Like the theater, offering food and hospitality to people is a matter of showmanship, and no matter how simple the performance, unless you do it well, with love and originality, you have a flop on your hands.
I'm actually very ordinary, except people get to pay their money to come watch me work. The same way that we go to McDonald's.. we don't care about the guy behind the counter, but if he was doing something special, we'd pay our money to go watch him cook that hamburger.
Today's restaurant is theater on a grand scale.
There is something timeless and beautiful about cooking straight to camera.
Why can't we have a concert with food? Your typical cooking demonstration, there's just no enthusiasm. There's no energy behind it. I said, 'What if we take a cooking demonstration and fortify it with a lot of good music? ... Drive it to the next level?'
Everything can have drama if it's done right. Even a pancake.
Today there are very few chefs at that high level who are behind their stoves. You don't feel their presence within the room. Where's the romance? Where's the show? Where's the theater? The modern day restaurant - it's like dining in a chapel. It's boring.
It was a choice of making it or still eating chicken onstage.
Possibly I want to bring my acting into the cooking, blending the two together. What I love is cooking for other people and seeing them enjoy what I have created for them. And same thing goes for acting. I have even tried to make some Chinese dishes before. It's very difficult. That's probably why eating at authentic Chinese restaurants is part of my journey here.
I was drawn to bakery and pastry. It's the same discipline you employ in dance - you take the instruction, and you keep on practicing, seeking perfection. You never achieve it, but you strive.
I think that there is a role for food to be art; and when food is art, it can have drama, it can have spectacle, it can be theatrical. It can be this amazing experience.
There is a baked item in the show, I'm there.
Theater in which you eat is the oldest form of theater.
