One thing I always say is being a great chef today is not enough - you have to be a great businessman.
Wolfgang PuckRead
I always tell people that they are really the critics. If people come three times a week to your restaurant they are the ones who find something they really love.
Interpretation
The true measure of success in a restaurant is the loyalty of returning customers who appreciate what you offer.
In this quote, Wolfgang Puck emphasizes that loyal customers are the true critics of a restaurant. They return not just for the food, but for the experience and connection they feel, highlighting the importance of identifying and valuing the opinion of those who genuinely enjoy your work.
In practice
In a speech about customer service at a culinary convention.
One thing I always say is being a great chef today is not enough - you have to be a great businessman.
Restaurants are like having children: it's fun to make them, maybe, but then you have them for good and bad. You are going to have to raise them and if something goes wrong when they are 30 years old, they will still be your little boy.
I learn more from the one restaurant that didn't work than from all the ones that were successes.
A good chef has to be a manager, a businessman and a great cook. To marry all three together is sometimes difficult.
A lot of chefs are traditional and do it very well. But the ones who are the most successful are the ones who change things. That is why someone like Heston Blumenthal is a genius.
There is no value with just one restaurant or with one person. The brand has to be bigger than the person.
Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.
Don't dunk your nigiri in the soy sauce. Don't mix your wasabi in the soy sauce. If the rice is good, complement your sushi chef on the rice.
As a chef Iβm not your dietitian or your ethicist, Iβm in the pleasure business.
I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make.
Jellies are to cold cookery what consommes and stock are to hot. If anything, the former are perhaps more important: for a cold entree - however perfect it may be in itself - is nothing without its accompanying jelly.
My work has gotten more political over time, but once you start exploring food, you find you're up against economics and politics and psychology and anthropology, all of these different things you have to deal with.
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