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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I actually don't think there is any difference between French and American cuisine. French cuisine was always about discipline, about ingredient, about creativity, but also about simple. I see America as very similar in these rights.
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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 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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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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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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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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Sauce is certainly ancestral to French cooking. The technique is very tricky, but it's also very fundamental.
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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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I love to drive, especially on tracks, where I go a lot faster.
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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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The problem is that there is many great chefs and many great cookbooks, but none of them work at home.
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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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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.
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25 years ago, when I started in New York, I had the pleasure to cook for Andy Warhol. At the time, I could have traded art for food - I should have done so, because I could get his work for nothing!