Daniel Boulud Quotes
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When France was the only reference for chefs to learn, you could go everywhere in the world, and they would copy dishes directly because they didn't have much expanded imagination or technique or knowledge.
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In the springtime, we have softshell crab from Maryland, which I'd never had until I came to America. In the summer and early fall, we have striped bass, 'stripeys,' which come all the way up the Hudson River but mostly gather in the sound at the tip of Long Island, off Montauk.
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The biggest thing is education for young chefs and how they should focus on one cuisine rather than trying to imitate too many. It's like art - you can see the cycles from many past artists and new artists being inspired by past artists.
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After six years at Le Cirque, I decided to start my own business. I opened Daniel at 76th Street in May '93.
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I have no pretension that I belong in D.C. I mean, I have to be cautious on how we do our restaurant.
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As a child growing up, it's going to be what you're going to remember most. What you liked or not liked then is going to define who you are at the table!
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I always had a lot of fun in America, with much more freedom than if I had tried to cook in France. I wouldn't have the same motivation or inspiration, and I wouldn't have cooked for the same kind of people in France, so it wouldn't have given me this edge I had in America.
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I think Spain will always remain inspirational, and I think French cuisine will continue to be very French and yet very relevant with its time and keep evolving. But the last thing you want for it is to become too trendy and confusing. It has too much history.
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New York has an amazing history of farming and fishing that goes right back to the Pilgrim Fathers. At its core are the four seasons, which are distinct, well-established and similar to those in Lyon, where my family lives: when it's snowing in New York, a week later it will be snowing there.
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I've always loved it in Las Vegas, and it is the only city in the world that brings so many different talented people from so many places.
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I love to drive, especially on tracks, where I go a lot faster.
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Sauce is certainly ancestral to French cooking. The technique is very tricky, but it's also very fundamental.
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I never go to Vancouver without stopping by Thomas Haas' shop for the best chocolate in North America. A former chef patissier at Daniel, he returned to his hometown and created a top quality brand by sticking to his passion.
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In Singapore, there is this life and locals and restaurants and then big casinos and an array of chefs, and even Miami is almost close to Vegas when it comes to an amazing presentation of chefs. But they don't have these massive hotels that have become their own culinary villages.
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There was no Internet, not even many cookbooks except the old reference books. So we would sit down at night, a group of six chefs, and we'd exchange recipes and each talk about how we were doing things. It was the only way to learn new ideas.
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A lot of chefs don't have a natural sense of economy. I was with one guy the other day, and I had to show him how to peel a turnip, because the way he was peeling turnips, he was throwing half of it in the garbage. It's not about being cheap. It's about being proper.
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I love Italian food; it's soulful like French food. Italian food is original and homey; it's market-driven, but also can be locally sourced.
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For me, good service is efficient and discreet; it's that critical balance. As soon as the client sits down, the communication flow has to start. Customers need to feel that the waiters are supervised - that there's a system in place.
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For me to go casual is not to go simple. To me, it is to be able to bring back the art of tradition and the soul of French food and my interpretation of that.
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Something I learned when I was very young: with cooking, it doesn't matter where you are; you can always cook. You can end up in small village in Peru where somebody's cooking, take a spoon and taste it, and you might not be too sure what you're eating, but you can taste the soul in the food. That's what is beautiful with food.
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I usually try to eat in my restaurants before I fly, as I'd rather sleep on the plane and just order a salad with cheese, maybe some ice cream.
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I think there are a lot of chefs in D.C. who have made D.C. what it is today. I am very respectful to them. I'm very admiring of what they've done.
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It's not good to thicken sauce with too much butter because it can cause heaviness. You don't want to avoid butter, but you also don't want to put too much - add it slowly.
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In the Bronx, you have the southern Italians; in Queens, the Greeks, Koreans and Chinese; in Brooklyn, the Jewish community; and in Harlem, the Hispanics - all with their own markets.