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Well, my mentors are Joel Robuchon, even Dominique Bouchet, who was in La Tour d’Argent, who was my first chef and taught me the classic cuisine, the basics. Joel Robuchon — big influence, huge influence. Jean-Louis Palladin, who was in Washington, D.C., was my mentor. Gilbert Le Coze of Le Bernardin — great influence on me, of course. Thomas Keller, Jean Georges, Daniel — big influence. You know, it’s — Masa, who’s Japanese — big influence on me. They have different styles. They have different approaches, but they are very influential because they do good — great cuisine.

Daniel is very influential, too. Daniel has a sense of hospitality that, 10 years ago, I didn’t have. And being with him, I learned hospitality better. 10 years ago, I was the chef who wanted to stay in the kitchen and was reluctant to go in a dining room. Today, I understand that people want to see the chef, and they want to shake your hand, and they want to say, “Hello,” and they want you to sign a book. So, I’ll do it, and I enjoy it, actually. But that mentality comes from a chef like Daniel. Jean-Georges was one of the most creative chefs when I came in America. And I was, like, almost obsessed by his creativity. He was, you know — from sauce, he was switching to juice, and broth, and so on, and putting a lot of power, in terms of flavors, in it and was very influential. Thomas has been highly influential with his cooking and we have French Laundry, the book that sold to almost 500,000 books. I have that book, and when I look at it, it’s beautiful. Presentations are beautiful, and what it does is very harmonious, and is, of course, influential.

When the menu is done, whatever has been decided for the dish — the profile of the dish — that is unchangeable. Now, if the patron says, “I don’t like squid ink. Can you remove it from my plate?” Yes, we will accommodate, for sure, but what we try to do — except if we have a specific request — we try to be consistent day and night with the same flavor profile, the same presentation, the same everything, because it takes hours — it takes days, weeks, sometimes years for us to create a dish exactly the way we want. And then, when we have achieved that, it’s, we believe, the most harmonious combination or more harmonious work that we have put on the plate. Soon as you change a little bit of the proportions, the dish is unbalanced.

If your sauce is slightly more concentrated, it’s not the same dish. We keep a very tight control on the sauce. Sauce is very volatile. Flavors, as you know, cannot be calculated in anything in your mind. It’s like music notes are in your mind. I mean, you don’t say you have a pound of rosemary flavor in the sauce, but you create a certain profile and it’s all here. And then, you share with someone who does it, and then, you stay where you are. You control the sauce.

I mean, it’s easy to understand if I make the analogy of saying, when you make your coffee in the morning, you drink it fresh, right away. Now, when you drink your coffee — which is a single ingredient, actually — three hours later, it’s another product. If you drink it in the afternoon, it’s kind of going down the hill. At night, it’s bad. Tomorrow, it’s disgusting. So, you can imagine for flavors and for the dishes. So, we are very much in control and keep it; we don’t create anymore. When it’s on the menu, it’s no more creativity. It stays there.

So, creativity is something that you don’t control. You cannot say, “I’m going to be creative in one minute and I will stop in five minutes,” or push a button and turn it off when you’re done. Creativity comes whenever it wants, at least for me. I cannot domesticate that kind of experience. So, I have the habit of taking notes on papers when I have an idea, and so that way, I don’t forget. And then, I put my notes back into a file, well-written, and then, from those ideas, I look at them again, and they give me other ideas. Like, I mix idea #3 with idea #10 sometimes, and I come with another list. And then, I narrow down, narrow down, and I have at the end, from 100 notes that I took, maybe 10 that I try. Out of the 10, five are good. But it’s an endless process, and now, I mentor my sous chefs and I have also someone on staff who’s dedicated all day long to create and to find new ingredients and study techniques. So, we work together on that. So, that’s the creative side.

Television doesn’t influence my cooking. Although, when I do the show Avec Eric and that I interact with beekeepers, fishermen and growers, and so on, I am inspired. But as a general rule, being on Top Chef or being on The Today Show, the latter one, doesn’t necessarily inspire me for the kitchen. However, I like television a lot. I like the media because I can share, which I like very much, and I can express myself. And the more I express myself, the more I understand the process of what we are doing. So, I like television a lot, also, because of the benefits of reaching out — people in their living room, in their kitchen, and even in their bedroom. And then, you create awareness to what we do here, and obviously, we have benefits of having people being curious to come see the restaurant.

It all started at a very young age. I was always hanging in the kitchens of my grandmothers, my aunt, my mother. And it was two styles of cuisine that I was exposed to as a younger child. My mom was cooking very inspired from the world cuisine, a very kind of refined cuisine. Lunch and dinner, we had a beautiful setting on the table, and she was putting a lot of effort into the presentation, and it was very refined — almost like a restaurant experience. And then, my grandmothers were cooking soul food — one from Provence and one from Italy — and presentation is not as, and refinement is not as, important, but the flavors are amazing. And I developed a taste for eating and having great food.

Being kind of a bad student in school, I ended at age 15 in the office of the principal with my parents. He really highly recommended that we find a vocational school for myself, and I was thrilled because I wanted to become a chef. I wanted to cook. I had very little experience. I was always in a kitchen, but did very little except eating or help a little bit, but not professionally, obviously. So, I went to culinary school to study, graduated, and then, started in some kitchen in Paris the hard way. And my passion was so strong, I survived the struggle to become, first of all, a good cook, then obviously, a chef.

I like hearty food in the winter, I like light food in the summer—I think like the majority of people. In the summer, I have a tendency to drink rose or white, and then in the winter, I have a tendency to drink red. And, therefore, we use red in our cooking a lot — we do a lot of red wine sauces and red wine broths for food that goes really well with red wine. We have a grilled octopus with a red wine sauce and fried shallots.

A menu has to be harmonious. You can’t repeat five times the same ingredients in your menu. You can’t have only broth, or vinaigrette, or heavy sauce on a menu. The menu has to be in sync with the season. I mean, in January, if you do a tomato salad, it’s a little bit off. I mean, it’s very wrong, actually. Here in New York, at least. So, creating a menu is more, I would say, craftsmanship in a sense — intellectual craftsmanship.

Creativity is more instinctive. You don’t control; you live with it. And creativity comes when it wants. So, I may be talking to you and have a flash. I’m not going to take a note — I promise — but sometimes, I find myself in the middle of a market and I’m very creative, and sometimes, I am not that much creative. And sometimes, I am in a plane — and actually, in the plane is where I’m extremely creative. I don’t know why — maybe because I’m disconnected, and there’s nothing to do, and I don’t want to watch the TV, and I don’t want to talk to the person next to me. So, suddenly, ideas come and I let my imagination run wild.

I always want to make sure that whoever is coming to our industry is coming for the right reason, which is passion for cooking, passion for being a waiter or a bartender. But let’s go back to the cooking, because I think it’s where I’m obviously the most expert at. When I talk, I say to them, “You have to make sure that you’re not coming here and you’re seduced by what you see in the media, which is celebrity chefs. You’re not coming here to become a celebrity. You’re not in the cooking business to become rich, because the chances are very slim that you’re going to have a huge income. It’s not about that. It’s cooking. It’s a very artistic way of living. It’s a lifestyle. It’s craftsmanship involved, and you have to like that. You have to love that. You have to overcome the difficulties of being a chef or a cook, which is 12 hours on your feet. When everybody is at home, you’re in the kitchen. On the holidays, you’re working, and so on. When you go to a school, that costs, actually, a lot of money to go to culinary school. When you come out of it, you are paid $7.75 an hour. It’s not like you come out of Harvard, and you have a huge salary. And you starting out at the bottom.” And, “To become a good chef, it takes at least ten years.” So, I always warn them about that — making sure that they have the true passion and fire that will overcome all the challenges.

I think you develop cooking wisdom by making a lot of mistakes. You become more confident. You understand much more, “What is your style?” And then we evolve, but we evolve in a very subtle way, making sure that always we keep the mantra in mind, which is, again, “The fish is the star of the plate.”

20 years ago, I was very influenced by my roots, by the Mediterranean. So, whatever I was cooking at Le Bernardin was under very strong influence from the Mediterranean. And then, New York actually excited my curiosity, and I went to a lot of restaurants. I went to markets. I talked to a lot of people in the industry, ate a lot — a lot of pleasure, of course — and that changed a little bit my way of cooking, and it’s when I integrated some ingredients from different cultures.

Service is key. I mean, if you have great food, and the food stays in the kitchen, and it’s not delivered on time, and it’s cold in front of the client, whatever you have done is ruined. If you have a full dining room, like, 80 people, and you are not able to feed people in a timely manner with the food that they have ordered that tastes good on a clean plate, you have failed. Service is also creating the mood. It’s part of the magic of the experience. I always see service as an art. I mean, French people actually call that “l’art de la table.” So, service is very, very important. It’s complementary of the work that we do in a kitchen.

It depends. In the summer, I usually entertain on the weekend. I have a country house, and I have a grill. I love to grill everything, from vegetables, to meat, to fish — everything goes on the grill. Then, in the winter, I like to do some stews, like a coq au vin, or meat stews with lamb, or beef or something like that. The dessert? I buy them. I am a lousy pastry chef — very lousy. So, the dessert, it’s absolutely not coming from me.

Well, science is very important in a sense. I mean, it depends on what you would call “science,” because we have now, like, a very modern — what we call molecular cuisine, which is very controllable, and science has a very big role to play in that kind of cuisine. But domesticating the fire is science. Learning how to use a pen with different metals — it’s science. Creating an emulsion — it’s science. Emulsion is when you take oil and the liquid and put it together, and it becomes thick. You can do that cold; it’s a mayonnaise, for instance. You can do that hot; it’s a béarnaise or hollandaise. But it’s pure science.

Now, are you conscious as a chef or as a cook that it’s science? Not necessarily, but it’s definitely very important. Temperatures are very important. Especially with seafood, a few seconds completely changes the product. Exactly when you whip cream, five extra seconds, you get butter. So, it’s a very — it’s very scientific, in a way. We don’t see it all the time as science, but it’s definitely science behind the act of cooking, and our techniques are based on scientific reactions.

The art of cooking, it’s when you mix craftsmanship at the highest level with creativity. And again, you create something that is harmonious. I think harmonious is the key word in cooking. It doesn’t matter if you have a chaotic approach to it and if you have contrasts in your dish. Actually, contrasts, very often, create harmony. Harmony is when you taste the dish and you have this kind of feeling like, “Wow.” That’s harmony. And to create the “wow” aspect in the dish, there are many ways of doing that.

La Maison du Chocolat has great dark chocolate, desserts. It’s close to my house. And then I eat dessert in the restaurant most of the time. Yesterday at Balthazar, I had my two Caneles, and then they brought me profiteroles. I didn’t say no.

I love dark chocolate, yes. I love great ingredients in general when they are in season. You know, every fall, I crave for the first porcini mushroom, every spring, for the first morels — the asparagus. Then, you have the peaches coming, and then, the corn in August and September. So, I crave those ingredients every year at the same period.

You can live without a lot of things, but my favorite ingredient is actually not a fish. It’s a black truffle — for many reasons. First of all, it’s very mystical. It’s very rare. We cannot cultivate black truffles yet and have good results. They’re all slightly different; they don’t taste the same. You can cook with it and develop their aroma. You have to be very, very careful, because if you cook them too much, they lose all the flavors. If you don’t cook then enough, they don’t develop fully their flavor, so you have to be very attentive to it. And I find that ingredient one of the most esoteric magic ingredients.

I love Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. I’ve gone there for at least 15 years. The rooms that I’ve stayed are always very large, with a kitchen, and very Art Deco. The fridge is a 1925 fridge. Even the toaster is from the 1920s. It gives you this feel like you are in your house. I travel with a couple of things from my home— Buddhas, some books I like from the last 20 years that I’m supposed to read beside —and I put them around, and it looks like an apartment. I also love The Amansara in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It’s a fantastic hotel. Then, I love the Ritz-Carlton because I have three restaurants in the Ritz-Carlton. And therefore, I love to go to the Ritz-Carlton and get the royalty treatment. Even when you don’t work there you feel like a king, but being apart of their family, I feel even more spoiled.

Jean Luc Figueras, Commerç 24, Casa Tejada — which is now probably less trendy, because it was trendy 25 years ago. But Commerç 24 is very recent. Barcelona is a city that renews itself all the time. I just feel good there — it’s a good vibe.

In New York, every morning, I walk in Central Park. I think this is pretty unique because I leave my house and I am basically in the park for 40 minutes. Central Park is fantastic. I love the fact that in New York, depending on your mood, you can go from one area that is completely different from another. For instance, I live on the Upper East Side, and if I go to SoHo, or go to the Meatpacking District, it’s totally different. I love the ambience of being downtown.

He thinks the table we always sit at while at Balthazar is his table. He doesn’t know that people can potentially eat at that table. We go everywhere with him, but we like to go to places with a lot of energy, which are, in concept, close to what Balthazar is — modern brasseries or cafes or pizzerias. I love Serafina Pizzeria. They have the best pizza.

I love Paris, London, Tokyo, Barcelona. I grew up very close to Barcelona, from age 9 to 17, so I was spending all my weekends there. I love the integration of the antique part of the city with the more modern part of the city. I love the vibe and the ambience of the people there. And, there are a lot of good restaurants.

There’s always something new opening in New York—two or three places a day. However, I go to Balthazar religiously — at least every ten days. I always start with oysters, clams, King crab or stone crab when they are in season. I’m very predictable — they know me by heart. It’s either a steak frite or a tartare. And then I have two canelé and an espresso. Always the same thing, and always the same table.

The service has to be seamless. When you are finished eating, you should have a big smile on your face. The servers are there for that, to deliver the experience. I think they have to be efficient — when you need them, the waiter is there. They should be helpful, without any attitude. They should basically create a mood for everyone — everyone should feel the same.

Well, what I learned about leadership is, first of all, to become a leader, you have to be inspirational to your people. You do not proclaim yourself the leader. They are the ones who tell you that you are the leader. They are the ones who follow you when it’s difficult. So, you are put to the task, and when everything goes fine and it’s easy, you may believe you’re a leader. When you encounter some difficult time, you are leader when the team follows you.

Exactly like — you know, I always think about a lesson that I learned when I was on vacation once in Colorado with the dog sleds. It’s one leader — it’s the first dog — and then you have 25 dogs behind. And if the dog makes a mistake, they bark the first time a little bit. Second time, they all bark quite a bit. Third time, they bite the dog. And I always — I learned that from there 20 years ago. The leader is not necessarily the strongest dog; it’s the most sensitive dog.

There are a lot of them. Right now, we have black garlic, which is very popular and is starting to be found everywhere. It’s Korean. It’s a very interesting ingredient to work with, to flavor sauce and broth. I like Persian lemons. They’re basically like dried lemons—so they’re tiny, tiny, tiny, and black. There’s a company called Tierra Farm that has dehydrated fruits, like tangerines and plums, which are very crunchy. There’s a lot of dehydrated items from them that we really enjoy working with.

So, our cuisine is — I define that as New York cuisine, which may sound very strange. But New York cuisine, it’s a cuisine that is inspired by our surroundings, by all the ethnicities living in the city, by all the cultures. Obviously, my background is French, and I cook with French techniques; however, we have created, without knowing — unconsciously, we have created — a kind of a fusion cuisine, which is not gimmicky, but a natural fusion cuisine today in the restaurant because of interacting with people from South America, interacting with people from Asia, traveling to those countries, going back to Europe, traveling the U.S. and finding ingredients which are typically American, and so on.

So, that defined our cooking here, but I would say also we have a mantra that’s very specific and very powerful for us. It’s, “The fish is the star of the plate, and therefore, whatever goes on the plate is to elevate the qualities of the fish.” That’s really important, because it makes a difference in between us and everybody else. Or not everybody else — some chefs think like us as well, but it’s a way of saying, “Are we cooking with fish or I’m cooking for the fish?” Here, we cook for the fish, which means in the beginning, we don’t care about presentation. We don’t care about starch, fiber. We care about the fish. What’s going to make the fish better?

French cuisine is very vast. I mean, in between the cuisine from Paris, and the north, and the south, it’s a huge difference. One uses butter; one uses olive oil. The south is very close to Spain and Italy, in terms of flavors. The north is very rich cuisine. And French cuisine is very democratic when you go to cafés and brasseries, and can be very upscale when you go to luxurious restaurants. French cuisine is available everywhere in this country, and the contribution of French cuisine, I think, to America is in its techniques. Of course, there’s appreciation for the ingredients, but the Italians and many other cultures have that, but the French techniques are very important because they are based on logic. And today in America, I think, we see French technique being applied on almost everywhere, because it’s a universal way of cooking.

Well, we have a very loyal New York clientele that support us for many, many years. We have, also, a very young clientele — New York clientele — as well. So, it’s a nice mix at night. We have a lot of tourists and a lot of businesspeople, and I think, in the restaurant it would be na�ve to think that everybody is seeking the same experience. Some people come here to have a great meal, and we call them “foodies.” Some people come here because they’re celebrating something. Some people are here because they’re visiting New York; they want to see what’s going on in the restaurants in New York. Some people are doing business and they’re trying to — either way — impress their client, or potentially, sign a deal. So, it’s a variety of people who are passing by here, and it’s the job of the waiter to read the clients, and to see what they are seeking, and then deliver the experience that they expect.

A great chef is someone who is inspiring his team to begin with, and a great leader in that sense, and someone who can run not only the kitchen, but make the restaurant sustainable financially, too, because if not, you’re not a great chef. And a great chef is someone who is a great cook — and someone who’s creative. Creativity, it’s not something that everybody has. It’s a gift. So, some chefs don’t have it, but they can be good chefs. But great chefs have the extra component of being creative.

We rebuilt the restaurant entirely during the month of August 2011. It’s a brand new Le Bernardin, in terms of the look. The kitchen has new floors and new equipment. The menu is a constant evolution, so we change all the time. Now, for instance, we’re working on the fall, and by the end of the week, we will have 80 percent of a fall menu ready. It’s still a work-in-progress, and we always print in-house. We change all the time when we have a good idea.

It’s hard to choose one, but I have some very fond memories of going to Greece and doing the islands. It was in 1994 — I went to Greece, spent a little bit of time inland, and then went to Cretes and then to Santorini, to Mykanos. That was really a great trip — the simplicity of the food, how friendly the people were, the beauty. I’ve never seen a better sunset than in Santorini.

I think it’s destiny. I worked in few restaurants before Le Bernardin and I always ended up in a fish station, although I know how to cook meat pretty well. And the only thing I don’t know how to do well is pastry, because it’s too scientific, and I’m more instinctive as a cook. But I always, after doing the round of the kitchen, ended up in a fish station and developed, obviously, expertise and a certain passion for it. And then, in 1991, I came to Le Bernardin. Suddenly, I realized that Le Bernardin is a seafood restaurant, and for me, it’s basically a gigantic fish station. So, I’m very comfortable with taking the position of a chef, and it’s why I’m still here 20 years later.