Explore Quotes by Daniel Boulud

I think at Le Cirque I learned how to make real food, which is what people crave, not just gimmicky things on a plate.

I like to go hear jazz late-night up in Harlem.

If you're on a budget, Sweetgreen is a new chain of salad bars that are very good but inexpensive. You choose from a menu or customise your own, with some protein, a healthy salad and a great dressing.

I love Italian food; it's soulful like French food. Italian food is original and homey; it's market-driven, but also can be locally sourced.

I never go to Vancouver without stopping by Thomas Haas' shop for the best chocolate in North America. A former chef patissier at Daniel, he returned to his hometown and created a top quality brand by sticking to his passion.

A lot of chefs don't have a natural sense of economy. I was with one guy the other day, and I had to show him how to peel a turnip, because the way he was peeling turnips, he was throwing half of it in the garbage. It's not about being cheap. It's about being proper.

As a child growing up, it's going to be what you're going to remember most. What you liked or not liked then is going to define who you are at the table!

For me to go casual is not to go simple. To me, it is to be able to bring back the art of tradition and the soul of French food and my interpretation of that.

Every time - well, not every time, but in celebration of a great review or a great accolade, I take the team of Daniel to Katz's Deli for lunch. We take the trip on the subway, we were like 40 or 50 people, and we go in the back room and have a pastrami sandwich.

I always had a lot of fun in America, with much more freedom than if I had tried to cook in France. I wouldn't have the same motivation or inspiration, and I wouldn't have cooked for the same kind of people in France, so it wouldn't have given me this edge I had in America.

In the springtime, we have softshell crab from Maryland, which I'd never had until I came to America. In the summer and early fall, we have striped bass, 'stripeys,' which come all the way up the Hudson River but mostly gather in the sound at the tip of Long Island, off Montauk.

I actually don't think there is any difference between French and American cuisine. French cuisine was always about discipline, about ingredient, about creativity, but also about simple. I see America as very similar in these rights.

I am very proud of Jim Leiken. He has worked with me for six years and has been patient enough to learn the ropes. He's now matured into a true chef and is working on building his team.

From Japan to Thailand, I keep discovering amazing talent, cuisine and food markets.

Something I learned when I was very young: with cooking, it doesn't matter where you are; you can always cook. You can end up in small village in Peru where somebody's cooking, take a spoon and taste it, and you might not be too sure what you're eating, but you can taste the soul in the food. That's what is beautiful with food.

The problem is that there is many great chefs and many great cookbooks, but none of them work at home.

I've always loved it in Las Vegas, and it is the only city in the world that brings so many different talented people from so many places.

I was 25 years old when I arrived in D.C. It was just myself and two people who worked and helped me in the kitchen. I was only cooking for three people most of the time.

I think D.C. has always been very, very vibrant for food. Like Boston in a way. Boston and D.C. were really the two cities that were the most active with their local chefs and their local food scene.

I am very concerned about nutrition and always try to be careful about what I eat.

Le Cirque at first was one of those general French restaurants in town, which were cooking more or less the same food. At Le Cirque, I wanted to do something different while respecting the foundation of the restaurant. I did that through the menu.