Quotes from Rene Redzepi

I only have the restaurant. If I do other things, it's only to do with the restaurant.

The restaurant industry is brutal.

I started my cooking 'career' aged 15, almost 20 years ago. At the time it was quite a shock suddenly working 75 to 80 hours a week, without time to play football or other sports.

Cooking, I mean, food, cooking foods is just everything that I do from morning to night. It's how I choose to live my life: through cooking, people that are in food culture. And I love it.

Take a trip to the forest and experience the greatness of getting on your knees and picking your own food and going home... and eating it.

There is no conflict between a better meal and a better world.

Learning about issues such as sustainability and locavorism are things that you need to have as part of you as a chef because it will make you cook more delicious food.

I started my cooking 'career' aged 15, almost 20 years ago. At the time it was quite a shock suddenly working 75 to 80 hours a week, without time to play football or other sports.

People will travel anywhere for good food - it's crazy.

I've never had anything but the freedom to do what I wanted just as long as it made me happy.

There's no media training. In cooking school, there's not even manager training. You learn the fundamentals of cooking. Everything else is learning by doing.

When you get close to the raw materials and taste them at the moment they let go of the soil, you learn to respect them.

Take a trip to the forest and experience the greatness of getting on your knees and picking your own food and going home... and eating it.

I still cook at home. A lot of chefs I think don't cook at home. But I still do, I love cooking at home, I love having friends.

I think that in our part of the world, Scandinavia, we are one of the pioneers of showing that gastronomy can be something - high gastronomy can be something very, very present and doesn't have to involve, you know, what is perceived as the normal luxury items that belong in a high gastronomy restaurant.

When you get close to the raw materials and taste them at the moment they let go of the soil, you learn to respect them.

If you see how a plant grows and you taste it in situ you have a perfect example of how it should taste on the plate.

Chefs have a new opportunity - and perhaps even an obligation - to inform the public about what is good to eat, and why.

There's no media training. In cooking school, there's not even manager training. You learn the fundamentals of cooking. Everything else is learning by doing.

If you see someone in the kitchen that has good hands and a quick brain, then you need that person to be in the front of everything.

My last meal on Earth, I would love it to be a bowl of blueberries with cold cream.

Appetite as it relates to the human being, the person. How do you find appetite for what you do? How do you relate to appetite? How do you get appetite, not only for a meal but also to do the work you do?

The first book was out and for the first time we were on a book tour. Being the son of an immigrant, I'd never dreamt of being on book tours. Suddenly the attention was huge.

Fifteen years ago, France was the promised land of cooking. So I looked at a map, found five restaurants and faxed them to ask for a job. Within five minutes, I got a reply from the then three- star Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier.