Quotes from David Chang

Momofuku is not me. It's everyone. I'm just the facade. We have to exceed expectations and be our harshest critics.

If I have a really bad cook or a bad manager or bad sous-chef, I previously would have fired them or lost my temper. But now I realize that if I'm so right, then I should be able to communicate it so clearly that they get it.

The Momofuku Culinary Lab started as a space where we could focus on creating and innovating. I didn't want us to worry about working on projects in a restaurant; there are just too many distractions in service and running a kitchen to be able to focus on creating your dishes.

I really don't care for the proper chef coat.

New York gives us a wide colour palette to cook from. We have cuisines from around the world, and that lets us pick and choose.

I look forward to the spring vegetables because the season is so short. Mushrooms, edible foraged herbs, wild leeks, early season asparagus.

I'm a big sports fan.

I constantly think I'm a fraud, that this success is not warranted or justified.

My dad was in the restaurant business, but I didn't really think about following him. Had I done better at school, I don't know if I would have been a chef.

There are many things to admire about Japan but this is the one thing I love the most and probably the only time I eat breakfast. Fish, eggs, soup, salad, veggies; all in the tiniest bites. It's a full meal, but it's so refreshing.

I'm not cooking every day anymore, and that's the biggest withdrawal. Cooking is honest work. Now I don't know how to measure myself.

Chef Thomas Keller was an inspiration to me and many, many young cooks like me. He told us that the role of the new, modern chef is different.

When I first started to cook, I would cook these elaborate meals, but I rarely cook at home now.

I doubt I'd ever do television to the extent that, say, Gordon Ramsay has.

To eat well, I always disagree with critics who say that all restaurants should be fine dining. You can get a Michelin star if you serve the best hamburger in the world.

Shouldn't a three-course meal be 90 minutes? Do you know how hard you have to edit your menu to pull that off? Twenty-seven minutes. That's the average meal at Jiro's in Tokyo.

There's the common misconception that restaurants make a lot of money. It's not true. If you look at maybe the top chef in the world, or at least monetarily, it's like Wolfgang Puck, but he makes as much money as an average crappy investment banker.

I'm not trying to bring New York to Toronto. I want to understand Toronto better.

If people ask me, 'What do you think could improve in Toronto dining,' I'd say there's nothing to improve on.

Just because something's been good in the past doesn't mean it will continue to be good.

Be careful what you wish for - getting to be a successful business and maintaining it is so hard. Anyone can be good one night; being good over several years is incredibly difficult.

I find that there are a lot of similarities between French and Japanese food. I think they're two countries that have really systemized their cuisine and codified it.

Open your refrigerator, your freezer, your kitchen cupboards, and look at the labels on your food. You'll find 'natural flavor' or 'artificial flavor' in just about every list of ingredients. The similarities between these two broad categories are far more significant than the differences.

As a child, I didn't see my dad that much because he was always working at the restaurant. He became pretty jaded after working at the restaurant for so long.