I think a lot of times people design restaurants with flash in mind. I think you should design restaurants with function in mind. Make sure it's functional and works with what you're trying to accomplish. Design can come later.

My dad would give me $10 which is a lot of money when you're 9 to sing at church on tables at restaurants at family functions just about anywhere.

Having been to Europe and working and traveling there the restaurants my wife and I remember were always off the beaten trail restaurants. So I tried to seek a little 'off the beaten trail ' but cool area.

I don't go to the cool trendy restaurants. I go to either the holes in the wall or the super-fancy restaurants where there are no cool people.

You know for 300 years it's been kind of the same. There are restaurants in New Orleans that the menu hasn't changed in 125 years so how is one going to change or evolve the food?

The newly decorated theatres produced things like car parks and restaurants so you could have a good night out quite cheaply without all that bother of having to go somewhere else.

At the end of drama school I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.

Behind every small business there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities the restaurants cleaners gyms hair salons hardware stores - these didn't come out of nowhere.

Everyone goes to the same exhibitions and the same parties stays in the same handful of hotels eats at the same no-star restaurants and has almost the same opinions. I adore the art world but this is copycat behavior in a sphere that prides itself on independent thinking.

Murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums.

You hit a certain age and - especially because of TV - the young cooks coming up say 'You're a sellout because you're doing something other than what you should be doing.' 'Top Chef' is a double-edged sword for me: There's a whole group of people who will not come to the restaurants because they assume I'm not in them anymore all I do is TV.