Top 77 Quotes & Sayings by Eric Ripert

I like working in silence.

When I see someone who has responsibilities, most of the time I can pinpoint that person because of the way he carries himself.

I don't think I have an obsession, however I do eat chocolate every day.

I'm a very bad baker.

Money is not necessarily, although it helps a lot for happiness, it's not necessarily the best way to be happy, to be rich, you know.

For me, I do not wish to build an empire.

Cooks build muscles; we can stand all day long on our feet and not feel the pain.

One thing I don't like is complaints.

Obviously California is fantastic in terms of produce, vegetables.

I find the organic wave much more interesting in America than in France.

Some chefs go crazy with one restaurant, and if I had 20, I would go nuts.

Everybody wants to support his own region and economy and farming. If we can preserve the land and if we can preserve the ocean, we all know, deep inside that we're doing the right thing.

The Cheesecake Factory's not that bad.

I'm very inspired by other cultures and very often use what I perceive to be exotic ingredients.

I come from a family of farmers on both sides of my family.

Factory farming's evil; you know that.

I see a lot of people who change careers in the middle of their life and they think it's a good idea to come in the kitchen.

There is great food in Vegas.

It has been stressful to be a French resident in America.

I like the dynamic of PBS. They're very honest and authentic.

I never pressure myself to do something I don't want to do.

Chefs are leaders in their own little world.

I am not a picture guy. I like to live in the present and keep the image of the past vivid in my mind. I don't need the precision of the picture.

If you can't think like an onion or a carrot or a tomato, you may be a technician, but you won't understand what you're doing, and your dish will be flat.

You don't become a chef to become famous.

California is lucky, the East Coast is lucky because we get great seafood and a lot of produce from Florida, locally in good weather, but in the winter we have to buy it.

America is a such a melting pot, I'm not sure if roast chicken is the classic comfort food for everybody.

I am totally anti-technology.

Having sharp, great knives will enable you to cook very precisely. Knife skills are essential in cooking.

I like very much Louis Vuitton. My wife loves it too.

It took me all my life to learn how to salt a tomato.

To me, it's very important to have time at the restaurant but also time with family and time for myself.

I'm fascinated by Japanese cuisine.

When you are 25, 30, you know, you have no responsibility, no mortgage, no kids, no retirement to think about, nothing.

When I am about to have a difficult project, I dream I am climbing a mountain. When everything is going fine, I dream I am going down the mountain.

A lot of people believe that when you are Buddhist, you are the Dalai Lama. I'm certainly not.

I am convinced that if you serve great value, people will come to you.

A lot of foreign people say, when asking about eating habits, 'What is your guilty pleasure?' I have no guilt. Whatever I do, I enjoy and it's the point. I think if you start to feel guilty about it, that's a problem. So, no guilty pleasures. I have pleasure and no guilt at all.

In a professional kitchen, the idea is to have your cooks not moving much while they're cooking. You want them to stay in the same spot.

I am a Buddhist, therefore I should not be collecting anything - however, I have a collection of Buddhas. I have a lot of them.

The nature of human beings is to eat meat and fruits and vegetables, and therefore we have to kill animals. I don't have a problem with that. But it's a sacred moment. It's a gift of life.

I don't like it when I go to a restaurant and I'm lectured from the menu.

As young cook, especially in France, they're very tough in the kitchen. The idea is to make you humble and learn fast.

I don't follow the food trends.

I just find the world very exciting and beautiful everywhere.

I barely speak English.

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.

Nobody wants an ugly book.

When I was twelve, I decided to become a chef. I stole a book from the library about the greatest restaurants in France. I'd flip the pages and dream. I should return that book to the library some day.

I had a passion for cooking, and I was a very bad student.

In a professional kitchen, the idea is to have your cooks not moving much while theyre cooking. You want them to stay in the same spot.

The importance of reading, for me, is that it allows you to dream. Reading not only educates, but is relaxing and allows you to feed your imagination - creating beautiful pictures from carefully chosen words.

Well, cooking starts with shopping. If the ingredients are not good, you don't do it. Just change your mind and do something else.

My New Year's resolution is to cut my diet sodas down to two cans a day!

I love garlic, and I use it often.

Cooking is a holistic process of planning, preparing, dining and sharing food. I place food at the center of our humanity, as it nourishes not only our physical bodies but also our emotional and spiritual lives. Food is truly a cultural phenomenon that informs our traditions and our relationship with the earth. I genuinely believe that food connects us all.

When you serve lobster, you've taken a being's life away. Therefore if you create a recipe, you have to be very dedicated to elevate the lobster, to make it good and tasty of course, but at the end of the day it's a matter of paying homage.

The importance of reading, for me, is that it allows you to dream.

For me, food is about memories, feelings, emotions, and so is Le Bernardin, and that's why it's not just a restaurant.

The fish is the star of the plate.