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You have to know the classics if you want to cook modern food.

Tom Colicchio

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Tom Colicchio
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: August 15
Chef
Restaurateur
Elizabeth
New Jersey
Cook
Cooks
Food
Modern
Classics

More quotes by Tom Colicchio

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One of the first jobs I ever had was opening clams in a seafood restaurant, so I'm pretty quick at it.
Tom Colicchio
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A steak needs fat to taste great.
Tom Colicchio
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'Chef' doesn't mean that you're the best cook, it simply means 'boss.'
Tom Colicchio
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Mushrooms can be very fancy. It's the closest you can get to eating dirt.
Tom Colicchio
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Asian food is very easy to like because it hits your mouth very differently than European food does. In European food, there may be two things to hit - maybe sweet and salty, maybe salty-savory, … but Asian kind of works around, plus you have that distinct flavor that’s usually working in Asian food.
Tom Colicchio
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Recipes tell you nothing. Learning techniques is the key.
Tom Colicchio
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I have very good knife skills. I learned to butcher on my second job - I was 18 years old. Every other day we would break down six legs of veal.
Tom Colicchio
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I get angry when I think that people are blatantly incorrect on matters of fact.
Tom Colicchio
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I can't deliver lines, but I can talk about food all night long.
Tom Colicchio
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I know how to make sausage, and now that I've seen how laws are made, I'll stick with sausage.
Tom Colicchio
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When I was 26, 27 years old I was running a kitchen in New York, and I was a raving lunatic. The older you get, you figure out you don't need to do that. You realize at a certain point, there's a certain gravity to what you say and what you do. If that's not enough, all the yelling in the world is not going to matter.
Tom Colicchio
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Every chef should have an understanding of pastries or desserts.
Tom Colicchio
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With conglomerates selling companies to liquidators, who close down plants and move to non-union areas, it's about time progressive union leaders step in to stop such job-losing tactics... ESOP should become a part of future bargaining packages!
Tom Colicchio
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Im not a fan of grilling meat, since that tends to dry it out, and I find grill marks leave a bitter taste. A good steak house will offer different options for preparation, and I would ask them to broil or pan-roast the steak and finish it with butter. It ends up a dark chocolate color and stays very juicy.
Tom Colicchio
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In New York, I'll walk down the street and someone will say, 'Nice show,' and that's it. If I'm at a food festival, it's open season.
Tom Colicchio
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Men with shaved heads are always better. Just ask my wife.
Tom Colicchio
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A couple of months ago, I was down in Florida for the Food and Wine Festival. And this journalist grabbed me and said, 'How does it feel to be a TV guy? You're no longer in the restaurant business.' And I laughed. I asked him, 'How long do you think it takes me to do a season?' He said, 'Well, 200 days.' And I was like, '200 days? Try 20!'
Tom Colicchio
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Hunger is a political issue, and there are several things politically that are keeping people hungry - not funding food stamps adequately, not funding school lunches adequately. So there is a political solution to the problem of hunger.
Tom Colicchio
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I'd like to see 'Top Chef: Amateur'. Sometimes we have an amateur chef on the show and they just can't cut it against the pros but there are some great stories there.
Tom Colicchio
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I think the patterns are set very early when the kids are young. But at the same time, there are some flavors kids just don't like.
Tom Colicchio