The Chef Says: Quotes, Quips and Words of Wisdom

Compelling quotations from 150 chefs—including James Beard, Julia Child, Gordon Ramsay, April Bloomfield—to inspire and delight professional chefs, foodies, and anyone who's ever resolved a crisis by adding more butter.

"Clean plates don't lie."
—Dan Barber

Great chefs are not self-effacing or meek—there's no room for indecision in the professional kitchen, where the slightest stumble can send an entire restaurant into the weeds. So it follows that even in quieter moments, what chefs have to say is usually opinionated and always illuminating.

The Chef Says invites readers to the ultimate food-lover's dinner party, where cooks from ancient Greece rub shoulders and talk shop with today's rising stars. These unruly culinarians compliment, compete, and disagree with one another as they discuss childhood and training, taste preferences and trends, the quest for perfection, and the grueling but exhilarating business of opening a restaurant. The Chef Says will captivate anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen, been inspired by a flawlessly ripe tomato, or resolved a crisis by adding more butter.

. The first compendium to focus on quotations from chefs themselves, it is the perfect gift for professionals, foodies, home cooks, and anyone interested in culinary culture

. Features 150 quotes from an international roster of chefs, including Ferran Adrià, Lidia Bastianich, Mario Batali, James Beard, Daniel Boulud, Anthony Bourdain, David Chang, Julia Child, Tom Colicchio, Elizabeth David, Wylie Dufresne, Gabrielle Hamilton, Thomas Keller, Jim Lahey, Sarabeth Levine, Edna Lewis, Anita Lo, Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Samuelsson, Andre Soltner, Charlie Trotter, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Alice Waters, and many others

. The fourth volume in our successful Words of Wisdom series (following The Architect Says, The Designer Says, and The Filmmaker Says)

. Authors Nach Waxman and Matt Sartwell are the owner and manager, respectively, of the celebrated Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore in New York City, which offers 13,000 food- and drink-related titles

Nach Waxman is the owner of Kitchen Arts & Letters, a New York City bookstore specializing in food and drink for more than twenty-five years. Waxman has served for many years as a judge for the Tabasco Community Cookbook Awards and a committee member (and chair) of the James Beard Book Awards; he previously was a food judge at the Iowa State Fair. He has written for the New York Times and numerous major food magazines.

Matt Sartwell is the longtime manager of Kitchen Arts & Letters. A former editor for Penguin USA and recent chair of the James Beard Foundation's Book Awards program, he writes for Edible Manhattan and other publications.