Quotes from Alain Ducasse

If I had the choice to travel to two places in Europe, it would be Paris and London.

I would never be able to lead the insane lifestyle I do, traveling all over the world, if I wasn't eating food that was simple and healthy.

I am a very eco-friendly chef but a guilty air traveller.

If you don't treat an ingredient and its flavors with respect - if you drown it in oil, for instance - you'll spoil it.

I think the French and the Japanese are both obsessed by seasons, small producers, freshness.

The most classic French dessert around the holidays is the Christmas log, with butter cream. Two flavors. Chocolate and coconut. My first job in the kitchen when I was a boy was to make these Christmas logs.

If I'm a great artisan of the kitchen, it's because I don't buy my sauces.

When I was younger, I behaved a bit strangely sometimes - lost my temper, did silly things - but little by little, I've gotten better. As a chef, I think you need to do a lot of work on yourself and your temperament.

I don't like being disappointed by somebody I trust. Fortunately, it rarely happens.

Our milk chocolate is very chocolaty. In fact, we don't call it milk chocolate - we call it milky chocolate.

The real evolution is to learn something new every day - it's very important for chefs to share what they have discovered.

For me, the most luxurious place is somewhere that allows you to feel emotions and pleasures.

I only get fat when I eat food cooked by other chefs. At home, my wife does all the cooking. She makes simple things like soups and salads. We both like steamed tofu.

I love any excuse to work with a mortar and pestle.

I live in Paris, yet Monaco, where I spend a lot of time, holds a very special place in my heart.

The restaurants express the spirit of the chef, the spirit of the city, the country.

I'm anti-globalisation. There is nothing more enriching than to go out into the world and meet people different to you. We must fight the spread of a singular way of thinking and preserve cultural differences.

It's striking and unique in London how you know to create this alchemy between the concept, the food, the music, the staff. From the beginning to the end, with all these different elements, it tells a full story that you know very well how to develop and cultivate.

What they've found so far in the Amazon is 5 percent of what there is yet to discover to eat in the Amazon because it's completely unknown. I've eaten things I've never eaten before over there.

Chefs don't become chefs just to earn stars - that's not the goal.

I have an obsession for quality. I work for my guests, not to obtain Michelin stars.

The world forgets about people who are not useful.

Techniques are not the most difficult to teach. The attitudes chefs take are much more important.

My son, Arzhel, is two, and he eats vegetables twice a day. We have a vegetable garden on our farm in the Southwest, and he gets two baskets, one over each arm, and says, 'Garden, Papa!' and then he eats what he picks.