Rene Redzepi Quotes

If you see how a plant grows and you taste it in situ you have a perfect example of how it should taste on the plate.

- Rene Redzepi

In my home I tend to eat a very simple version of what we cook at the restaurant, which is vegetable-oriented, with a little bit of fish and very little meat. For instance, a dish in my home could be steamed spinach with spruce, where I take a spruce branch and put it in the pot and that infuses into the spinach.

- Rene Redzepi

Learning about issues such as sustainability and locavorism are things that you need to have as part of you as a chef because it will make you cook more delicious food.

- Rene Redzepi

Close interaction with farmers and scientists can expose the chef to new flavours that can be used to delight diners.

- Rene Redzepi

All of the people who work in the kitchen with me go out into the forests and on to the beach. It's a part of their job. If you work with me you will often be starting your day in the forest or on the shore because I believe foraging will shape you as a chef.

- Rene Redzepi

When people are grownups they're grown ups. They make their own decisions you know.

- Rene Redzepi

Fifteen years ago, France was the promised land of cooking. So I looked at a map, found five restaurants and faxed them to ask for a job. Within five minutes, I got a reply from the then three- star Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier.

- Rene Redzepi

When you start at catering college, nobody prepares you for a book tour or public speaking.

- Rene Redzepi

A gastronomical supermeal didn't necessarily have to involve the things I had brought from other top kitchens.

- Rene Redzepi

I can tell you one of the most surprising ingredients I've ever found. Perhaps five years ago on a beach I saw this herb that looked exactly like chives. I put it in my mouth and started chewing and, surprise, it tasted exactly like coriander.

- Rene Redzepi

There's no media training. In cooking school, there's not even manager training. You learn the fundamentals of cooking. Everything else is learning by doing.

- Rene Redzepi

I can't crack jokes because I don't have any.

- Rene Redzepi

I know every movement of my kitchen.

- Rene Redzepi

If you see someone in the kitchen that has good hands and a quick brain, then you need that person to be in the front of everything.

- Rene Redzepi

When I turned 15, I left school having failed to make the minimum grade. With little direction I enlisted at the local culinary school. Here the academic demands were less rigorous.

- Rene Redzepi

When you get close to the raw materials and taste them at the moment they let go of the soil, you learn to respect them.

- Rene Redzepi

There is no conflict between a better meal and a better world.

- Rene Redzepi

I started my cooking 'career' aged 15, almost 20 years ago. At the time it was quite a shock suddenly working 75 to 80 hours a week, without time to play football or other sports.

- Rene Redzepi

I had turned down other head chef jobs. I didn't want to take over someone else's cuisine. I wanted to start from scratch.

- Rene Redzepi

Scandinavian-Danish cuisine was something quite rustic, mostly known for pastries and smorgasbord cuisine, which in itself has become a joke.

- Rene Redzepi

Take a trip to the forest and experience the greatness of getting on your knees and picking your own food and going home... and eating it.

- Rene Redzepi

Chefs have a new opportunity - and perhaps even an obligation - to inform the public about what is good to eat, and why.

- Rene Redzepi

Appetite as it relates to the human being, the person. How do you find appetite for what you do? How do you relate to appetite? How do you get appetite, not only for a meal but also to do the work you do?

- Rene Redzepi

I would love to eat a really great burger, but it doesn't exist in our part of the world.

- Rene Redzepi

I think that in our part of the world, Scandinavia, we are one of the pioneers of showing that gastronomy can be something - high gastronomy can be something very, very present and doesn't have to involve, you know, what is perceived as the normal luxury items that belong in a high gastronomy restaurant.

- Rene Redzepi

I never cooked at home - my father was the chef.

- Rene Redzepi

Fine dining is an occasional treat for most people.

- Rene Redzepi

My last meal on Earth, I would love it to be a bowl of blueberries with cold cream.

- Rene Redzepi

I only have the restaurant. If I do other things, it's only to do with the restaurant.

- Rene Redzepi

The restaurant industry is brutal.

- Rene Redzepi

I still cook at home. A lot of chefs I think don't cook at home. But I still do, I love cooking at home, I love having friends.

- Rene Redzepi

People will travel anywhere for good food - it's crazy.

- Rene Redzepi