A biography for Eric Riperthasn’t been written yet.
“If you can't think like an onion or a carrot or a tomato, you may be a technician, but you won't understand what you're doing, and your dish will be flat.”
“When you are 25, 30, you know, you have no responsibility, no mortgage, no kids, no retirement to think about, nothing.”
“In a professional kitchen, the idea is to have your cooks not moving much while they're cooking. You want them to stay in the same spot.”
“I am not a picture guy. I like to live in the present and keep the image of the past vivid in my mind. I don't need the precision of the picture.”
“I come from a family of farmers on both sides of my family.”
“I'm fascinated by Japanese cuisine.”
“To me, it's very important to have time at the restaurant but also time with family and time for myself.”
“As young cook, especially in France, they're very tough in the kitchen. The idea is to make you humble and learn fast.”
“The importance of reading, for me, is that it allows you to dream.Reading not only educates, but is relaxing and allows you to feed your imagination - creating beautiful pictures from carefully chosen words.”
“For me, I do not wish to build an empire.”
“I like working in silence.”
“I never pressure myself to do something I don't want to do.”
“Obviously California is fantastic in terms of produce, vegetables.”
“It has been stressful to be a French resident in America.”
“Chefs are leaders in their own little world.”
“One thing I don't like is complaints.”
“Some chefs go crazy with one restaurant, and if I had 20, I would go nuts.”
“America is a such a melting pot, I'm not sure if roast chicken is the classic comfort food for everybody.”
“It's a very naive idea to think that the chef is cooking everything, and, on top of it, is irreplaceable. That would mean that basically he is the only genius, and there are idiots all around him, which doesn't make sense.”
“It took me all my life to learn how to salt a tomato.”