Pete Wells quotes:

I find that the dead-end route is to try to describe what's going on in your mouth.

I just think that we show an awful lot of deference to chefs in our culture and maybe not enough deference to customers.

Everybody used to say going to restaurants... is like theater, there's stage sets, there's drama, there's play acting and you watch the show. And now, boy, everything's just become so serious. And you sit at the counter and the chef comes out and tells you what he did to the Brussels sprouts leaves and no, there's not a lot of dancing.

I don't think I've ever met nachos that I didn't like before. It's almost inconceivable that nachos can be bad. It makes no sense.

If you say, 'Oh, there was a little bit of acidity from the lime juice on the left side of my tongue, and then this beautiful, smooth pureed potato with some crunchy shallots on top, and it all came together,' you never will get out of that sentence alive.

My feeling is, if I can describe the way a steak looks on the plate, when it's just kind of juices are coming out, and it's almost alive, and just wants to be eaten, I hope that people will feel it, more than they will feel me describing the tangy minerality of the dry-aged beef between my teeth.

There is often with restaurant reviews in particular, I think, this kind of impulse to be deferential and bow down to the greatness of the restaurant and the greatness of the chef, and then with great regret to say, "And yet, all is not as it should be in the kingdom," and I didn't want to do any of that.