Grant Achatz Quotes

My life has been such a blur since I was 18, 19 years old. I haven't even had time to contemplate my own life. By forcing yourself to write your life story you learn a great deal about yourself.

- Grant Achatz

I always knew I wanted to be a chef.

- Grant Achatz

I don't care if you're doing haute cuisine or burgers and pizza, just do it right.

- Grant Achatz

My home kitchen is airy, with a gas stove, a stainless-steel island table in the center and granite countertops. It's very modest but there's tons of counter space, so you can slap down three or four cutting boards.

- Grant Achatz

Anything that could ever prevent me from achieving a goal, I put in a box, tape it up, throw it over my shoulder. You aim for a goal and attain it. Then you look to the next one.

- Grant Achatz

Alinea is not the type of restaurant where you go if you're in a hurry. Really, it's about enjoying that three-hour block of time and reflecting on the food, having great conversation with your dining companion.

- Grant Achatz

Ultimately, the perfect meal is when those things come together - circumstance, the food, ambiance, and you're with the person that you want to be with.

- Grant Achatz

To me, every kitchen appliance is useful and nothing's overrated. When I look at my little espresso machine, I don't see coffee. I see a steaming valve as an opportunity to make amazing creme brulee.

- Grant Achatz

Food is a necessary component to life. People can live without Renoir, Mozart, Gaudi, Beckett, but they cannot live without food.

- Grant Achatz

I wish that food trucks could exist here in Chicago like they do in Brooklyn and in New York, where you're actually cooking off the truck.

- Grant Achatz

Growing up as a young kid, I was in a restaurant. So, you know, I always had a very good understanding of the nuances. And in a way, that was a bad thing. Because it kind of programmed me to believe that if you're going have a restaurant, this is what you need to do, and this is the way it's going to be run.

- Grant Achatz

We all eat two to six times a day. Why? Because we are supposed to, we are programmed to, we want to.

- Grant Achatz

Whatever it is you're doing, whether it's your career or a particular focus, if you're trying to be the best you can possibly be, then you'll be putting that pressure on yourself.

- Grant Achatz

Whenever people are faced with any sort of adversity... they tend to gravitate toward things that make them comfortable, and things that they feel are important.

- Grant Achatz

The most luxurious thing to me is having an hour of my day, which rarely happens, to listen to my iPod and sit on my couch. That's how I unwind.

- Grant Achatz

I lived my whole life in the kitchen. Not only that, but it's the passion, it's the love for cooking and food. It's dictated my entire life - every aspect of it.

- Grant Achatz

The popularity of the Internet and using it as an available resource has really changed the way chefs kind of gather information and look for inspiration. To me, a food trend is potentially a lot of people following an idea.

- Grant Achatz

Here's the irony in what I do: When I go out to eat, I like classic French food. I like amazing Japanese food that has such a history that it goes back hundreds of years. And I also like really innovative food as well.

- Grant Achatz

It's not really the life of cooking that's hard - it's what you make of it and what level you push yourself to.

- Grant Achatz

If I had one piece of advice for people - if they are cooking from the Alinea cookbook, the Betty Crocker cookbook or the back of the box - read through the entire recipe first before reaching for any ingredients, and then read again and execute the directions.

- Grant Achatz

In a lot of ways, a lot of smells that aren't necessarily edible smell good, and they remind you of certain aspects of food. So making those associations with what smells good or smells a certain way and pairing that with actual edible ingredients is one avenue that we take creatively.

- Grant Achatz

There are about 700 flavors that you can smell, but only five you can taste. A lot of times what you're perceiving as flavor has nothing to do with palette, but it's more to do with scents.

- Grant Achatz

I had D minuses in chemistry and all of the sciences, and now I'm known as a molecular gastronomist.

- Grant Achatz

Part of becoming a little bit older and having the opportunities that I have, you want to start giving back to people who have been influential and helped you along the way.

- Grant Achatz

Food can be expressive and therefore food can be art.

- Grant Achatz

Most smoked salts are made with liquid smoke, which is a condensate, but really, really good smoked salt is literally smoked.

- Grant Achatz

I hate stuff in my pockets, can't stand it. I'll carry stuff in my hands rather than put it in my pockets.

- Grant Achatz

A cookbook is not like being an author. It's writing down recipes; it's not writing.

- Grant Achatz

My personality was always such that I always look straight forward, never behind or to the side.

- Grant Achatz

I was a completely below-average high school student. I never went to college.

- Grant Achatz