Sherry Yard

“Efficiency is key to a successful kitchen. Clean your station as you go. Make yourself aerodynamic. Buy the best. Taste ingredients as you go.”

“Few people realize what a perfect ingredient brown butter can be for desserts. It adds a whole new flavor dimension.”

“I see City Perch as a destination restaurant.”

“While they're still warm, I like to sandwich a chocolate chip cookie with raspberry stracchiatella gelato.”

“In California, you're on a first-name basis with fruit. You take a beautiful Blenheim, you don't want to mess with it.”

“The composition of my desserts is taken care of by the farmers' market.”

“I'd rather bake 14 times a day than bake one time a day and have all the bakers go home, and then everything's 14 hours old by the time anyone eats it. No.”

“Promise less, deliver more.”

“Desserts are my life - making them, eating them, and teaching others how to prepare them perfectly.”

“At Spago, we make all of our pasta from scratch with egg yolks, so I'm always looking for new ways to play with egg whites.”

“I'm big on breakfast.”

“Once you have a chocolate-chip cookie with whole-wheat flour, you never go back.”

“I want to open a destination place where you go for the best chocolate chip cookie you've ever had in your life, the biggest champagne list ever, the best fruit tarts you've tasted.”

“Any opportunity I get to melt butter, I continue on to the 'noisette' stage.”

“I learned that things taste better on pretty plates.”