For me, the good food starts with good product.
I think, as a chef and restaurateur, that you have to take care of your business. Otherwise, you're only as good as your last meal. You have to watch if your food costs are too high, or you could be out of business in no time.
I grew up in Alsace - in Strasbourg, by the canal; the family business was coal handling. It was still in the days when three generations would live under the same roof. There were 15 people for lunch, 20 for dinner.
My presence in California will bring a new, inspiring culinary environment to life, and I'm delighted to share my creative techniques and evolving fresh ideas with the Beverly Hills community.
You've got to be in your kitchens, or it all falls apart.
You don't do a business for pleasure: You have to make money.
There is so much more vegetable use in Thailand, India and China than meat. Yes, when you go to the markets or buy street food, you see shrimp or chicken - but mostly vegetables.
This is what I grew up on in Alsace. It's choucroute. I'd wake up every morning with the smell of cabbage and potatoes and pork.
My two essential ingredients are chilies, any kind, dried or fresh; and acid, whether it's citrus - lemon, lime, yuzu - or vinegars. Food has to pop.
Cooking at home is easier than cooking in the restaurant because you don't have to write a menu or try to please everybody.
When you do a menu at a restaurant, you have to be the engineer of that menu. It has to be a crowd-pleaser.
My father was in the coal and heating business, and he wanted me to take over his business, and I resented every moment of it. So I would never force my kids to do what I do.
In the morning, we sliced all the vegetables and layered everything up in a pot with a glass of Riesling. On the way to church, we dropped it off with the baker, who sealed the lid with a strip of dough and put it in his oven for a couple of hours. We picked it up at 12 o'clock and took it home to eat with mustard and salad.
My grandmother taught me how to make the basic pate brise pastry crust when I was young. The one thing I learned simply by eating her endless variations on delicious tarts for dinner every night is that this dough can be used for just about anything - sweet or savory.
I landed in 1980 in Bangkok, and I stopped to eat ten times between the airport and the hotel. It was all lemongrass and ginger and chilies.
I arrived in New York in 1986, when I was 28. The market here was nothing. In the Union Square farmers' market, it was a couple of potatoes, everything from California. So the only place I was comfortable shopping was in Chinatown, because it all came from Hong Kong.
I think, when I was younger, I was cooking to impress. Sometimes the dish would have 15 things on the plate. That's cooking only for yourself. As you get more mature, you take all the superfluous things away, and you get the essential flavor. Now I cook for people, not for myself.
If we put a vinaigrette together, every part of it is weighed. For the burger, we do a bit of arugula, olive oil - everything is weighed. To the gram.
My mother worked in a chocolate factory, so when I came home from school, I had a piece of baguette with dark chocolate in it. I remember her smelling like chocolate.
For my 16th birthday, my family took me to L'Auberge de L'Ill, which was family-run but had three Michelin stars. It was a revelation. After that meal, I realised this is what I want to do.
