Thomas Keller Quotes

It wasn’t about mechanics; it was about a feeling, wanting to give someone something, which in turn was really gratifying. That really resonated for me.

I guess the main source of stress for me is the stress I put on myself.

You have to be driven. You have to be focused. You have to be aware.

We rely on our purveyors to tell us what’s available and what’s good.

This is the great challenge: to maintain passion for the everyday routine and the endlessly repeated act, to derive deep gratification from the mundane.

Now the restaurants have begun to catch up with the wine-making; there are numerous great restaurants in Napa Valley, and it’s wonderful because the people are there for just that: great food and great wine.

Let’s face it: if you and I have the same capabilities, the same energy, the same staff, if the only thing that’s different between you and me is the products we can get, and I can get a better product than you, I’m going to be a better chef.

I wanted to learn everything I could about what it takes to be a great chef. It was a turning point for me.

My childhood wasn’t full of wonderful culinary memories.

When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about.

No, it’s funny, when I eat out it’s not typically in the kind of restaurants people might imagine.

Hopefully, imparting what’s important to me, respect for the food and that information about the purveyors, people will realize that for a restaurant to be good, so many pieces have to come together.

Then, as the day progresses, depending on how the product is coming in – for instance, the fish man will fax us and say black bass is great – throughout the day, we’ll also make judgment calls and adapt to what’s available.

The book is there for inspiration and as a foundation, the fundamentals on which to build.

They know what my standards are. They know what I need and how to get it to me, and they know how to communicate with me if for some reason they can’t get it.

I like to drink young wines, wines which are robust and have a lot of forward fruit to them.

Success is measured by the memories you create.

In any restaurant of this caliber, the chefs are in the same position, building relationships.

I hope the cooks who are working for me now are getting that kind of experience so they can use what they’re learning now as a foundation for a great career.

A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe.

We go through our careers and things happen to us. Those experiences made me what I am.

When I go out to eat, it’s usually something moderate in style.

It’s one thing you aspire to: someday, you’ll be able to write a book.

For me, thats one of the important things about cooking. What was good enough yesterday may not be good enough today.

I think that’s the important thing – being aware of that inspiration and being able to interpret it into something that’s meaningful for you.

You’re getting to know who the great chefs are through their books.

Respect for food is respect for life, for who we are and what we do.

I have no formal culinary training, right.

A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn’t be a blueprint. It should be more inspirational; it should be a guide.

I think that you’ve got to make something that pleases you and hope that other people feel the same way.

Cooking is not about convenience and it’s not about shortcuts. Our hunger for the twenty-minute gourmet meal, for one-pot ease and prewashed, precut ingredients has severed our lifeline to the satisfactions of cooking. Take your time. Take a long time. Move slowly and deliberately and with great attention.

Whether it’s destiny or fate or whatever, I don’t think I could do a French Laundry anywhere else.

Its not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it’s about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then u’ll be a great cook.

Your idea of that dish has evolved, and if you’re a cook, you can start thinking in different ways about it, maybe even a different way than I think about it.

And don’t forget music – music in the kitchen is an essential ingredient!

Food is such an important part of our lives, and sometimes we tend to diminish the importance of that, because we rely on conveniences or because our lives are so complicated. We forget about those moments that we can actually share around the table with our family, with our friends, with our loved ones.

A kaiseki meal is like that, very small courses over a long period of time.

You don’t know when inspiration is going to come. But you have to be aware of what’s going on around you, so that at any moment, when inspiration happens, you’re ready for it and you interpret it.

I drank more wine when I wasn’t working as much, to be honest.

Food should be fun.

My favorite wines are Zinfandels.

It’s not about perfection; it’s about the joy of striving.

I wanted to write about what we were doing at the French Laundry, the recipes and the stories.

Good food is a good trend.

The law of diminishing returns is something I really believe in.

Once you understand the foundations of cooking – whatever kind you like, whether it’s French or Italian or Japanese – you really don’t need a cookbook anymore.

I think every young cook wants to write a book.

Some of the recipes in the book have evolved for us. Many haven’t.

Repetition is the mother of perfection. If there is true perfection, it’s about doing something over and over again. I truly think that if somebody does a recipe they’ve never done before and gets it right, they’re probably more lucky than they are talented.

Any job worth doing is worth doing well. But to be able to do that, you have to do it over and over again.