When I arrived, I didn't understand London customers perfectly, but we've developed the right style with the right price, and step by step, I'm in harmony with London.
The Mediterranean is in my DNA. I'm fine inland for about a week, but then I yearn for a limitless view of the sea, for the colours and smells of the Italian and French Riviera.
It is impossible to remain indifferent to Japanese culture. It is a different civilisation where all you have learnt must be forgotten. It is a great intellectual challenge and a gorgeous sensual experience.
When I was younger, I behaved a bit strangely sometimes - lost my temper, did silly things - but little by little, I've gotten better. As a chef, I think you need to do a lot of work on yourself and your temperament.
In each restaurant, I develop a different culinary sensibility. In Paris, I'm more classic, because that's what customers like. In Monaco, it's classic Mediterranean haute cuisine. In London, it's a contemporary French restaurant that I've developed with a U.K. influence and my French know-how.
Food is one part of the experience. And it has to be somewhere between 50 to 60 percent of the dining experience. But the rest counts as well: The mood, the atmosphere, the music, the feeling, the design, the harmony between what you have on the plate and what surrounds the plate.
I only get fat when I eat food cooked by other chefs. At home, my wife does all the cooking. She makes simple things like soups and salads. We both like steamed tofu.
