There are very few chefs both in Britain and the States that really identify the secret of being consistent. And combine consistency with flavor.
I'm a better cook and more of a perfectionist than my mother.
If I had one piece of advice for people - if they are cooking from the Alinea cookbook, the Betty Crocker cookbook or the back of the box - read through the entire recipe first before reaching for any ingredients, and then read again and execute the directions.
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.
I can cook to please people, but it's quite conventional. I make a good sponge cake. I find it hard to follow recipes.
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.
I don't think the rating system places too much pressure on chefs. I prefer to put the pressure on my chefs to perform to the top standards.
It is a fundamental fact that no cook, however creative and capable, can produce a dish of a quality any higher than that of its raw ingredients.
The only thing that counts is if you know how to prepare your ingredients. Even if with the best and freshest ingredients in the world, if your dish is tasteless or burnt, it's ruined.
Stars was really good training. You know, we would come in at noon, and, you know, we would learn at that time what we were going to cook that evening. And, you know, there wasn't a set menu per se.
