One thing I always say is being a great chef today is not enough - you have to be a great businessman.
Wolfgang PuckRead
I always tell people that they are really the critics. If people come three times a week to your restaurant they are the ones who find something they really love.
Interpretation
The true measure of success in a restaurant is the loyalty of returning customers who appreciate what you offer.
In this quote, Wolfgang Puck emphasizes that loyal customers are the true critics of a restaurant. They return not just for the food, but for the experience and connection they feel, highlighting the importance of identifying and valuing the opinion of those who genuinely enjoy your work.
In practice
In a speech about customer service at a culinary convention.
One thing I always say is being a great chef today is not enough - you have to be a great businessman.
Restaurants are like having children: it's fun to make them, maybe, but then you have them for good and bad. You are going to have to raise them and if something goes wrong when they are 30 years old, they will still be your little boy.
I learn more from the one restaurant that didn't work than from all the ones that were successes.
A good chef has to be a manager, a businessman and a great cook. To marry all three together is sometimes difficult.
A lot of chefs are traditional and do it very well. But the ones who are the most successful are the ones who change things. That is why someone like Heston Blumenthal is a genius.
There is no value with just one restaurant or with one person. The brand has to be bigger than the person.
Barbecue is an incredibly democratic food. It's cheaper than McDonald's in many places and far more delicious. On the other hand, the only reason it can be that cheap is they use commodity hogs, the worst of the worst, which is - you know, it's an industry kind of ruining North Carolina.
The greatest lesson came with the realization that good food cannot be reduced to single ingredients. It requires a web of relationships to support it.
Get up early and go to the local produce markets. In Latin America and Asia, those are usually great places to find delicious food stalls serving cheap, authentic and fresh specialties.
...it was so rich and exotic I was seduced into taking one bite and then another as I tried to chase the flavors back to their source.
Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it, But we hae meat and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit.
Gourmandism is an act of judgment, by which we prefer things which have a pleasant taste to those which lack this quality.
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