The proportion of ingredients is important, but the final result is also a matter of how you put them together. Equilibrium is key.
— Alain Ducasse
I do most of the cooking in my head.
I prefer to be able to identify what I'm eating. I have to know.
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.
Given the number of restaurants I have, I could easily travel all the time - but I try not to.
I have a passion for luggage - trunks and so on. I have a collection of them, but I can never resist buying another piece.
Our milk chocolate is very chocolaty. In fact, we don't call it milk chocolate - we call it milky chocolate.
If I'm a great artisan of the kitchen, it's because I don't buy my sauces.
In London, there is no need for 25 high-end gastronomic restaurants. That would be too much.
The restaurants express the spirit of the chef, the spirit of the city, the country.
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.
In France, Christmas is a family holiday. You stay home. New Year's Eve is when you go out.
My grandmother did all the cooking at Christmas. We ate fattened chicken. We would feed it even more so it would be big and fat.
Food is one part of the experience. And it has to be somewhere between 50 to 60 percent of the dining experience. But the rest counts as well: The mood, the atmosphere, the music, the feeling, the design, the harmony between what you have on the plate and what surrounds the plate.
Gastronomy is my hobby. I'm simply the casting director. Once I've brought all the right people together, it is they who must work together to tell a story.
It's not easy to have success with restaurants in different cities, but I like the challenge.
The real evolution is to learn something new every day - it's very important for chefs to share what they have discovered.
I didn't want to become a chocolatier among others, buying ready-to-use couverture. I wanted to take the same approach I follow in my cuisine: putting the product first, revealing the authentic taste of the products.
If my cuisine were to be defined by just one taste, it would be that of subtle, aromatic, extra-virgin olive oil.
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.
For me, the most luxurious place is somewhere that allows you to feel emotions and pleasures.
For me, going to markets is the best way to understand the soul of a place.
I live in Paris, yet Monaco, where I spend a lot of time, holds a very special place in my heart.
Everywhere in the world there are tensions - economic, political, religious. So we need chocolate.
The world forgets about people who are not useful.
Believe me, I did not come to London to cook farmed fish. All my fish are wild.
I concentrate in my work on preserving and displaying the original flavor from each ingredient in a dish.
I have a very nice garden and extraordinary markets, where there are products from the earth and the sea, in the French Basque country.
When I started cooking the meal at home, after I had started cooking in restaurants, I usually would prepare bay scallops or lobster.
If I had the choice to travel to two places in Europe, it would be Paris and London.
Failure is enriching. It's also important to accept that you'll make mistakes - it's how you build your expertise. The trick is to learn a positive lesson from all of life's negative moments.
The Mediterranean is in my DNA. I'm fine inland for about a week, but then I yearn for a limitless view of the sea, for the colours and smells of the Italian and French Riviera.
In each restaurant, I develop a different culinary sensibility. In Paris, I'm more classic, because that's what customers like. In Monaco, it's classic Mediterranean haute cuisine. In London, it's a contemporary French restaurant that I've developed with a U.K. influence and my French know-how.
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.
It is impossible to remain indifferent to Japanese culture. It is a different civilisation where all you have learnt must be forgotten. It is a great intellectual challenge and a gorgeous sensual experience.
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 am overfed, so when I am at home, I stop eating.
If I am going somewhere exotic, I take an empty suitcase with me to bring back the objects I fall in love with.
I don't like being disappointed by somebody I trust. Fortunately, it rarely happens.
I am a very eco-friendly chef but a guilty air traveller.
The relentless pursuit of being different is very French.
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.
I have an obsession for quality. I work for my guests, not to obtain Michelin stars.
I think the French and the Japanese are both obsessed by seasons, small producers, freshness.
What they've found so far in the Amazon is 5 percent of what there is yet to discover to eat in the Amazon because it's completely unknown. I've eaten things I've never eaten before over there.
The most classic French dessert around the holidays is the Christmas log, with butter cream. Two flavors. Chocolate and coconut. My first job in the kitchen when I was a boy was to make these Christmas logs.
It's striking and unique in London how you know to create this alchemy between the concept, the food, the music, the staff. From the beginning to the end, with all these different elements, it tells a full story that you know very well how to develop and cultivate.
I'm anti-globalisation. There is nothing more enriching than to go out into the world and meet people different to you. We must fight the spread of a singular way of thinking and preserve cultural differences.
The planet's resources are rare; we must consume more ethically and equitably.
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.
