Jean-Georges Vongerichten

“I think food is getting lighter and healthier because people eat out so often. It's about quality ingredients because that is the root of good food.”

“I cook every day for six hours. It's my therapy. My love.”

“For friends, I love to make bruschetta. I grill country bread with Frantoia olive oil and make toppings, like crab, roasted squash, mushrooms, whatever's seasonal.”

“I have 20 restaurants. And if one doesn't work, it doesn't work.”

“I'm cooking 42 years, and I didn't know bananas are good for my brain.”

“Food for me has to pop, and at Spice Market, the food really pops.”

“At home, I never plate. Things go in the middle of the table, and you serve yourself. In the restaurant, every day I plate things, but at home, I want to enjoy my company.”

“I arrived in New York in 1986, when I was 28. The market here was nothing. In the Union Square farmers' market, it was a couple of potatoes, everything from California. So the only place I was comfortable shopping was in Chinatown, because it all came from Hong Kong.”

“I grew up near Strasbourg in Alsace, where my family were coal merchants.”

“Our best hits are real-estate stories, going back to our first, JoJo in 1991.”

“This is what I grew up on in Alsace. It's choucroute. I'd wake up every morning with the smell of cabbage and potatoes and pork.”

“I landed in 1980 in Bangkok, and I stopped to eat ten times between the airport and the hotel. It was all lemongrass and ginger and chilies.”

“There is so much more vegetable use in Thailand, India and China than meat. Yes, when you go to the markets or buy street food, you see shrimp or chicken - but mostly vegetables.”

“For my 16th birthday, my family took me to L'Auberge de L'Ill, which was family-run but had three Michelin stars. It was a revelation. After that meal, I realised this is what I want to do.”

“In the morning, we sliced all the vegetables and layered everything up in a pot with a glass of Riesling. On the way to church, we dropped it off with the baker, who sealed the lid with a strip of dough and put it in his oven for a couple of hours. We picked it up at 12 o'clock and took it home to eat with mustard and salad.”

“The toughest decision is always whether to open a restaurant. Two or three bad months, and you could be out of business.”

“You don't do a business for pleasure: You have to make money.”

“I think, when I was younger, I was cooking to impress. Sometimes the dish would have 15 things on the plate. That's cooking only for yourself. As you get more mature, you take all the superfluous things away, and you get the essential flavor. Now I cook for people, not for myself.”

“I arrived in Bangkok in 1980: I was 23 years old, and it changed my life.”