Daniel Boulud Quotes
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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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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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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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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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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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I try to pack light with a folding leather suit bag. Anything more than five days, I need to check in my luggage. What takes the most space? Chef jackets, aprons and tools.
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Balthazar has a great New York vibe with the accent of a Parisian brasserie. I usually have the corned beef hash with a fried egg on top and wash it all down with Krug Champagne.
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I've discovered the burger is a crazy thing in Vegas, but I was one of the early chefs to do a lot of burgers.
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I try to come to Asia twice a year. I also go to Europe - to London as well as to France to see my family - four or five times a year.
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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.
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In any sauce you make, start with a concentration of flavors with great acidity. You then re-dilute the sauce, but the proportion of liquid you add should not be so high that you wash away the extracted flavor you're aiming to create.
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The hardest thing for a chef is to become comfortable with what you do. Not to be too neurotic and worried with what you are doing and how wrong or right you are.
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I have real admiration for chefs who can maintain an edge and find new inspiration in their cooking after many years.
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I had a lot of fun creating some restaurants with a casual note to it, such as DBGB, for example, where it was about bangers and beers, being a very casual brasserie with very affordable food but very interesting homemade program.
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I think D.C. has always been very, very vibrant for food. Like Boston in a way. Boston and D.C. were really the two cities that were the most active with their local chefs and their local food scene.
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For me, the food I like to make is the food I can enjoy all the time anytime. It's not too calculated or technical.