Quote

Cookbooks have all become baroque and very predictable. I'm looking for something different. A lot of chefs' cookbooks are food as it's done in the restaurants, but they are dumbed down, and I hate it when they dumb them down.

Mario Batali

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mario Batali
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: September 19
Chef
Cook
Media Personality
Restaurateur
Writer
Seattle
Washington
Mario Francesco Batali
Hate
Cookbook
Become
Chefs
Done
Predictable
Different
Chef
Something
Restaurants
Dumb
Food
Looking
Baroque

More quotes by Mario Batali

Image
I really want to be a rock star.
Mario Batali
Image
The tradition of Italian cooking is that of the matriarch. This is the cooking of grandma. She didn't waste time thinking too much about the celery. She got the best celery she could and then she dealt with it.
Mario Batali
Image
What I like to do when I go out is enjoy my friends and the food around it. If we have to stop and give five minutes to the chef, then I'm down with that. But if the chef has to interrupt every course to tell us how important this new revolution that's happening is, then I'm not so much interested in that.
Mario Batali
Image
Bologna is the best city in Italy for food and has the least number of tourists. With its medieval beauty, it has it all.
Mario Batali
Image
Food, like most things, is best when left to its own simple beauty.
Mario Batali
Image
The very common error of young or unconfident cooks is to keep putting more of their own personal ideology into a plate until there's so much noise that you really can't even hear a tune. You can say more in an empty space than you can in a crowded one.
Mario Batali
Image
The objective.. is to achieve a comfort level between the cook/artist/performer and the customer/viewer/diner. And if we can achieve that, and the customers are happy and the cooks are happy, then we have a great experience.
Mario Batali
Image
My family makes these vinegars - out of everything from grapes to peaches and cherries. We go through the whole process with the giant vat and drainer, label them, and give them as Christmas presents.
Mario Batali
Image
Food is everyday-it has to be, or we would not survive for long. But food is never just something to eat. It is something to find or hunt or cultivate first of all.
Mario Batali
Image
When I was in college, I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans.
Mario Batali
Image
Find something you love, because if you love what you do, you'll never spend a day at work.
Mario Batali
Image
When you add just a little bit [of Tabasco] at the end, what you taste is the spectrum between the cooked chile flavor and the kind of nearly raw, just kind of fermented chile flavor at the end.
Mario Batali
Image
If you want your kids to listen to you, don't yell at them. Whisper. Make them lean in. My kids taught me that. And I do it with adults now.
Mario Batali
Image
One of the most important leadership lessons is realizing you're not the most important or the most intelligent person in the room at all times.
Mario Batali
Image
I might use milk if I was using a touch of milk to make like a lasagna or a baked pasta. But cream? That is totally not the way they do it in Italy, and it's not a very good thing. It's kind of a blanket for flavor.
Mario Batali
Image
I like cast iron coated with enamel for longevity and forgiveness if I happen to take my eyes off the prize while pouring Chianti.
Mario Batali
Image
Michigan is my antidote to Manhattan. This is where I come to relax.
Mario Batali
Image
There are pockets of great food in Spain, but there are also pockets of very mediocre food in Spain, and the same in Morocco and the same in Croatia and the same in Germany and the same in Austria.
Mario Batali
Image
The difference between 'Molto Italiano' and 'The Babbo Cookbook' is that the ingredient lists in 'Molto' are about half or even a third the size. In 'Babbo,' they are very long, they are very real. That's exactly how we make them in the restaurant.
Mario Batali
Image
Any simple but delicious dish that celebrates the season and locality is what I want to be known for.
Mario Batali