David Chang
I love the intensity of the fine-dining kitchen, but loathe the fine-dining experience.
Shouldn't a three-course meal be 90 minutes? Do you know how hard you have to edit your menu to pull that off? Twenty-seven minutes. That's the average meal at Jiro's in Tokyo.
I want to make simple food new.
If people think you are this amazing, own it.
I like eggs. My favorite way of cooking eggs is old school French.
The process and organization leading up to cooking the egg can tell you a lot about the cook.
I appreciate people who are happy.
I find that there are a lot of similarities between French and Japanese food. I think they're two countries that have really systemized their cuisine and codified it.
When I was in Japan, everyone wanted to work for Pierre Gagnaire, and they wouldn't miss a beat.
The livelihood of the restaurant is dependent upon getting the word out.
I lived across the street from Noodle Bar. I could barely stand it, because you're there all the time; you can't get away.
I wanted to disprove the notion that you couldn't open a great restaurant in a casino.
Yes, natural is good and healthy, and whole foods are important. However, experimentation is important, too.
The Momofuku Culinary Lab started as a space where we could focus on creating and innovating. I didn't want us to worry about working on projects in a restaurant; there are just too many distractions in service and running a kitchen to be able to focus on creating your dishes.
When I first started to cook, I would cook these elaborate meals, but I rarely cook at home now.
New York gives us a wide colour palette to cook from. We have cuisines from around the world, and that lets us pick and choose.
Momofuku is not me. It's everyone. I'm just the facade. We have to exceed expectations and be our harshest critics.
For everyday diners in Manhattan, cracking the waiting list at Nobu is said to be harder than getting courtside tickets for the Knicks.
Waiting tables has never paid my bills, a fact which I prefer to hide from my colleagues with deep sighs about the price of just about everything.
Open your refrigerator, your freezer, your kitchen cupboards, and look at the labels on your food. You'll find 'natural flavor' or 'artificial flavor' in just about every list of ingredients. The similarities between these two broad categories are far more significant than the differences.
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.
To eat well, I always disagree with critics who say that all restaurants should be fine dining. You can get a Michelin star if you serve the best hamburger in the world.
Say a child raises this beautiful beet. It's going to give her a sense of ownership, and that changes everything. You stop taking things for granted; you become less wasteful.
I'm a big sports fan.
Running a business anywhere isn't easy.
I'm not trying to bring New York to Toronto. I want to understand Toronto better.
In New York, we're always confined with spaces. Our restaurants are difficult to navigate as cooks and to operate. We fight against the buildings we run in New York.
People don't think that bread is part of Asian culture or Asian food culture, but it's quite prevalent in Northern China, and you see it throughout Japan and as you go to Taiwan.
We're hoping to succeed; we're okay with failure. We just don't want to land in between.Collection: Land
Lifes too short to just breeze on by.Collection: Life Too Short
Rage or fear... It oscillates. Rage I need to motivate me to try things that I can't ordinarily do - as I'm a lazy man. Fear - to keep pushing harder so we don't lose what we've accomplished.Collection: Men
I constantly think I'm a fraud, that this success is not warranted or justified.Collection: Thinking
Fine dining teaches you how to cook many different things, and it gives you the basic fundamentals, but these specialty restaurants, theyre not teaching you the broad foundation you need to become a well-rounded cook.Collection: Teaching
The livelihood of the restaurant is dependent upon getting the word out. There's so much more competition. You can do an event every week and not cook at all.Collection: Competition
You can't go into the chef's office of any serious kitchen and not see a copy of Larousse. A must-have for professional and home cooks alike.Collection: Home