When I was younger, I behaved a bit strangely sometimes - lost my temper, did silly things - but little by little, I've gotten better. As a chef, I think you need to do a lot of work on yourself and your temperament.
— Alain Ducasse
Everything that pushes up out of the earth I love. Everything under the earth, root vegetables, I love to cook.
The world of wine is more creative than the world of cooking.
I'm in love with the markets of the world. It's a photograph of a city, a culture.
With cooking, there's always the tangible and the intangible: that which is in the domain of sentiment, of the individual.
TV is a deformed vision, an excessive caricature. A chef has to stay an artisan, not become a star.
In Paris we have bistros, then we have fine dining. In London, you have a very contemporary scene with mixed influences.
I love any excuse to work with a mortar and pestle.
At my home in the southwest of France, I grow oak, hazel, and lemon trees in my backyard.
Chefs don't become chefs just to earn stars - that's not the goal.
I travel the world, and I can see in Toronto the cooking is very personal. These people cook with their hearts.
The Asian airlines have the best wine programs.
In France, I am the fifth artisan to produce his own chocolate, and the others have been doing it for a long time.
My son, Arzhel, is two, and he eats vegetables twice a day. We have a vegetable garden on our farm in the Southwest, and he gets two baskets, one over each arm, and says, 'Garden, Papa!' and then he eats what he picks.
Classical cooking and molecular gastronomy should remain separate. You can mix two styles and get fusion; any more, and you just get confusion.
London is the most important city in the world for restaurants.
I was brought up on a farm in Southwest France, eating farm-fresh produce three times a day. It was paradise on Earth, and it shaped my eating habits and my sense of taste.
When I'm in Paris, my favorite market is the Marche Raspail on the Left Bank.
You need a good gardener and a good fisherman. The cook is not required.
There are so many impassioned winemakers. I think there are more impassioned winemakers than chefs.
I love to pick tomatoes at the end of the day, when they're still warm from the sun.
You take the best ingredients - the best cocoa beans - and you process them in the best traditional way, and you have the best chocolate.
I don't like being a celebrity.
I have restaurants, bookshops... but it's not an empire, more... a puzzle. If it were an empire, all my restaurants would be the same.
If you don't treat an ingredient and its flavors with respect - if you drown it in oil, for instance - you'll spoil it.
I would never be able to lead the insane lifestyle I do, traveling all over the world, if I wasn't eating food that was simple and healthy.
My wife Gwenaelle prepares an 'energy shot' for me for breakfast. It's a mix of linseed, cereal, and raisins, with fresh fruit like kiwi. She also adds yogurt for added texture and some pollen and honey for an energy booster.
