"Being a great chef and being a great cook are completely two different things."<br /><br /> <br />Question: What makes a great chef? <br /> <br />David Chang: Wow. I think a great chef is somebody that inspires his team and continues to push the envelope cooking wise while maintaining the integrity of the culinary tradition that came before him or her. <br /> <br />Question: How is that different from a great cook? <br /> <br />David Chang: Being a great chef and being a great cook are completely two different things. A cook sometimes is a better cook than the chef. The chef ,you want to be the best in the kitchen at everything, and traditionally that's the case. <br />But there comes a point where the chef is sort of removed from cooking on a day-to-day basis sometimes, and a great cook doesn't always translate to being a great chef. I think that's the thing. <br />For whatever reason, you need the intangibles now. It's a lot more difficult now, I think, to be a chef because of the media pressures, working the PR, knowing what to say, managing people again, running a restaurant, finances. <br />There's so many things involved now that it wasn't before. None of these. You didn't need these traits, to be a great chef, say, 20 years ago. And now you need to have an assortment of skills and wear many hats, and sometimes it's really difficult. <br /> <br /> <br /><br /> <br />Question: What makes a great chef? <br /> <br />David Chang: Wow. I think a great chef is somebody that inspires his team and continues to push the envelope cooking wise while maintaining the integrity of the culinary tradition that came before him or her. <br /> <br />Question: How is that different from a great cook? <br /> <br />David Chang: Being a great chef and being a great cook are completely two different things. A cook sometimes is a better cook than the chef. The chef ,you want to be the best in the kitchen at everything, and traditionally that's the case. <br />But there comes a point where the chef is sort of removed from cooking on a day-to-day basis sometimes, and a great cook doesn't always translate to being a great chef. I think that's the thing. <br />For whatever reason, you need the intangibles now. It's a lot more difficult now, I think, to be a chef because of the media pressures, working the PR, knowing what to say, managing people again, running a restaurant, finances. <br />There's so many things involved now that it wasn't before. None of these. You didn't need these traits, to be a great chef, say, 20 years ago. And now you need to have an assortment of skills and wear many hats, and sometimes it's really difficult.
