I'm not really into gourmet food I'm the kind of guy who just stops by a place that looks good rather than heading for the restaurant of the moment.

The food in the House of Commons is fairly good. The cafe in Portcullis House is really very high quality and you also have a choice of eating in the more traditional restaurants the Churchill Room or the Members' Dining Room. I don't often eat in them though as I'm usually on the run.

My mom who's been in the restaurant business for 40 years is the number-one influence in my life. But I look up to a lot of people in the industry. Tops on my list is Mario Batali. My mom and Mario taught me the same lesson: Food is love.

Jackie Chan is a very good comedy/martial arts star. He does one kind of martial arts that Jet Li doesn't know how to do and Jet Li does a martial art that Jackie Chan doesn't know how to do. You can both go to two Chinese restaurants but both can have different kinds of food.

'The Food Network' was just starting in New York and I was getting lots of attention from Mesa Grill. They had no money so if you couldn't get there by subway you couldn't be on. It wasn't like TV was something I really wanted to do - but I knew it would be great publicity for my restaurants.

When I go to a restaurant I eat three-quarters of the food in front of me. That cuts my calorie intake by 25 percent.

Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued Olympia had bagels! We didn't have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me - a place with so many vegetarians the restaurants made special dishes for them?

Cookbooks have all become baroque and very predictable. I'm looking for something different. A lot of chefs' cookbooks are food as it's done in the restaurants but they are dumbed down and I hate it when they dumb them down.

There's nothing like a home-cooked meal - nothing! When people ask me what the best restaurant in L.A. is I say 'Uh my house.' It's more intimate. Food can connect people in a forever sort of way.

Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu and no food.

The lunch in a normal American restaurant is very problematic for me. I don't like to have hot food for lunch.

If your mother cooks Italian food why should you go to a restaurant?

I'm working harder than ever now and I'm putting on my pants the same as I always have. I just get up every day and try to do a little better than the day before and that is to run a great restaurant with great food great wine and great service. That's my philosophy.

The disparity between a restaurant's price and food quality rises in direct proportion to the size of the pepper mill.

I love food and I love everything involved with food. I love the fun of it. I love restaurants. I love cooking although I don't cook very much. I love kitchens.

I never eat in a restaurant that's over a hundred feet off the ground and won't stand still.

Being famous gets me good concert tickets good tables in restaurants good seats at sporting events and that's really about it.