I think fine dining is dying out everywhere... but I think there will be - and there has to always be - room for at least a small number of really fine, old-school fine-dining restaurants.
I love the intensity of the fine-dining kitchen, but loathe the fine-dining experience.
When I'm dining out privately, I tend to avoid fine-dining venues; I like things to feel casual.
. . . gastronomical perfection can be reached in these combinations: one person dining alone, usually upon a couch or a hill side; two people, of no matter what sex or age, dining in a good restaurant; six people . . . dining in a good home.
A long, hot bath is a real treat. But from a 'green' point of view, that's probably what it should be: an occasional treat.
I think there's something to be said for going to certain fine dining restaurants and knowing that after a certain time, it would be inappropriate to take young children. And, unrealistic for them and unfair to the child and to the others that are dining.
'Fine casual' means taking the cultural priorities that fine dining, at its best, believes in.
My wife doesn't cook, so we eat out every night. It's not fine dining or anything - we're not fancy people.
I think fine dining should be part of the community where it is, more than just for the people who are going to make a special occasion.
Every time I baked cookies for people as a kid, it made me so happy. But when I was in culinary school and working in fine-dining restaurants, that was not a thing.
By itself, tofu is like wet foam rubber, but you'd no more eat it by itself and expect fine dining than you would stare at a blank canvas and expect to see fine art.
I think that more and more and more really talented restauranteurs and chefs from the fine dining world are going to try their hand at fine casual. They're going to say, 'Why not us?'
When I go to a fine dining restaurant, I'm excited and I do expect to find proposals to wake my senses.
Even in fine-dining restaurants, you have people that say 'I want to be out in half hour', 'I want to be out in 45 minutes.' It happens.
I want to make sure the fine-dining restaurant has a clientele who is local as much as tourists and foodies.
In Paris we have bistros, then we have fine dining. In London, you have a very contemporary scene with mixed influences.