. You can work 14 or 15-hour days. It’s really, really intense.’ – James McAvoy

‘I make a really delicious eggplant and squash curry that’s inspired by Vij of Vij’s Restaurant, a great chef and restaurateur in Vancouver. I like to cook that dish because it’s really simple, but the flavor is so pungent and intense that I feel like I’m a real chef whenever I create it.’ – Carmen Ejogo

‘It’s like a kitchen, acting. Put a chef in a kitchen and they will have different recipes. Whatever your recipe, what works for you won’t work for another.’ – Carole Bouquet

‘I’m not a trained chef, so I end up making stuff up. It either turns out brilliant or an absolute disaster. I just go for it.’ – Eric Balfour

‘If I was not an actor, I would have been working in a five star hotel as a chef.’ – Dhanush

‘I’m the joke of the family with cooking because I’ve never done it – primarily because I’ve been surrounded by people who are so good at it. Mum’s brilliant. Boyfriends have always been good at it. I’m waiting for my inner chef to be released.’ – Emilia Fox

‘Obviously, I love Japanese food. My favorite TV show of all time, without exception, is ‘Iron Chef.’ Not the stupid American version; ‘Iron Chef’ Japanese; the real one, the one that was on in Japan… my DVR for years was set to record almost every single ‘Iron Chef’ episode.’ – Tucker Max

‘I love ‘Top Chef.’ – Monica Raymund’ – Monica Raymund

‘Living together places a huge burden on the other person to be lover, friend, entertainments manager, chef, domestic help, which is almost impossible and can lead to disappointment. If you don’t live together, you spend more time with other people and ease the pressure off your lover.’ – Deborah Moggach

‘Chef’s choice is my favorite. I’m super adventurous.’ – Neil Patrick Harris

‘I love cookbooks for completely different reasons. I love ‘The Harry’s Bar Cookbook’ and Marco-Pierre White’s ‘White Heat’ for their feel. For pure learning, Gray Kunz wrote a great cookbook, ‘The Elements of Taste’, published in 2001. The first time I read Charlie Trotter’s, the Chicago chef’s first cookbook, I was blown away.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘I’m an American chef. I’m American. I live here. I love being here. But, of course, it is different. A black man’s journey is different.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘You have to balance, but you can be aggressive as a chef. It benefits the food. You have to be passionate. You can’t be angry cooking.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘I get so tickled when that pilot happens to be an African American because I rarely see that. The same is true when I go to find restaurants. I mean, most places I go, I kind of have some idea who the chef is, which is why I want to go.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘Being an Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef, there’s nothing traditional about my Thanksgiving spread.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘As a chef, I could not wash my hands – nor clean pots, pans, utensils, meats or produce, nor make soups and sauces – if I did not have clean water. Were this to happen, of course, these would be the least of my concerns. Because water is the linchpin of survival: without it, not much else matters.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘Between the ages of six and nine, my palette was taking shape as well as my identity as a chef. It was then that I learned the difference between salty, sweet, sour and even spicy.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘As a chef, I always have in mind how to properly feed the public, but at times it’s easy to forget that some people have trouble even getting any food, much less adequate nutrition.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘As a chef and activist, I’m particularly concerned with food politics issues such as the farm bill.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘While some people may think being a chef only entails making enticing dishes and pushing the culinary boundaries, being a part of the food industry involves much more.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘People come up to me all the time and ask how I stay the way I am, and it’s no secret. The first lesson a chef needs to learn is how to handle a knife; the second is how to be around all that food.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘I am a chef through and through. Everything I do – whether it is cooking for kids in Harlem or cooking in a fine dining establishment – all my days are consumed by food.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘Taking dishes straight off the restaurant’s menu and putting them into a cookbook doesn’t work, because as a chef you have your own vision of what your food is, but you can’t always explain it. Or you can’t pick recipes that best illustrate who and where you are and what you’re doing. And if the recipes don’t work, you don’t have a book.’ – Marcus Samuelsson

‘My plans are not to open a restaurant, but what I would like to do is open a kitchen somewhere in D.C. proper and have a chef’s table where people can come and taste my food without having to have a catered event.’ – Carla Hall

‘Way back when I was a junior pastry chef, I’d bake loads of muffins every morning, as many as 120 or so, while operating on autopilot.’ – Yotam Ottolenghi

‘The album ‘Kelis Was Here’ sucked the life out of me, and so I went off and studied to be a Cordon Bleu chef. What’s great about food is that it’s less about who you know and what you look like, and more about if you’re any good.’ – Kelis

‘As a chef, if I can taste something, I can basically figure out what’s in it.’ – Kelis

‘I studied to be a chef as a side thing, a little hobby that I enjoyed doing, but I ended up falling madly in love with the food and the lifestyle.’ – Kelis

‘I have a Madonna portrait done in the style of a Russian icon. My mother, the chef Lidia Bastianich, and I bought it together. It reminds me of her.’ – Joe Bastianich

‘I am a futurist, projecting trends in science into the next decades and century, but ironically my two daughters – one is a neuroscientist and the other is a pastry chef – tell me that my taste in music is positively prehistoric.’ – Michio Kaku

‘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.’ – David Chang

‘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.’ – David Chang

‘People with chile peppers on their chef pants shouldn’t be allowed in the kitchen.’ – April Bloomfield

‘Whenever I want to know how to cook something, I can’t ask one chef – I have to ask six.’ – Alice Waters

‘I am not a food critic. Or a chef. Or even a professional writer. What I am schooled in the art of, however, is enjoying myself.’ – Jewel Staite

‘Whenever I’d go to restaurants, the main chef came out and was cooking for me, and he’s asking me how the food is. I get, like, VIP service, so it’s weird.’ – Inbee Park

‘I always thought that family was the most important thing in life, and no matter what I do, whether being a chef or an actor or a dancer, being a dad is what I do best.’ – David Burtka

‘I have a full Tuscan lunch and dinner every day in my home; my husband’s a fantastic chef.’ – Debi Mazar

‘Steve Zahn and I like to go to dinner, and we love to go to Chef Donald Link’s Herb Saint.’ – Kim Dickens

‘In 10 years, I don’t really know what I’ll be, and I like not having any idea. I like the idea of being so passionate about everything I do and the fact that I might wake up tomorrow and say ‘I want to be a chef,’ and just pour myself into that.’ – Kat Graham

‘I’m crazy lucky. I was trying to be a filmmaker. I was doing Second City classes as a way to be creative. I was a PA for a long time. I was working as an assistant editor on ‘Iron Chef America’ when I got ‘SNL.’ It was one of those situations where you’re concentrating in one thing and the peripheral thing popped.’ – Bill Hader

‘I’m not a trained chef. I’m a self-taught cook, and I want people to be like, ‘Yo, I could do that! Maybe I didn’t think to or maybe it seemed harder than it really is.” – Haylie Duff

‘Bringing your kids into the kitchen doesn’t require you to be a top chef; only time and maybe a willingness to get a little messy.’ – Michael Mina

‘Chefs become attracted to being able to get product and then clientele – those are the two things that attract you as a chef.’ – Michael Mina

‘A cocktail can be made by the bartender. But the cocktail also can be made by the chef.’ – Jose Andres

‘Chef Michel Richard is always at the top of his game.’ – Jose Andres

‘Roberto Donna is a great Italian chef.’ – Jose Andres

‘I believe no chef becomes what he becomes without having many people influence him.’ – Jose Andres

‘Let me ask you: Who do you prefer, a clown organizing your menu – with all due respect to Mr. McDonald – or a chef? I do believe it’s a very simple answer.’ – Jose Andres

‘America gave me the opportunity to open successful restaurants, start a TV show, and write books. I can even fill an auditorium when I give a speech, which in America is rare for a chef.’ – Jose Andres

‘I think every chef should have a food truck. It’s a good way to test the markets, to invest in meeting the future restaurant goers.’ – Jose Andres

‘When we are trying to come up with new health laws, you bring doctors, you bring experts in medicine. In urban planning, you bring the best architects. How it is possible that when we are talking about the way we are going to feed America, no chef shows up in the room?’ – Jose Andres

‘Your parents would not be happy if you came home and said you wanted to grow up to be a chef or a rock star.’ – Jose Andres

‘As a chef and as a father, I am very upset by what’s on the menu at most schools: chicken nuggets and tater tots and ketchup and pizza.’ – Jose Andres

‘As a chef and father, it kills me that children are fed processed foods, fast food clones, foods loaded with preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup.’ – Jose Andres

‘Who needs one more chef in one more building with four walls and a kitchen?’ – Jose Andres

‘I cannot wait to see the day that one day we will have a chef that will become the secretary of food of the United States of America.’ – Jose Andres

‘In an Indian kitchen, the focus is on getting the job or dish done right in whatever way possible; however, in a French kitchen there’s a clear hierarchy, and a chef has to know where their skills are and not go beyond them.’ – Manish Dayal

‘My cousin owns restaurants, and I used to work in his restaurants with his chef. I’ve always liked food, and I’ve always been interested in cooking and stuff like that.’ – Luke Pasqualino

‘I always hated watching cooking shows where the chef would use ingredients that I couldn’t get my hands on, cooking implements that I couldn’t afford, recipes that I could never have access to.’ – Adam Richman

‘Back in the day, I used to watch ‘The Cajun Chef’ with Justin Wilson. His mixing would go one way, and his stomach would go the other.’ – Adam Richman

‘The president of the United States can’t even fire his chef. I’m not kidding.’ – Rob Lowe

‘TV is a deformed vision, an excessive caricature. A chef has to stay an artisan, not become a star.’ – Alain Ducasse

‘The restaurants express the spirit of the chef, the spirit of the city, the country.’ – Alain Ducasse

‘I am a very eco-friendly chef but a guilty air traveller.’ – Alain Ducasse

‘I was actually going to be a chef before I got sidetracked. I used to make deserts for restaurants as a young teenage mother to make money.’ – Suzanne Somers

‘Shows like ‘Top Chef,’ ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ have helped bring attention to the culinary world on a whole, but you have to be cautious it doesn’t get out of hand.’ – Geoffrey Zakarian

‘There’s only one cook in the kitchen, only one chef. I let the soloists do their thing – you’ve gotta let a man do a solo the way he wants – but as far as picking the tunes and working on the arrangements, I take full responsibility for it.’ – Gregg Allman

‘I cannot bring myself to wear the Nobu hats, or the Nobu T-shirts. But the chef’s jacket, that is mine. And when I wear it, I am very proud of myself.’ – Nobu Matsuhisa

‘When I’m in L.A., I go to Spago because the chef is a friend of mine.’ – Nobu Matsuhisa

‘I don’t have any interest in being a chef without being on the business side of things, or vice versa, because if you don’t make money at the end of the month, you’re going out of business.’ – Tom Douglas

‘Support a small chef. Not these big chains… but support the people who are out there trying to do things right and working hard to do that.’ – Tom Douglas

‘Every chef has his treats. By that, I mean bits and pieces from things you’re working on – crusty little cake trimmings, ends from a brisket, collars from a salmon, scraps. But they’re snacks to me, and I eat them right off the cutting board – maybe too much.’ – Tom Douglas

‘When I wrote my cookbook, ‘I Love Crab Cakes,’ I asked some of my best chef buddies to contribute recipes.’ – Tom Douglas

‘I’m a normal guy. I’m not a chef.’ – Al Roker

‘My dream as a passionate cook has been to go to Le Cordon Bleu. Never could my most incredible dream have lived up to the experience. The food, the lesson, the chef, the ingredients – all the best of the best. I see why Le Cordon Bleu is world-renowned.’ – Blake Lively

‘I try to pack light with a folding leather suit bag. Anything more than five days, I need to check in my luggage. What takes the most space? Chef jackets, aprons and tools.’ – Daniel Boulud

‘I am very proud of Jim Leiken. He has worked with me for six years and has been patient enough to learn the ropes. He’s now matured into a true chef and is working on building his team.’ – Daniel Boulud

‘I never go to Vancouver without stopping by Thomas Haas’ shop for the best chocolate in North America. A former chef patissier at Daniel, he returned to his hometown and created a top quality brand by sticking to his passion.’ – Daniel Boulud

‘The hardest thing for a chef is to become comfortable with what you do. Not to be too neurotic and worried with what you are doing and how wrong or right you are.’ – Daniel Boulud

‘I think in France, for example, we can say whatever we want about the French, but going out and dining is more about the intellectual moment to share with the people you dine with than trying to figure out what the chef did with that little piece of salmon or lobster and all that.’ – Daniel Boulud

‘I do have a chef, but I still go out. Sometimes I can still blend in, and sometimes I get a little bombarded. It’s the best of both worlds.’ – Kyrie Irving

‘We in the media have been guilty about not doing a better job of making people understand how really simple cooking is. We’ve made everyone feel like they have to be a chef.’ – Ruth Reichl

‘I worked on the line, I’ve been an executive chef, I’ve worked for the Mets, I’ve worked for various steakhouses, vegetarian restaurants, a lot of Middle Eastern stuff. I’ve worked my fair share of a lot of different things. I’ve worked at festivals and street fairs, you know? I’ve been through it all.’ – Action Bronson

‘Sometimes, early in their careers, chefs make the mistake of adding one too many things to a plate to get attention. If a chef is just coming up with wiz-bang gimmicks on their plate, that has nothing to do with bringing real pleasure to people.’ – Danny Meyer

‘My mother was an enthusiastic chef but wildly disorganized, and often preferred purchasing yet another jar of mace or chili powder rather than having to hunt down its last incarnation.’ – Janet Fitch

‘My grandfather was a great chef.’ – Douglas Booth

‘I am often asked what I would be doing if I hadn’t become a writer. I have long said I would probably be a chef or a garden designer or a decorator, but since recording my own books, there is no doubt in my mind that if the writing doesn’t work out, voice work is what I would choose.’ – Jane Green

‘I wanted to write a food book, but I’m not a chef or an expert on culinary matters, to put it mildly.’ – Kate Christensen

‘David Levi is a teacher as well as a chef, and, like most teachers, he loves to talk.’ – Kate Christensen

‘Sometimes you just dread reading scripts; it’s like the chef who doesn’t want to cook at home.’ – Martin Henderson

‘A friend of mine is a chef in Bali, and another friend said, ‘God, he’s like Brad Pitt,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I think he’s more like arm Pitt,’ ’cause, you know, ‘Brad Pitt’ would be a bit of an overstatement.’ – Owain Yeoman

‘Gordon Ramsay, the only chef in London honored with three stars by the ‘Guide Michelin,’ is not a monster.’ – Bill Buford

‘Giada De Laurentiis, of ‘Everyday Italian,’ is not a chef, although she has culinary expertise – she was trained at the Cordon Bleu and worked as a private cook for a wealthy Los Angeles family.’ – Bill Buford

‘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

‘Being a chef isn’t the ideal career to intersect with parenting, but I try to be in my kids’ lives as much as possible.’ – Wylie Dufresne

‘I was working for a chef a long time ago who told me to not skip steps or be in a hurry. Success in a kitchen is more like a marathon and less like a sprint. Rising up the ranks too quickly isn’t necessarily a good thing. This advice was from a guy who was sorry he had done that and didn’t want me to do the same.’ – Wylie Dufresne

‘Fish butchering means a lot to me as a chef; I take pride in it and get a lot of joy from filleting fish, working with fish, breaking down fish, trying to understand fish.’ – Wylie Dufresne

”Top Chef’ is always entertaining – it’s hard to stop watching, like a good hockey fight, but no one gets hurt. It’s great that the format is so inherently dramatic and can make cooking so entertaining to people who might not ordinarily be interested in a cooking show. Good for the industry all round.’ – Wylie Dufresne

‘I’ve hit a point where my big luxury is getting to work on the things I want to work on. That’s my hobby. It’s being able to do a movie like ‘Chef,’ where you don’t get paid, where you get paid scale, but you get to do exactly the movie you want to do. To me, that’s worth more to me than whatever money I would have gotten paid.’ – Jon Favreau

‘At the end of the day, it seems like there’s a critic archetype for food movies, like with ‘Ratatouille’ or anything. You know, if you were doing a puppet show about chefs, one puppet would be the chef, one would be the critic.’ – Jon Favreau

‘I’ll basically eat anything that a chef puts in front of me. One of the reasons is respect for the chef. I watch chefs eat at other chefs’ restaurants, and they’re very aware not to leave anything over because the chef is watching very closely. It’s a very sincere interaction when two chefs are cooking for one another.’ – Jon Favreau

‘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

‘Movies like ‘Chef’ are not really box-office monsters in the summertime and don’t really fit into Hollywood’s business model any longer. Even if ‘Chef’ is successful, it will be successful in the context of what it is. There’s a limited upside to a film that’s so small, but there’s also limited exposure for the people who backed me.’ – Jon Favreau

‘I’m not on chef level, but I’d make a good line cook. That’s not too shabby.’ – Jon Favreau

‘I think ‘Chef’ is about somebody who’s in the middle of his life, and he’s kind of lost his passion and his voice, so he seeks out some refinement and redemption.’ – Jon Favreau

‘When I look at someone’s face, there’s something in my brain that just clicks – that breaks down their face into the elements that go into a caricature. It might be like the way a chef tastes a dish and can break down into elements what went into it.’ – Steve Breen

‘Food is entertainment now. People tune into ‘Top Chef,’ and they’re not trying to replicate the recipes. Anthony Bourdain is entertainment. Instagramming your dishes is entertainment.’ – David Sax

‘I get along great with my family. My parents are really proud of me and my brother, who’s a chef here in New York. I don’t see my parents often, but they’re very supportive, especially as I get older.’ – Alison Mosshart

‘When I moved to the United States, I first went to California to be the chef at Campton Place. As much as I loved California, I really missed the seasons. So when I moved to New York, I had that again.’ – Daniel Humm

‘When you look at a kitchen, you tend to see that the people who are doing really well are those who have worked with the same chef or stayed in one restaurant for a significant amount of time.’ – Daniel Humm

‘As I mature as a chef, I no longer aim to pack multiple techniques and ingredients into a single dish. Realizing that restraint is more difficult, I find it often renders incredibly beautiful results.’ – Daniel Humm

‘I really feel I have found myself as a chef. It’s very clear to me what I want to do – and how it should taste.’ – Daniel Humm

‘At heart, ‘Chef’ is a daddy-daycare fable about an overextended man who teaches his 10-year-old son the family business and learns to love him.’ – Richard Corliss

”Chef’ is a dish of arroz con pollo served with a smile but not much style. The critic in the film would give it a low grade, for agreeability without ambition.’ – Richard Corliss

‘My love for cooking began when I was young. Because my parents were in the army, they were both really busy. A lot of times I’d have to cook for the family; I’d rotate with my siblings. It started out as a chore, but as I got older, my mom started to see that I was really good at it. I became her sous chef.’ – Tia Mowry

‘I’m a good cook, and I look at something like ‘Iron Chef’ and think, ‘It’s a good thing I already know how to cook’ – because I would never think I could do it if I watched these shows.’ – Nora Ephron

‘A friend introduced me to Bob Shaye. He was one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever met. He was a Fulbright scholar, an excellent chef, and very knowledgeable about the arts.’ – Wes Craven

‘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

‘Think about your menu, and if you’re not a skilled chef – which I’m not – follow a recipe. You can’t go wrong if you don’t cut the fine print.’ – Karen Elson

‘I don’t have a nanny. I have a chef, and I have my assistant, and that’s it. I do it myself. You know, those hours with your child are really important ones, even if it’s just the two of you, being quiet in the car together.’ – Melania Trump

‘It is cool to see that the fashion world has really taken to ‘Instagram,’ but, again, it is one of the many examples of many communities, whether you are a chef, a skateboarder, a surfer, a skier.’ – Kevin Systrom

‘The chef can be very innovative, but the decision is made by the customer.’ – Barry Lam

‘I make it happen. Who bought Alex Haley’s book ‘Roots’ for TV? Me. I hired the director, hired the writer. I put them all together. I’m like the chef. If I mix all the ingredients right, it’s going to taste terrific. If I don’t, it’s not going to come out good.’ – David L. Wolper

‘If I’m alone, I tend to cook for myself. I do a pretty good job of preparing healthful foods. My go-to is everything in a bowl like quinoa, avocado. Later in the day, scrambled eggs. I’m not a gourmet chef. I cook in bulk very well.’ – Ellie Kemper

‘I love cooking and eating – I’m a total foodie. It started off as a survival thing as a student, when cheese and potato pie was all I could afford to make. My most successful results come from concocting something with leftovers. Any chef will tell you that you should taste as you cook, so I might make it a bit more spicy, yogurty or eggy.’ – Neil Morrissey

‘I always thought the name of my first book would be ‘The Insecure Chef,’ because when I started cooking, I was so nervous.’ – Chrissy Teigen

‘I don’t know any chef who doesn’t like fast food.’ – Paul Hollywood

‘When my career in hotels was taking off in the Nineties, I went to work as a head baker in Cyprus, where I was making Danish pastries every day. I can remember that the head chef was always on my back to put more seasonal fruits in with the creme patissiere. I’d even make them with rhubarb.’ – Paul Hollywood

‘If I’m in the ‘hood, I like Chef Creole’s Haitian rice and stewed chicken.’ – DJ Khaled

‘I went to New York to train as a chef, and I had the good or bad fortune, depending on how you describe it, of being right there during 9/11. It was one of the best and the worst experiences.’ – Kimbal Musk

‘The Kitchen, which my wife and I opened with our friend and amazing chef Hugo Matheson, was quickly recognized as the pioneer in ‘green’ restaurants across the country.’ – Kimbal Musk

‘The best job a man could have would be a chef. They’d understand the long hours I work and the drive and ambition it takes to succeed.’ – Meghan Markle

‘There is an old story that says that Julia Child dropped a chicken on the floor when she was filming ‘The French Chef.’ And then – that, in fact, is not true. She just, you know, dropped some potatoes she was trying to flip in a pan.’ – Kathleen Flinn

‘I love ‘Iron Chef’ and I love ‘Chopped.’ I watch both of them. I think it is crazy what those chefs go through.’ – Guy Fieri

‘I’m not a celebrity chef. I’m a chef that happens to have television shows and a chef that happens to do media.’ – Guy Fieri

‘I always tell my family – and they laugh about it – but someday, I will write a vegetarian book. My cousin, who’s a big vegetarian, tells me flat out, ‘You’re my favorite vegetarian chef.” – Guy Fieri

‘Everybody has their role in the food world and what they choose to appreciate. I’m not a fine dining chef. I appreciate it. I think Thomas Keller is amazing. But I really like where I’m at; I like what I do. I like how it makes people feel.’ – Guy Fieri

‘I did a big thing with Ritz Crackers – great cracker. Am I now the Ritz chef? No! Do I think the cracker has a lot of diversity and appeal? Yeah! Does it mean that’s my foundation of cooking? No!’ – Guy Fieri

‘Whenever a chef cooks for his own ego rather than his guests, he/she set themselves up for ridicule and failure. In the end, it’s the service industry. Our goal is to make our guests happy through our cooking.’ – Johnny Iuzzini

‘A savory chef must first master his knife skills and understand the basics of sauces and soups, etc., before he/she may move on to become a great chef. It is no different for pastry chefs. If you do not have a strong foundation and are a master of the basics, then you will never be that strong – you will never be a master of the trade – period.’ – Johnny Iuzzini

‘I am not a shock jock pastry chef. I don’t create desserts using strange ingredients just for the sake of doing so, like so many of my colleagues in the industry.’ – Johnny Iuzzini

‘Part of what makes a great chef is the ability to adapt, cook, and to taste. A great chef will use all their food knowledge, food memories, and senses to work with each ingredient and apply themselves to the dish they are creating.’ – Johnny Iuzzini

‘Everyone has days when things can go wrong. That doesn’t make you a bad pastry chef – that makes you human.’ – Johnny Iuzzini

‘A pastry chef’s lifespan in a restaurant is limited. You have to open a bakery or pastry shop. There’s only so far you can go in a restaurant.’ – Johnny Iuzzini

‘If I could be something other than an actor, I’d be a chef; I’ve got a big interest in food. I’m a proper fan boy.’ – Will Poulter

‘The opportunity to be a star chef, to imagine it would be here in Las Vegas, I couldn’t comprehend it.’ – Guy Fieri

‘I’m a chef, I own restaurants, and there’s a behavior in the kitchen you have to have.’ – Guy Fieri

‘It’s tough, you know: I’m a chef first, and a restaurant owner, way before I was ever on Food Network, and it’s a tough business.’ – Guy Fieri

‘I had cooked a lot in restaurants, in Rocky Point and on golf courses on Long Island, and my mother said, ‘Be a chef,’ and my dad said, ‘Be a lawyer.’ But instead, I auditioned for N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts.’ – D. B. Sweeney

‘I think that the stigmas against model-actresses – and even just, like, entertainer, celebrity chef, and musician – those kinds of walls have been broken down, and you can do multiple things. So while I can, I don’t see why I would stop.’ – Emily Ratajkowski

‘I decided to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time – go get a chef and a nutritionist – and I brought them on board.’ – Deontay Wilder

‘I didn’t harbor a huge desire to become a chef until I graduated from college.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘I think that ‘celebrity’ and ‘chef’ should be a permanent oxymoron.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘I watched ‘Iron Chef ‘ for years, and I thought, ‘That’s playing for the New York Yankees.’ I made that my version of being Derek Jeter, and I worked really, really hard to win that.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘I feel very passionate about maintaining the same level of standard and respect for the food as an Iron Chef myself.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

”Iron Chef America’ is so real. Imagine putting on television the whole process of making that food, the technique. It’s all about technique. It doesn’t even matter if you show the faces sometimes.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘I learned so much from ‘Iron Chef’ about ingredients, about the courage to put yourself out there.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘I feel like a princess with a knife. I’ve wanted to be an Iron Chef forever.’ – Alex Guarnaschelli

‘Forget Paula Dean; when it comes to on-air celebrity chefs, no one makes my stomach go pitter-patter more than Chef Anthony Bourdain. He is absolutely fearless.’ – Maysoon Zayid

‘I work on most weekends, so my husband is the executive chef. He is an amazing cook. I love the way he does salmon, and his apple pie for dessert is delicious.’ – Erica Durance

‘If acting doesn’t work out, I’m probably going to be a professional chef.’ – Haley Bennett

‘You’ll see me on ‘Top Chef’ someday. My Midwestern hospitality needs an outlet, you know?’ – Haley Bennett

‘When you make a record, I always imagine people dancing to it. If the chef thinks it tastes good, then there will be someone who ultimately believes the same thing.’ – Labrinth

‘The iPhone is like ‘omakase’, the style of sushi where the chef chooses what you’re going to eat, and might even tell you how to eat it – no wasabi allowed on this, no soy sauce allowed on that. Definitely no California rolls.’ – Daniel Lyons

‘I probably do 10 to 12 Snapchats a day. Spending time with my family or my chef, my workouts, my outfits, or any events I’m attending. Playing music in the car is a big one for me. Dancing sometimes. Or asking people, ‘How’s business?” – Antonio Brown

‘There is the cult of the actor and of the director, and there’s even been the cult of the celebrity chef and gardener, but there has never been a cult of the screenwriter. But I’m happy about that because what I crave – in a completely venal way – is creative opportunities, not recognition.’ – Anthony McCarten

‘If not a chef, I would have been a painter maybe. I have interest in painting, and I do it well.’ – Ranveer Brar

‘Men are more mechanical when we cook. Women are more attached. They cook it with feelings. From personal experience. The feeling a female chef puts in the food places her way ahead of men chefs.’ – Ranveer Brar

‘Essentially, for me, the whole point of being a chef is to have your own restaurant.’ – Ranveer Brar

‘I am not very convinced with having a signature dish. The whole point of being a chef is going to a new place, adapting and curating a new menu as per the culture and community.’ – Ranveer Brar

‘When I was growing up, Chef Charlie Trotter inspired me a lot.’ – Ranveer Brar

‘I watch a lot of shows on Bravo – I’m not just saying that. I love ‘Top Chef.’ I love ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta.’ That’s my favorite.’ – Chris March

‘When I started as a young chef, I was Italian, and I was a woman, and everyone else in New York was French and a man.’ – Lidia Bastianich

‘As a chef, I feel that it is my duty to make the most of what the earth gives us.’ – Lidia Bastianich

‘I cooked for the two Popes that were here. Pope Francis I cooked for and Pope Benedict before him. Pope Benedict is German. And I did a little research – his mother was a chef.’ – Lidia Bastianich

‘If you want to express yourself, it is difficult to be by yourself. You must have people around you who understand the same music. It is like being the chef d’orchestra. They need you, but you need them desperately.’ – Hubert de Givenchy

‘It’s true that writing and pastry-making are similar, but when you work as a pastry chef, you can get a kind of mania that everything you see is related to pastries.’ – Mark Kurlansky

‘You are in school, and you hear about ‘Iron Chef’ and think, ‘One day, I have to be on ‘Iron Chef.” – Maneet Chauhan

‘I am Indian and a chef with Indian heritage.’ – Maneet Chauhan

‘I always wanted to be a chef. Flavors and food were always of interest to me, but it was how those things brought friends and family together to celebrate not only the special occasions but everyday life. It has been a blessing that I have been able to pursue a career that creates a product that brings people together.’ – Maneet Chauhan

‘Becoming the first Indian woman to compete on Food Network’s ‘Iron Chef’ and ‘Next Iron Chef’ was really a great accomplishment and led to my spot as a judge on ‘Chopped.” – Maneet Chauhan

‘The level of competition on ‘Iron Chef’ was very intense. In fact, I feel like the show provides chefs with a stamp of approval and in many ways lets them know that ‘they’ve arrived.’ It was a tough journey, to say the least, but in the end, it provided me with an example how hard work and persistence pays off.’ – Maneet Chauhan

‘When I was in India, I felt like being a full-time chef was a very unique career path. It was quite the contrast from the traditional fields like engineering and medicine and not necessarily considered a full time profession.’ – Maneet Chauhan

‘I thought I’d be a chef by night and paint by day. Now I just have fabulous dinner parties.’ – Kehinde Wiley

‘My mother, Betty, was an entertainer – she opened up for James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner – and I had an uncle who would work as a chef in a restaurant, 6-foot-3 or 6-foot-4. I was young, so he could have been shorter, but in my mind, that’s how tall he was.’ – Salim Akil

‘The summer after college, I got a job as a chef at Conscience Point Inn in Southampton. I spent the summer on the water and cemented my expertise with seafood. I’ve always gravitated toward places that do seafood.’ – Andrew Zimmern

‘I have spent more time in my life working and being in restaurants than being at home. I immediately feel comfortable entering a restaurant, and I feel even more comfortable in the back with the chef and cooks.’ – Jacques Torres

‘I have worked my way up in the food industry being strong and steady about who I am as a person, first and foremost, as a chef and professional, and certainly as a woman.’ – Christina Tosi

‘I guess technically I am a female chef, but I don’t really think of myself as such.’ – Christina Tosi

‘As a chef, I got into this because I love the creative energy and I love the science, but I also love to feed people and make them happy.’ – Christina Tosi

‘My role as a chef is respecting the produce. Why should I change and mask the original flavors of the produce that I’m utilizing?’ – Joel Robuchon

‘Over the years, quite a few TV producers proposed that I do a program, but I refused. I didn’t want to work on a set that looked like a theater; I wanted a kitchen of the sort every chef dreams about.’ – Ron Ben-Israel

‘Because I am a chef, I have to try new things all the time, so it’s been really good to have my family to be able to be there and test everything out.’ – Ayesha Curry

‘Part of being a really good chef or cook is being able to fix disasters.’ – Damaris Phillips

‘My husband is a vegetarian. So it has really pushed me as a chef. Just thinking about the food that I really relied on as my hunny-hunting foods, that looks different with a vegetarian.’ – Damaris Phillips

‘I became a vegetarian in 1995. I had some fried chicken, and my teeth hit the bone. My mind said, ‘Dead bird, dead bird.’ It didn’t feel right, so I stopped. I kept eating fish until one day, in 1997, the chef brought my ginger-fried snapper with the head still on it.’ – Rza

‘Any time a bar or chef cares more about their own ego than the tastes and comforts of their customers, they should just open a monument to themselves and not a business.’ – Jon Taffer

‘I have a chef come in every day and prepare my meals. There is no way I could do the stunt work, stay up as late as I have to, or be outside in the heat if I’m eating poorly. That means I can’t eat craft services!’ – Shalita Grant

‘Most people will pay tribute to Anthony Bourdain as a chef, as the author of ‘Kitchen Confidential,’ and as the host of several food and travel shows – most recently, ‘Parts Unknown’ on CNN.’ – Sarah Weinman

‘As his celebrity grew in stature, as he transformed from line cook to chef at Les Halles and further high-grade Manhattan restaurants to charismatic television star, I kept hoping – foolishly, perhaps – that Bourdain might return to his first writing love, to the books he wrote and published when his audience was smaller but still devoted.’ – Sarah Weinman

‘In ‘A Bone in the Throat,’ he describes his protagonist and alter ego, the cook Tommy Pagano, as ‘darker, and not as tall as the chef, his hair stood up straight and spiky like a young Trotsky’s.’ He describes Little Italy with such verve, such flavor, that it is impossible not to smell the streets or taste the food.’ – Sarah Weinman

‘I’m very honest about my food background; I’ve never tried to pretend like I was a chef.’ – Antoni Porowski

‘I have a chef who cooks for me. I like to eat healthy.’ – Sadio Mane

‘It’s a life choice to be a girl chef, as it is to be a boy chef. It feels pretty natural to me. It’s a full-time, full-scale, full physical job, and a lot of times, it can take the place of kids and family. To be in this career is much more difficult for a woman to have a family, marriage – whatever that means. It’s not a 9-5 job.’ – Anne Burrell

‘I adore my mother, and I am probably a chef because of my mother. She was adventurous.’ – Anne Burrell

‘Not every chef is a yeller, but I have to say that even a chef who is not a yeller might have a time when that rule might get broken.’ – Anne Burrell

‘The margins for restaurants to make money are very, very narrow. It’s a tough business, and to be a chef is a little bit masochistic.’ – Anne Burrell

‘I grew up a block away from Hell, and my pop-pop was a chef in Hell’s Kitchen.’ – Enzo Amore

‘I’m a chef, so I really like knowing where my food is coming from.’ – David Burtka

‘It’s been a long road. A humble Dearborn beginning. Secretary mom, dad teaching handicapped children. Working for what they had. Eventually, I moved to L.A. but, not good for me, I felt rejected. So I stopped acting and, needing to feel good inside, became a chef.’ – David Burtka

‘As a chef, I like to be totally prepared. I’m so big on lists. I love lists.’ – David Burtka

‘One day, a chef moaned that he was too hot, so I took a carving knife in one hand, held his jacket with the other, and slashed it. Then I slashed his trousers. Both garments were still on his body at the time.’ – Marco Pierre White

‘You can’t be a chef and appear on television all the time. It’s impossible. At least when I earned my stars, I was always behind my stove.’ – Marco Pierre White

‘In 1990 at Harveys, when I was 28 years old, I became the youngest chef to win two Michelin stars. It was a huge achievement.’ – Marco Pierre White

‘I’d be a chef if I wasn’t a musician, that’s for sure.’ – Orianthi

‘I just love food and the art of it. There’s such an art to being a good chef and the way you present food and the different ingredients you use. It’s like music – you get inspiration from different genres. It’s the same with art, too.’ – Orianthi

‘I’m not a chef: I’m a cook.’ – Frankie Avalon

‘I do a little bit of everything… kind of like being a chef on the court.’ – Andre Iguodala

‘I was a hostess, a waitress, a cafe manager, and a prep chef. For one job, I had to wear a hat shaped like a head of garlic.’ – Jenna Blum

‘I am not a cook at all. It wasn’t difficult to play a chef because it was not about knowing recipes. I just had to look comfortable in the kitchen.’ – Aditya Roy Kapur

‘I wanted to be a chef; I became a hero.’ – Jackie Shroff

‘I went to a hotel to become a chef and then tried becoming a flight attendant, but no one took me. I then worked in a travel agency and got into advertising and modelling after someone spotted me. So I started doing ads. I did ‘Charminar’ ad, because of which I got two films.’ – Jackie Shroff

‘I grew up in San Diego with immigrant parents, before the food blogs, before this kind of celebrity chef culture we know now.’ – Samin Nosrat

‘I think the goal of ‘Chef’s Table’ is that you are so moved by the story that you want to go and eat that person’s food at their restaurant. But I wanted the takeaway from my show to be that you go and cook the thing.’ – Samin Nosrat

‘I have a chef for my main meals, but when he’s not there, rather than go to the store and grab chips, I will eat grapes or a banana or egg whites.’ – Le’Veon Bell

‘The first thing I wanted to be growing up was a solicitor, because all the people around me needed solicitors! But I never really followed it up. Then I wanted to be a dessert chef because I liked the presentation.’ – Slowthai

‘I’m in a place where I feel comfortable not being a chef anymore. That’s taboo in our industry. ‘Chef’ is supposed to be the ultimate end of the road.’ – Roy Choi

‘As a young manager, I had no idea what it meant to be a chef.’ – Roy Choi

‘I used to be a chef.’ – Roy Choi

‘Oh yeah, the ‘Chef’ movie was awesome.’ – Roy Choi

‘What if every high-caliber chef told our investors that for every fancy restaurant we build, it would be a requirement to build one in the hood as well?’ – Roy Choi

‘I’m a little old-school in that I think there’s some value in the classics and the steps of achieving a certain profession. If we start slanging the word ‘chef’ on anybody and everybody who cooks, it takes away a lot.’ – Roy Choi

‘House of Blues has soul right down to the chef in the kitchen.’ – Michael Rapino

‘BottleRock has these incredible VIP cabins where a chef is preparing sushi for you in your cabin or lounge decorated by Restoration Hardware.’ – Michael Rapino

‘I remember being a kid and wanting to be so many different things. There was even one point that I wanted to be a clarinet player, and I had never even touched a clarinet, in my life. And then, I wanted to be a chef. And then, I wanted to be a vet. It’s hard to decide who you’re gonna be, as weird as that sounds, because we all do it.’ – Eliza Scanlen

‘People say I’m a celebrity chef, and I am on telly a lot but that’s because I judge contests. Perhaps I’m more of a celebrity eater than a cook.’ – Prue Leith

‘What I want to do is produce really delicious food. I want it to look nice, because when you see food you should want to eat it. You shouldn’t be saying, ‘Oh my goodness, isn’t the chef clever, he can weave the Eiffel Tower out of carrot sticks.” – Prue Leith

‘I know how to sew, knit, I’m a great chef, and a good dancer.’ – Anastasia Soare

‘Yeah, I worked with a chef when I first got into the league. We did all my blood work and found out exactly what I’m sensitive to, what I’m deficient in, what my body needs. I had to cut out a lot of things – chicken, tuna, wheat, and soy.’ – Christian McCaffrey

‘I love my food and wine; I have tried my hand at being a chef and failed miserably.’ – Shefali Zariwala

‘I’ve shared doTERRA products with my coaches, chef, and especially teammates.’ – Donovan Mitchell

‘Generally, I cook from the soul and measure by eye, throwing in this and that along the way. But I want to be a certified chef. That’s one of my goals.’ – Big Freedia

‘I have long held the ambition of my own TV chef programme.’ – Emma Weymouth

‘I worked as a scaffolder, worked as a chef, tried my hand working in a coffee shop, tried my hand as a joiner.’ – Gerry Cinnamon

‘The only restaurants in which you’re actually happy to be served your entree are the restaurants that serve entrees ungarlanded by Chef’s ambition – sushi joints and steakhouses.’ – Tom Junod

‘Weddings have become an expression not just of our desires but also our ambitions, and so more and more the food at weddings is like the food everywhere else, with the ingredients parsed for purity and the preparation praised for ingenuity and the sushi chef standing where the carving table used to be.’ – Tom Junod

‘I love food. I love to eat. I’m married to a chef. I can’t go without food.’ – Gail Kim

‘I hired a full-time chef, so I wasn’t taking that time to order pizzas or eat Wild Wings or stuff like that. I travel somewhere, I’m gone for a long period, I have a chef. I think that elevated my game.’ – D’Angelo Russell

‘When I was growing up, my grandmother cooked every day. She is the best chef ever.’ – Baron Davis

‘My grandfather used to be a chef and I remember going to his restaurant to peel potatoes and clean his floor. He used to go out and kiss all the girls in the restaurant and I thought ‘oh this is good… one day I want to be like him.” – Gino D’Acampo

‘I had wanted to be a dentist, but ended up being a chef. I think I’ve always had a fascination for jobs that have white jackets.’ – Gino D’Acampo

‘My grandfather was a chef and would make everything himself, including the wine, and had his own huge pizza oven. All the neighbors used to come over and use it to bake their bread.’ – Gino D’Acampo

‘If I’m trying to get you to travel by showing you the best places in the world to eat, I think enthusiasm goes a long way. Especially because I’m not a chef, I’m not an expert. I’m a tourist like you.’ – Philip Rosenthal

‘I truly think you can get a great meal in most cities around the world now. I credit the internet for making it possible for a kid in Iowa to see what a great chef in Paris is doing and emulate it.’ – Philip Rosenthal

‘I don’t have the talent, the temperament, or the patience to be a great chef. I’d much rather order from someone who can really do it. I love restaurants. They make my life better.’ – Philip Rosenthal

‘When I worked as a chef I had a happy brigade. I didn’t run it with a rod of iron because I didn’t need to me. I honestly believe that relaxed happy staff will be reflected in the food.’ – Ainsley Harriott

‘My Mum was the main reason why I became a chef. She influenced all of my family to feel free in the kitchen – it was the centre of our home and I have wonderful memories of helping Mum cook and experiencing the love and patience that went into the food.’ – Ainsley Harriott

‘There have been times when, as a chef, I’ve bawled at staff because something’s not quite right. But later I’d reflect and feel guilty.’ – Ainsley Harriott

‘I studied music at school and played the recorder. Later in life music was a great way of supplementing my income because I was paid really badly as a young chef. Luckily an old friend – we did music at school together – and I formed a duo, The Calypso Beat, which later became the Calypso Twins.’ – Ainsley Harriott

‘My mum wanted me to be a doctor because she worked in nursing. So she was quite disappointed when I came back from a holiday in France, and said I wanted to be a chef.’ – Ainsley Harriott

‘Performing has always been instinctive to me. I remember people saying, ‘he doesn’t know if he’s a chef or an entertainer.’ But what’s wrong with being both? It’s like saying you can’t run the 100 and the 200 metres.’ – Ainsley Harriott

‘We are foodies, we love to eat, my dad’s a chef, and coming from an Italian family, we love to eat.’ – Mandy Rose

‘Think of how much time it takes to prepare and eat a single meal. Then multiply that by seven. I wish I had my own chef!’ – Brian Shaw

‘One of the reasons I’m called ‘Demon Chef’ is because in Hong Kong, people were calling me God chef, and I right away took away that term because calling yourself God is blasphemous.’ – Alvin Leung

‘All the earrings are mostly crosses. It’s kind of a contradiction to wear it since I’m known as the Demon Chef. They’re all custom-made. Some are Tiffany’s. Some are Stephen Webster from England.’ – Alvin Leung

‘I went from two stars to one star to two stars to three. In the history of the ‘Michelin Guide,’ I don’t think there has been any chef to go up and down – and then up again.’ – Alvin Leung

‘The ‘Maverick Chef’ is one concept that I would really want to do again because I am traveling from country to country taking from what is in that country that is iconic, special, funky, weird and doing it my way. That is something I really enjoy.’ – Alvin Leung

‘You don’t call yourself the Demon Chef by being gentle. I am tough.’ – Alvin Leung

‘Anybody can cook for chefs. I cooked for a three Michelin star chef when I was cooking at home.’ – Alvin Leung

‘The Brits like to see their local chefs do well – when a foreign chef comes in – even Joel Robuchon – they are harshly critical.’ – Alvin Leung

‘While you can have the cult of the celebrity chef, the food still must taste good.’ – Alvin Leung

‘Historically, almost every cookbook and chef have taught that when you’re cooking a piece of meat, the first step should be searing.’ – J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

‘My aunt was a chef and she inspired me deeply so she was a huge motivator but more than anything it was a quest for independence and freedom that lead me to an L.A. Culinary School.’ – Marcela Valladolid

‘I definitely recommend a quality chef’s knife.’ – Marcela Valladolid

‘As a chef and avid traveler, meeting new people and sharing a meal with the intent to learn more about their culture is important to me.’ – Marcela Valladolid

‘My goal is to take the nutrition world globally. You’ve got chefs who do their chef thing, you’ve got fitness trainers who do the fitness stuff but I’m the only one who does both.’ – Joe Wicks

‘But understanding the complexities of the ramen menu is an equally tricky feat for a foreigner. Both regional and stylistic variations apply to each menu. Add to that the spin that each particular ramen chef puts on his dish, and you rarely know what you are going to get.’ – Rachel Khoo

‘Some days I’m Uncle Situation, other days I’m Dr. Situation, I’m Chef Situation.’ – Michael Sorrentino

‘My food hero would be someone like Elizabeth David, because I think what she did for Britain was amazing. Also David Thompson, an Australian chef who does Thai food and really understands the basis of it, has always been very inspiring.’ – John Torode

‘Yes, I am a judge on ‘MasterChef,’ where I taste thousands of dishes, and yes I am a trained chef which has had me commanding some of the biggest brigands a kitchen has ever seen. Yes, I have travelled the world and cooked on television and at food shows up and down the country, but in my heart I am a home cook.’ – John Torode

‘When I met Corky, he was a cook, a chef. He never started dancing seriously until he was 21, which shows you can make it from any age.’ – Shirley Ballas

‘When you give someone an award and you tell them that they are the best female chef in the world, you alienate them from their peers.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘Well, I don’t think I’m a chef. I’m just someone that… I found a way of speaking. It was not a pen. It was not a brush. It was food.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘So, when I was about eight, I told my mother that I wanted to be a chef – and a police man, too. I didn’t totally know that was it at the time, but I was very attracted to it from the beginning. I liked the idea of working with people in a kitchen, of dealing with ingredients, all of it.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘If you are a chef, you have an incredible responsibility in this world. Don’t just open a restaurant to serve food. Include the community, and make sure that you are not taking advantage of what the planet has given us.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘As a chef, I’ve always been very conscious and very thoughtful about the way that I buy food or have my farmers produce it.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘I came to the U.S. in the 1990s. I worked all around, including at Stars, and in 1996, I became the chef of Yoyo Bistro, which used to be Elka. During my one-year tenure there, I met a lot of French chefs at the time.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘You’re thinking about a dish, you’re thinking about an ingredient, and in many ways, you end up becoming a naked chef in front of the customer, because what you put on the plate is you. It’s who you are and where you’ve been.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘You look at most of these ‘best chef’ lists, and there are about nine male chefs and one woman chef. The problem is still around.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘Every dish is very connected to my own experiences. Perhaps I go deeper in the description and feeling in the dish than a male chef would. But it’s difficult to say.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘I’ve participated at summits where I was the only chef. I was surrounded with thinkers and writers and innovators.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘I’m Dominique Crenn. I’m a chef, entrepreneur, artist, poet, human being. I have three restaurants in San Francisco: Atelier Crenn, Bar Crenn and Petit Crenn.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘At a very young age, I fell in love with the idea of being in a restaurant and being surrounded with people around me. I don’t think at the time I thought about becoming a chef. I have a bachelor’s degree in economics. I never went to a cooking school.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘As a young girl, being a chef did not cross my mind – I wanted to conquer the world. I wanted to play with my brother and the boys. I wanted to be a famous photographer.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘Of all the restaurants I visited in my childhood and adolescence, it was Michel Bras that I remembered most vividly and it was the chef himself to whom, early on in my cooking, I would make the most references. I don’t mean that I tried to cook like him. Rather, that I tried to think like him.’ – Dominique Crenn

‘At some point of my life I’ve always fantasized that I’d be a boxing champion of the 160-pound division. Or a chef, I love cooking.’ – Pedro Capo

‘We have a personal chef who helps us stay on track, and we really like to keep things the same all year round. We don’t want to change anything up too much if it’s working. We eat clean and organic as much as we can, and try not to eat too much of anything.’ – Jermell Charlo

‘Dad hails from the royal family of Tripura, Kooch Bihar and Baroda and is a great chef. Be it Nepalese, Italian, Lebanese, Chinese, Mughlai, Punjabi or Thai cuisine, he knows the nuances of them all.’ – Riya Sen

‘There were reports that my elder daughter Ashwami was in ‘Dabangg 3,’ but she is a chef, and never wanted to be an actor.’ – Mahesh Manjrekar

‘The fact is I never intended to be a chef. After Oxford University I had this weird idea of running a nightclub.’ – Rick Stein

‘I’ve never worked in anyone else’s kitchen, but at college there was a guy called Tom Chivers who was a great chef and I learned a lot from him.’ – Rick Stein

‘I was brought up in a restaurant, I’ve worked in catering my whole life up until I was 20 full-time almost, I was a chef for my dad for many years.’ – Gok Wan

‘It’s not like I’m going to be the new tele chef or anything, I don’t want that at all.’ – Gok Wan

‘I would have these massive eating sessions with my chef friends where we’d go out for a whole day and eat all of the things, and it never occurred to me once that all of my friends are dudes who are six-foot-something or 150 kilos. I would just match them to the toe.’ – Melissa Leong

‘I’d really love to go and do a chef’s apprenticeship. I really would, I love cooking.’ – Darren Hayes

‘Normally, the path is you get mentored by a chef and they take you under their wing and then they help you open a restaurant. But that path doesnt exist for most people of color.’ – Sohla El-Waylly

‘A white chef can be an expert in French food and then turn around and go to Thailand for a week and come back and be an expert in Thai cuisine.’ – Sohla El-Waylly

‘My husband is a chef, and he often brings home a lot of useless kitchen tools.’ – Sohla El-Waylly

‘Ive been a pastry chef for a long time, so I dont always have the best gauge on how people bake at home.’ – Sohla El-Waylly

‘Especially as a chef, I didn’t really want to talk about it because I felt like it kind of undermined my entire career. How can a chef who writes recipes and books and cooks on TV, how can he realistically have bulimia?’ – John Whaite

‘I’m so excited about ‘Cooking With The Stars,’ what an amazing opportunity to actually learn how to cook properly. When I got asked to do it I just thought, ‘I can cook, I can do this,’ and then I got put with a professional chef and realised quickly that actually I’m not a cook.’ – A. J. Odudu

‘At first, I found the feedback quite harsh; having people judge you and say you’re horrible is difficult. I was being called the Simon Cowell of the cookery world and the female Gordon Ramsay. I mean, what? From all I knew, that was simply part of being a chef; it was the way we talked in the kitchen.’ – Monica Galetti

‘Growing up as a young chef, the cookbooks I had, and I remember, were the Roux brothers. The Roux brothers for me back then – and now! – you know, it’s like gods of cooking.’ – Monica Galetti

‘My grandfather was a chef at the Copacabana, and he ended up being a chef at the 21 Club – a master chef in both places. 21 was mainly like bankers, really, really, really upscale. Copacabana was basically entertainment: Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, The Four Seasons, Frank Sinatra.’ – Marky Ramone

‘My mom was a single mother, working three to four jobs. She would take a bunch of crazy, grimy jobs at first, then she got into the restaurant business. Then she started to manage restaurants. She was also a chef for a long time. She did a lot in the restaurant business.’ – Kelvin Gastelum

‘If you could look at a dish and say, ‘That’s something Antonia did,’ that means that I have a voice. When you see food and it’s recognizable to you as a style of a chef, that to me is a good chef.’ – Antonia Lofaso

‘The entire ‘Top Chef’ experience was a learning experience. I learned about myself as a competitor, a teammate, a friend, a chef, a mother.’ – Antonia Lofaso