Top 60 Bobby Flay Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Take risks and you’ll get the payoffs. Learn from your mistakes until you succeed.”

— Bobby Flay

2. “It’s important to have balance in your life between work and play.”

— Bobby Flay

3. “I’d love to visit Thailand just for the street food and the energy of a city like Bangkok.”

— Bobby Flay

4. “If you aren’t nervous about your passion, you aren’t passionate about it.”

— Bobby Flay

5. “A molcajete is a stone mortar and pestle from Mexico. They’re great for grinding spices and making salsa and guacamole because they give everything a nice coarse and rustic feel. I’ve never collected anything, but I think I might start collecting these because each one is decorated differently.”

— Bobby Flay

6. “I probably use my chef’s knives more than any other tool in the kitchen. I’m not married to a particular brand, because they all work, they all have sharp blades.”

— Bobby Flay

7. “Go vegetable heavy. Reverse the psychology of your plate by making meat the side dish and vegetables the main course.”

— Bobby Flay

8. “Grilling takes the formality out of entertaining. Everyone wants to get involved.”

— Bobby Flay

9. “I don’t have a long family history of good cooks in my family.”

— Bobby Flay

10. “Cooking is a subject you can never know enough about. There is always something new to discover.”

— Bobby Flay

11. “In the end, your creativity – perhaps even your outrageousness – will determine the final result.”

— Bobby Flay

12. “Even if the chef has a good business head, his focus should be behind kitchen doors. A business partner should take care of everything in front of the kitchen doors.”

— Bobby Flay

13. “Habaneros have a great fruity flavor, but the challenge is that you have to deflect the heat in order to taste the flavor. If you don’t, you’re dead. They should really have a warning sign on them. Deflect the habanero’s heat by pairing it with sweet food.”

— Bobby Flay

14. “I spend 80% of my time in my restaurants. Taping my TV shows doesn’t take much time, and then they get aired a lot. That’s the thing people don’t realize.”

— Bobby Flay

15. “I want to go to college and go back to Georgetown. It’s a really cool place.”

— Bobby Flay

16. “Do you want to make a tamale with peanut butter and jelly? Go Ahead! Somebody will eat it.”

— Bobby Flay

17. “You have to have your face in the food. These days people think a tattoo and a bottle of Sriracha equals success.”

— Bobby Flay

18. “I can’t grill vegetables, shellfish or steaks without tongs. Don’t bother with those long-handled grilling tongs normally found in the BBQ section of your home store. Get intimate with your grill and opt for the regular stainless steel tongs.”

— Bobby Flay

19. “I dropped out of high school. I really had no interest in doing any school work whatsoever.”

— Bobby Flay

20. “If my daughter wants to get into this business, I would support that decision. She’s going to have a hard time not being in it. She loves food and she’s around it all the time.”

— Bobby Flay

21. “I was hired as a sous-chef at a restaurant on the Upper East Side. The chef liked to drink – some mornings we would find him sleeping. Two weeks after its opening, I became the chef. I was 20 years old, and way over my head. I had to hire the cooks and do the menus.”

— Bobby Flay

22. “Nothing goes perfectly, especially when you’re opening a restaurant.”

— Bobby Flay

23. “An instant-read thermometer is your best bet for making sure that meat and fish are cooked to the proper temperature.”

— Bobby Flay

24. “Don’t try to be the next Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay, we already have those people. We want someone who is going to make their own mark on ‘Food Network.’”

— Bobby Flay

25. “Lime juice makes things taste fresher. I use it for drinks, salsas, relishes, soups, and sauces. You want some give to your limes – firmness means the inside is dry – and they’ll stay softer longer if you don’t refrigerate them.”

— Bobby Flay

26. “I don’t like to dump the dressing on top of the greens. Instead, I pour it against the side of the bowl – using only enough to glaze the leaves – then toss.”

— Bobby Flay

27. “Don’t underestimate the importance of having enough room to work. Grilling is much more relaxing when you are not trying to juggle a whole collection of plates and bowls as you do it. If your grill doesn’t have enough workspace – and they almost never do – set up a table right next to your grill.”

— Bobby Flay

28. “Grilling outside with my parents at the Jersey shore. We would grill lobster and corn in the summer.”

— Bobby Flay

29. “I wasn’t passionate about food until I’d been cooking for a while. I started long before food became part of the mainstream media. I just wanted to cook, period.”

— Bobby Flay

30. “I love working with big flavors like chiles and smoke. Honey is perfect for softening the edges, mellowing them out a bit. I put it in everything – vinaigrettes, soups, stocks, salsas, so I’m always on the hunt for great honey.”

— Bobby Flay

31. “I still love making hamburgers on the grill. I guess whenever I eat them childhood memories come up for me.”

— Bobby Flay

32. “I prefer lump charcoal over briquettes but I do use both for different reasons and different recipes and sometimes I combine them both when I really want the woodsy aroma from the lump charcoal and long, even heat from the briquettes.”

— Bobby Flay

33. “I think a lot of times people design restaurants with flash in mind. I think you should design restaurants with function in mind. Make sure it’s functional and works with what you’re trying to accomplish. Design can come later.”

— Bobby Flay

34. “You can’t chase everybody on the Internet who’s saying stuff about you, that’s for sure.”

— Bobby Flay

35. “Obviously, the easiest recipes are the most successful when it comes to the home cook, because they’re not intimidated by them. If I’m doing ‘Boy Meets Grill,’ and I do something very simple like grilled hamburgers or steaks or chicken, those are the most sought-after recipes.”

— Bobby Flay

36. “Brushes are crucial for applying glazes, sauces, and oils. The pastry brushes that you find in homestores can be pricey so pay a visit to your local hardware store and pick up a few paint brushes which are less expensive and work equally as well.”

— Bobby Flay

37. “One of the things that happens in my house on the holidays is after dessert, we sit down to a very ambitious men-versus-women game of Trivial Pursuit. It’s brutal. And there’s a trophy.”

— Bobby Flay

38. “I guess I fell into cooking.”

— Bobby Flay

39. “Basically, there are two things we know: Everybody has less time, and the general public is demanding better food – better in terms of quality and better in terms of flavor.”

— Bobby Flay

40. “I love the culture of grilling. It creates an atmosphere that is festive but casual.”

— Bobby Flay

41. “For me, it’s all about moderation. I don’t kick things out of my diet, like carbs. But I’m not going to eat fast food.”

— Bobby Flay

42. “I live in New York and I’m in New York basically all the time. I spend a lot of my time in my restaurants, and I feel like that’s why they’re successful.”

— Bobby Flay

43. “I think cookies are sort of the unsung sweet, you know? They’re incredibly popular. But everybody thinks of cakes and pies and fancier desserts before they think cookies. A plate of cookies is a great way to end dinner and really nice to share at the holidays.”

— Bobby Flay

44. “Charcoal or gas. Both give excellent results, so choose the one that best suits your style of cooking.”

— Bobby Flay

45. “When I’m hiring a cook for one of my restaurants, and I want to see what they can do, I usually ask them to make me an omelette.”

— Bobby Flay

46. “My contribution I hope is to get people to eat full-flavored food. If I could come away with that alone, that would be a fantastic accomplishment. I’m also very proud of being a very American chef.”

— Bobby Flay

47. “A grill is just a source of heat. Just like a stove, it is very user-friendly.”

— Bobby Flay

48. “I think New York has the most diverse and best quality representation of so many different cuisines at all levels.”

— Bobby Flay

49. “Chipotles to me are a one-of-a-kind pepper because they’re smoked jalapenos, so they’re fiery and they’re smoky. It’s good to use chipotles in salsas or soups or condiments – that works really well. To me, they always really pick up anything you put them in.”

— Bobby Flay

50. “There are so many great things about this business. Almost everybody is on the same team. It is all for one-friendly competitiveness. No one is out to hurt anyone.”

— Bobby Flay