Alain Ducasse

“When I'm in Paris, my favorite market is the Marche Raspail on the Left Bank.”

“When I arrived, I didn't understand London customers perfectly, but we've developed the right style with the right price, and step by step, I'm in harmony with London.”

“Believe me, I did not come to London to cook farmed fish. All my fish are wild.”

“Everywhere in the world there are tensions - economic, political, religious. So we need chocolate.”

“To make my meal, I go to the market and to the garden, and then I decide what I'm going to do. That's a great pleasure.”

“I'm surprised by the talent I find all over. There are always new chefs who propose many interesting new ideas, new ways of looking at ingredients.”

“I only get fat when I eat food cooked by other chefs. At home, my wife does all the cooking. She makes simple things like soups and salads. We both like steamed tofu.”

“In London, there is no need for 25 high-end gastronomic restaurants. That would be too much.”

“Classical cooking and molecular gastronomy should remain separate. You can mix two styles and get fusion; any more, and you just get confusion.”

“I was brought up on a farm in Southwest France, eating farm-fresh produce three times a day. It was paradise on Earth, and it shaped my eating habits and my sense of taste.”

“When you grow up close to poultry and fields and gardens and open-air markets, you can't help but develop an instinct for quality food.”

“I'm in love with the markets of the world. It's a photograph of a city, a culture.”

“At my home in the southwest of France, I grow oak, hazel, and lemon trees in my backyard.”

“I have a passion for luggage - trunks and so on. I have a collection of them, but I can never resist buying another piece.”

“If I had the choice to travel to two places in Europe, it would be Paris and London.”

“The restaurants express the spirit of the chef, the spirit of the city, the country.”

“If you don't treat an ingredient and its flavors with respect - if you drown it in oil, for instance - you'll spoil it.”

“I don't do the same food in Tokyo that I do in Vegas and vice versa. If I did that, two weeks later I would have no customers.”

“I don't think the rating system places too much pressure on chefs. I prefer to put the pressure on my chefs to perform to the top standards.”

“For me, the most luxurious place is somewhere that allows you to feel emotions and pleasures.”