David Chang

“I'm grasping with how you do something on a large scale with multiple operations and not have quality decrease.”

“To me, there are two types of celebrity: there's good celebrity - people that are attracted to the food and working and trying to create something great - and then there's bad celebrity - those who are working on being a celebrity.”

“Any processed chicken from any place - I'll order it in a heartbeat. I'm very picky about my pork, though.”

“There's the common misconception that restaurants make a lot of money. It's not true. If you look at maybe the top chef in the world, or at least monetarily, it's like Wolfgang Puck, but he makes as much money as an average crappy investment banker.”

“I'm not trying to bring New York to Toronto. I want to understand Toronto better.”

“I constantly think I'm a fraud - that this success is not warranted or justified.”

“I feel like I'm losing my ability to understand reality; like when someone loses their hearing, they can still speak English, but their speech eventually becomes distorted because they can't hear themselves.”

“Open your refrigerator, your freezer, your kitchen cupboards, and look at the labels on your food. You'll find 'natural flavor' or 'artificial flavor' in just about every list of ingredients. The similarities between these two broad categories are far more significant than the differences.”

“I don't like eating in restaurants.”

“I appreciate people who are happy.”

“The Momofuku Culinary Lab started as a space where we could focus on creating and innovating. I didn't want us to worry about working on projects in a restaurant; there are just too many distractions in service and running a kitchen to be able to focus on creating your dishes.”

“Food, to me, is always about cooking and eating with those you love and care for.”

“Cooking and gardening involve so many disciplines: math, chemistry, reading, history.”

“I'm always criticizing and only see the mistakes.”

“I lived across the street from Noodle Bar. I could barely stand it, because you're there all the time; you can't get away.”

“If people think you are this amazing, own it.”

“I wanted to disprove the notion that you couldn't open a great restaurant in a casino.”

“I like eggs. My favorite way of cooking eggs is old school French.”

“Life's too short to just breeze on by.”

“I really don't care for the proper chef coat.”