Obviously, I love Japanese food. My favorite TV show of all time, without exception, is 'Iron Chef.' Not the stupid American version; 'Iron Chef' Japanese; the real one, the one that was on in Japan... my DVR for years was set to record almost every single 'Iron Chef' episode.
Movies like 'Chef' are not really box-office monsters in the summertime and don't really fit into Hollywood's business model any longer. Even if 'Chef' is successful, it will be successful in the context of what it is. There's a limited upside to a film that's so small, but there's also limited exposure for the people who backed me.
The Sookie Stackhouse novels were selling well before the TV show, but the TV show led to a lot more exposure and readers. And a lot went on to read my other work. It was a wonderful thing for my bank account.
Given that level of responsibility with your 25-year old or 35-year-old chef, it's just quite nice to see how they handled that exposure. Not every chef deals with it properly; they get slightly excited, a little bit overconfident and then they miss out on the most important part.
Chef means boss and in France you get an office chef and you get a chef on a building site, etc. So I'm a chef de cuisine, chef of the kitchen, and that means that I'm in charge of a team.
House of Style' changed my life. I literally had no experience in front of a TV camera before, and there I was taking over for Rebecca Romijn. My exposure heightened instantly.
'House of Style' changed my life. I literally had no experience in front of a TV camera before, and there I was taking over for Rebecca Romijn. My exposure heightened instantly.
I enjoy what I do because it keeps evolving - when I was a cook, I wanted to be a chef de partie; when I was a chef de partie, I wanted to be a chef; when I was a chef, I wanted to be a restaurateur, and now I am a chef entrepreneur. I am still fulfilling my dream.
A chef is a chef, a cook is a cook; a lorry driver is a lorry driver and a designer is a designer. I've never heard anyone say that Philippe Starck is a chef. The important thing is dialogue. If I said to Norman Foster that he was a chef he'd say "No", but he might have a dialogue with chefs. People have said to me for many years that I'm not a chef and that I'm an artist instead, but I always say, "No, I'm a chef." I just have dialogues with designers.
I don't think it's a good advert for any restaurant, a fat chef, and secondly, who wants to eat a dessert when the chef's a fat pig.
Reality TV now doesn't feel reality TV when it started. The line between reality and fiction is blurred. So many of these people are phony or shallow, in their own right. If you've ever watched any of The Real Housewives, or those types of shows, they're all performing. Even though they're real people, they're performing.
There are divisions between a culinary chef and a dessert chef, also called a pastry chef. There are specializations within the pastry chef field. Some pastry chefs specialize in baking breads, while others are master cake designers. Each field requires an exceptional level of creativity and attention to detail.
The essence of Reality TV is all about drama. So, I think bringing pressure is healthy whether it's a professional chef or a domestic chef. Because the only way ever to really identify the true purpose of how good they are is submerging them under pressure. So I say it's no different than a live football game because it's about the intensity.
The people I want are very famous and very rich, and all I can offer them is a bit of exposure on TV and a bit of cash, so it's a miracle we get any guests at all. But we have been very lucky.
I'm not a TV guy. I'm a restaurant chef and a businessman.
Peace before everything, God before anything,
Love before anything, real before everything,
Home before any place, shoot before anything,
Style and state radiate, Love Power slay the hate.