On Gordon Ramsay: Early and sober in the day, I asked about Ramsay, who admitted in Bill Buford's recent New Yorker article that he stole his own restaurant's reservations book, but blamed White to discredit and exact revenge upon his former mentor. White has said he will take legal action against Ramsay. He told me: "We're positioning ourselves on the playing field. Can we talk about something interesting? He's not interesting. He doesn't play a role in my life. He's showed his colors. I'm about to show my colors." On Anthony Bourdain: "Tony is a proper guy. Tony is an ambassador, like Mario, for American gastronomy. They're the heavyweights. There might be people who can cook better than them in America, but they can't deliver a message. They can't inspire people. And that's an ambassador's role, to inspire people, to lead people. You know something, if I was going into battle I'd be very happy being behind Mario and Anthony Bourdain." On Mario Batali: "Mario hits the nail on the head. You want to sit in his restaurants and you want to eat his food and his food is an extension of Mario. It's as simple as that." On celebrity chefs: "I'm flattered that they call me the original rock star celebrity chef. Whatever. But I think the rock star celebrity chef has done more damage to the industry than anything because it's taken people away from the stove. I didn't try to be a celebrity. I didn't try to be a rocker. The media turned me into what I was. I was just a cook who was behind my stove. And because I had this long hair, because I young, because I was slim. I never left my stove. And the day I left my stove is the day I retired." On returning his three stars to Michelin: "What gave me the strength to make that decision was that I was being judged by people who have less knowledge than me. So what are three stars really worth? If you look at the back of my book, three great men (Bourdain, Batali, and Buford) said great things about me. Those comments are worth more than my three stars in the Michelin." On taking over Hell's Kitchen in the UK, formerly hosted by Ramsay: "I agreed to do the program because I feel that I have a duty to my industry to step back into the ring to show those people at home how a true kitchen is run. No mother, no father, would recommend their child to go work in the kitchen if they saw that program, in my opinion. I said to them it's got to be interesting, it's got to inspirational, it's got to be educational. If it's not those three things then I'm not interested." On his rumored Vegas restaurant: "One of my friends has just bought six hotels there. What he wants to do is give all the food away. It'd be a Frankie's (an Italian bar and grill chain owned by White and British jockey Frankie Dettori)."
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