If I had one piece of advice for people - if they are cooking from the Alinea cookbook, the Betty Crocker cookbook or the back of the box - read through the entire recipe first before reaching for any ingredients, and then read again and execute the directions.
— Grant Achatz
My life has been such a blur since I was 18, 19 years old. I haven't even had time to contemplate my own life. By forcing yourself to write your life story you learn a great deal about yourself.
Food can be expressive and therefore food can be art.
Whenever people are faced with any sort of adversity... they tend to gravitate toward things that make them comfortable, and things that they feel are important.
Anything that could ever prevent me from achieving a goal, I put in a box, tape it up, throw it over my shoulder. You aim for a goal and attain it. Then you look to the next one.
Growing up as a young kid, I was in a restaurant. So, you know, I always had a very good understanding of the nuances. And in a way, that was a bad thing. Because it kind of programmed me to believe that if you're going have a restaurant, this is what you need to do, and this is the way it's going to be run.
The popularity of the Internet and using it as an available resource has really changed the way chefs kind of gather information and look for inspiration. To me, a food trend is potentially a lot of people following an idea.
To me, every kitchen appliance is useful and nothing's overrated. When I look at my little espresso machine, I don't see coffee. I see a steaming valve as an opportunity to make amazing creme brulee.
Part of becoming a little bit older and having the opportunities that I have, you want to start giving back to people who have been influential and helped you along the way.
I lived my whole life in the kitchen. Not only that, but it's the passion, it's the love for cooking and food. It's dictated my entire life - every aspect of it.
Most smoked salts are made with liquid smoke, which is a condensate, but really, really good smoked salt is literally smoked.
I had D minuses in chemistry and all of the sciences, and now I'm known as a molecular gastronomist.
A cookbook is not like being an author. It's writing down recipes; it's not writing.
Food is a necessary component to life. People can live without Renoir, Mozart, Gaudi, Beckett, but they cannot live without food.
I don't care if you're doing haute cuisine or burgers and pizza, just do it right.
My personality was always such that I always look straight forward, never behind or to the side.
I wish that food trucks could exist here in Chicago like they do in Brooklyn and in New York, where you're actually cooking off the truck.
There are about 700 flavors that you can smell, but only five you can taste. A lot of times what you're perceiving as flavor has nothing to do with palette, but it's more to do with scents.
I always knew I wanted to be a chef.
It's not really the life of cooking that's hard - it's what you make of it and what level you push yourself to.
In a lot of ways, a lot of smells that aren't necessarily edible smell good, and they remind you of certain aspects of food. So making those associations with what smells good or smells a certain way and pairing that with actual edible ingredients is one avenue that we take creatively.
I was a completely below-average high school student. I never went to college.
We all eat two to six times a day. Why? Because we are supposed to, we are programmed to, we want to.
Whatever it is you're doing, whether it's your career or a particular focus, if you're trying to be the best you can possibly be, then you'll be putting that pressure on yourself.
I hate stuff in my pockets, can't stand it. I'll carry stuff in my hands rather than put it in my pockets.
Ultimately, the perfect meal is when those things come together - circumstance, the food, ambiance, and you're with the person that you want to be with.
Here's the irony in what I do: When I go out to eat, I like classic French food. I like amazing Japanese food that has such a history that it goes back hundreds of years. And I also like really innovative food as well.
The most luxurious thing to me is having an hour of my day, which rarely happens, to listen to my iPod and sit on my couch. That's how I unwind.
My home kitchen is airy, with a gas stove, a stainless-steel island table in the center and granite countertops. It's very modest but there's tons of counter space, so you can slap down three or four cutting boards.
Alinea is not the type of restaurant where you go if you're in a hurry. Really, it's about enjoying that three-hour block of time and reflecting on the food, having great conversation with your dining companion.
What makes the food that we do at Alinea so interesting on the outside is that we really don't let ourselves say no to an idea.
