"To start giving three stars straight away from year one makes you question Michelin and its value – they dish out stars like confetti now."

“As far as I'm concerned, if someone is paying a huge amount of money to come to your restaurant and eat your food, then you have a duty to be in the kitchen.”

“Most cooks when they are young tend to overwork their food to hide their lack of confidence and appreciation for Mother Nature. In time they learn that she is the true artist—we're just the the cooks.”

“Apply the cook's brain and visualize that fried egg on the plate. Do you want it to be burned around the edges? Do you want to see craters on the egg white? Should the yolk look as if you’d need a hammer to break into it? The answer to all three questions should be no. Yet the majority of people still crack an egg and drop it into searingly hot oil or fat and continue to cook it on high heat. You need to insert earplugs to reduce the horrific volume of the sizzle. And the result, once served up in a pool of oil, is an inedible destruction of that great ingredient—the egg. Maybe that’s how you like it, in which case carry on serving your disgusting food.”

“Most chefs, unfortunately, cook by numbers. It doesn't come from within. Molecular cuisine is basically branding food. There's nothing new to it. Its foundation is still classical.”

“Cooking should be a way of life—an extension of oneself—never a job.”

“It is only by growing to know yourself that you do things for the right reasons and maybe have a chance to be really happy and realise your true potential as a person.”