DANIEL BOULUD

I did all of California from north to south. I did Florida from north to south. I went to the Midwest. I spent time discovering the culture because I thought I was going to stay in America for only two years. Then I decided to come to New York.

I love to drive, especially on tracks, where I go a lot faster.

I think at Le Cirque I learned how to make real food, which is what people crave, not just gimmicky things on a plate.

The biggest thing is education for young chefs and how they should focus on one cuisine rather than trying to imitate too many. It's like art - you can see the cycles from many past artists and new artists being inspired by past artists.

If you're in a major city, there's a 25-year cycle. In Vegas, it's probably 10 or 15 years, except for those landmark places like Spago or Nobu. In Vegas, you have to reinvent yourself once in a while.

I love Italian food; it's soulful like French food. Italian food is original and homey; it's market-driven, but also can be locally sourced.

If you're on a budget, Sweetgreen is a new chain of salad bars that are very good but inexpensive. You choose from a menu or customise your own, with some protein, a healthy salad and a great dressing.

I think D.C. has always been very, very vibrant for food. Like Boston in a way. Boston and D.C. were really the two cities that were the most active with their local chefs and their local food scene.

When France was the only reference for chefs to learn, you could go everywhere in the world, and they would copy dishes directly because they didn't have much expanded imagination or technique or knowledge.

25 years ago, when I started in New York, I had the pleasure to cook for Andy Warhol. At the time, I could have traded art for food - I should have done so, because I could get his work for nothing!

Boning is a pain, but it makes such a majestic chicken.

After six years at Le Cirque, I decided to start my own business. I opened Daniel at 76th Street in May '93.

I love to create, and to me, the ultimate freedom of expression is a blank canvas or a block of clay to capture whatever emotions your imagination gives it.

As a child growing up, it's going to be what you're going to remember most. What you liked or not liked then is going to define who you are at the table!

If you aren't born here, to be a real New Yorker, you have to bring your talent, be a successful mentor, and support the New Yorkers who made the city by giving back.

It's not good to thicken sauce with too much butter because it can cause heaviness. You don't want to avoid butter, but you also don't want to put too much - add it slowly.

Every time - well, not every time, but in celebration of a great review or a great accolade, I take the team of Daniel to Katz's Deli for lunch. We take the trip on the subway, we were like 40 or 50 people, and we go in the back room and have a pastrami sandwich.

When we manage a restaurant, we start making money from the first day. When we own a place, it's often five years before we earn the first penny that is clean of debt.

I always had a lot of fun in America, with much more freedom than if I had tried to cook in France. I wouldn't have the same motivation or inspiration, and I wouldn't have cooked for the same kind of people in France, so it wouldn't have given me this edge I had in America.

I love to make a one-pot meal - think stir-fry but in the French Fricassee. I start with what takes the longest to roast and then add vegetables, fresh herbs, and starch until the meal is complete in one shot.

I was 25 years old when I arrived in D.C. It was just myself and two people who worked and helped me in the kitchen. I was only cooking for three people most of the time.

In the springtime, we have softshell crab from Maryland, which I'd never had until I came to America. In the summer and early fall, we have striped bass, 'stripeys,' which come all the way up the Hudson River but mostly gather in the sound at the tip of Long Island, off Montauk.

I think fine dining should be part of the community where it is, more than just for the people who are going to make a special occasion.

A lot of young chefs today get carried away by trends, by influences, by movements.

In the Bronx, you have the southern Italians; in Queens, the Greeks, Koreans and Chinese; in Brooklyn, the Jewish community; and in Harlem, the Hispanics - all with their own markets.