Eric Ripert Biography | Inspiration Quotations | Motivation Quotes

Eric Ripert Biography and Quotations:

Eric Ripert is recognized as the one of the best chefs in the world. He is also an author and television personality specializing in modern French cuisine and noted for his work with seafood. Eric Ripert was born on 2 March 1965 in Antibes, France. When he was 11 years old his father expired. Later his mother remarried and his stepfather (Hugo) did not treat him well. Eric Ripert family moved to Andorra when he was young. At a young age Ripert learned to cook from his grandmother. He later returned to France and attended culinary school in Perpignan.

Culinary Career:

In 1982, when Eric Ripert was 17 years, he moved to Paris, where he worked for two years at La Tour d'Argent, a famous restaurant more than 400 years old. Ripert next worked at Jamin under Joel Robuchon, a French chef and was soon forwarded to Assistant Chef de Partie.

Ripert went to the United States and was recruited as a sous chef in the Watergate Hotel's Jean Louis Palladin restaurant in 1989. In 1991, he went to New York working briefly as David Bouley’s sous-chef before Maguy and Gilbert Le Coze hired him as chef for Le Bernardin. In 1994, Ripert became Le Bernardin's executive chef after Gilbert Le Coze died unexpectedly of a heart attack.  At the age of 29, in 1995, he earned a four-star rating from The New York Times. In 1996 he became a part-owner. In the Michelin Guide NYC 2006, Ripert's Le Bernardin  earned maximum Michelin three star rating for excellence in cuisine. Le Bernardin earned four stars from the New York Times four consecutive times, being the sole restaurant to have kept up such a remarkable superior status for an exceptionally lengthy period of time. Le Bernardin is often referred to as the Temple of Seafood. The James Beard Foundation named him Top Chef in New York City in 1998 and, in 2003, Outstanding Chef of the Year.

Media career:

‘AVEC ERIC’ was the first TV show of Ripert, started in September 2009, debuted and ran for two seasons, earning two Daytime Emmy Awards: “Outstanding Culinary Program” (2011) and “Outstanding Achievement in Main Title and Graphic Design” (2010). In February 2015 it returned for a third season on the Cooking Channel.

Books:

He is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line. ‘Le Bernardin – Four Star Simplicity’ (Clarkson Potter) is the Ripert’s first cookbook and ‘On the Line’ is his second one.  My Best: Eric Ripert (Alain Ducasse Publishing) is the Ripert’s newest released cookbook.

Eric Ripert Motivation Quotes:

• “I just find the world very exciting and beautiful everywhere.”

• “Having sharp, great knives will enable you to cook very precisely. Knife skills are essential in cooking.”

• “It took me all my life to learn how to salt a tomato.”

• “You don't become a chef to become famous.”

• “I don't think I have an obsession, however I do eat chocolate every day.”

• “If you can't think like an onion or a carrot or a tomato, you may be a technician, but you won't understand what you're doing, and your dish will be flat.”

• “I'm fascinated by Japanese cuisine.”

• “To me, it's very important to have time at the restaurant but also time with family and time for myself.”

• “Chefs are leaders in their own little world.”

• “Everybody wants to support his own region and economy and farming. If we can preserve the land and if we can preserve the ocean, we all know, deep inside that we're doing the right thing.”

• “I'm very inspired by other cultures and very often use what I perceive to be exotic ingredients.”

• “America is a such a melting pot, I'm not sure if roast chicken is the classic comfort food for everybody.”

• “I find the organic wave much more interesting in America than in France.”

• “I see a lot of people who change careers in the middle of their life and they think it's a good idea to come in the kitchen.”

• “Nobody wants an ugly book.”

• “Cooks build muscles; we can stand all day long on our feet and not feel the pain.”

• “When you are 25, 30, you know, you have no responsibility, no mortgage, no kids, no retirement to think about, nothing.”

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• “California is lucky, the East Coast is lucky because we get great seafood and a lot of produce from Florida, locally in good weather, but in the winter we have to buy it.”

• “I like very much Louis Vuitton. My wife loves it too.”

• “In a professional kitchen, the idea is to have your cooks not moving much while they're cooking. You want them to stay in the same spot.”

• “For me, I do not wish to build an empire.”

• “A lot of foreign people say, when asking about eating habits, 'What is your guilty pleasure?' I have no guilt. Whatever I do, I enjoy and it's the point. I think if you start to feel guilty about it, that's a problem. So, no guilty pleasures. I have pleasure and no guilt at all.”

• “I am a Buddhist, therefore I should not be collecting anything - however, I have a collection of Buddhas. I have a lot of them.”

• “There is great food in Vegas.”

• “I like the dynamic of PBS. They're very honest and authentic.”

• “Some chefs go crazy with one restaurant, and if I had 20, I would go nuts.”

• “As young cook, especially in France, they're very tough in the kitchen. The idea is to make you humble and learn fast.”

• “The nature of human beings is to eat meat and fruits and vegetables, and therefore we have to kill animals. I don't have a problem with that. But it's a sacred moment. It's a gift of life.”

• “I don't like it when I go to a restaurant and I'm lectured from the menu.”

• “I don't follow the food trends.”

• “I come from a family of farmers on both sides of my family.”

• “Obviously California is fantastic in terms of produce, vegetables.”

• “I am not a picture guy. I like to live in the present and keep the image of the past vivid in my mind. I don't need the precision of the picture.”

• “Money is not necessarily, although it helps a lot for happiness, it's not necessarily the best way to be happy, to be rich, you know.”

• “I am totally anti-technology.”

• “When I am about to have a difficult project, I dream I am climbing a mountain. When everything is going fine, I dream I am going down the mountain.”

• “It has been stressful to be a French resident in America.”

• “Factory farming's evil; you know that.”

• “I barely speak English.”

• “The Cheesecake Factory's not that bad.”

• “When I see someone who has responsibilities, most of the time I can pinpoint that person because of the way he carries himself.”

• “A lot of people believe that when you are Buddhist, you are the Dalai Lama. I'm certainly not.”

• “It's a very naive idea to think that the chef is cooking everything, and, on top of it, is irreplaceable. That would mean that basically he is the only genius, and there are idiots all around him, which doesn't make sense.”

• “I am convinced that if you serve great value, people will come to you.”

• “I'm a very bad baker.”

• “I never pressure myself to do something I don't want to do.”

• “One thing I don't like is complaints.”

• “I like working in silence.”