A chef and a restaurateur are different jobs: One is about pleasing people with what's on the plate; the other is about understanding the market. I'm a chef, but I think I'm a savvy businessperson, too.

I think, when I was younger, I was cooking to impress. Sometimes the dish would have 15 things on the plate. That's cooking only for yourself. As you get more mature, you take all the superfluous things away, and you get the essential flavor. Now I cook for people, not for myself.

I think food is getting lighter and healthier because people eat out so often. It's about quality ingredients because that is the root of good food.

The role of a chef isn't to reinvent dishes but to tweak.

It's my job, but I think it is too much.

I arrived in New York in 1986, when I was 28. The market here was nothing. In the Union Square farmers' market, it was a couple of potatoes, everything from California. So the only place I was comfortable shopping was in Chinatown, because it all came from Hong Kong.