Top 15 Quotes & Sayings by Rick Bayless

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American chef Rick Bayless.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
Rick Bayless

Rick Bayless is an American chef and restaurateur who specializes in traditional Mexican cuisine with modern interpretations. He is widely known for his PBS series Mexico: One Plate at a Time. Among his various accolades are a Michelin star, the title of Top Chef Masters, and seven James Beard Awards.

I'm meticulous about tasting everything at the restaurant, so I taste all the preparations before lunch and dinner. That means tasting around 50 dishes twice. There are times when I think I can't taste another thing.
A lot of people don't like to eat on camera, but I eat on camera all the time. I'm standing in for the viewer.
I love collecting market stuff in Mexico. I have an etagere built onto the wall of my living room, which has cubicles that are lit and filled with super inexpensive pottery. You see them in a new way; they become museum pieces.
I know Los Angeles has it better than Chicago when it comes to produce year round! — © Rick Bayless
I know Los Angeles has it better than Chicago when it comes to produce year round!
I cook all the time, and I cook all different kinds of things, but never Mexican at home. That's my work.
I usually get up around 6 A.M. It takes me a while to get going. In our household, I am the first one up. I usually make coffee for myself, draw a bath and have a big soak. I read in the bath.
One of my favorites is chilaquiles. It's corn tortilla chips in a simple, brothy tomato sauce with a little chile for heat. It's wonderfully homey. It has irresistible crispy bits and I love to eat it. And you can play around with it - add chicken, sliced red onions, or all these different things that can easily dress it up.
Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and I love that. It's cool to have different foods from all over the world within a stone's throw of my house.
I did a show a long, long time ago called 'Cooking Mexican'. It was a studio show as opposed to on-location like the one I do now. Before my first show, I was a cooking instructor, and I did a whole lot of classes for home cooks about Mexican food.
My earliest memory is making peach cobbler with my grandmother. A wonderful memory. I grew up in a restaurant family - B.B.Q. restaurant.
I love that we are bringing the flavors of Frontera to Los Angeles. I think we can only add to the booming food community in Los Angeles. Our food is gutsy and soulful.
Great food, like all art, enhances and reflects a community’s vitality, growth and solidarity. Yet history bears witness that great cuisines spring only from healthy local agriculture.
You always want to walk a tight-rope of flavor
In the Mexican repertoire there's a lot of super delicious things you can do with vegetables and beans and grains and all that sort of stuff. So I can do this thing.
The greatest contribution to the Mexican table imaginable
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