Well, naturally, my grandfather. He was a Hasid, meaning a member of the Hasidic community, and I loved him, I adored him. So thanks to him, I became a Hasid too. And my mother — who actually continued his tradition — she’s the one who brought me to Hasidic Masters. And all the stories I tell now — I’ve written so many books with Hasidic tales — these are not mine, these are theirs, my mother’s and my grandfather’s. My father taught me how to reason, how to reach my mind. My soul belonged to my grandfather and my mother. They enriched me, of course. They influenced me profoundly, to this day. When I write, I have the feeling, literally, physically, that one of them is behind my back, looking over my shoulder and reading what I’m writing. I’m terribly afraid of their judgment.

No. Although I have to qualify that. Though he was, by jazz standards, a very square composer, he was, by musical theater standards, a not square composer, and he taught me to be less square. I tend to be square.

Yeah, of course! I think they made that way back in like 1968 with an optical printer where they had to keep shooting each section. It was made for IBM. The idea of virtual travel versus physical travel, the idea of exploration.

I think that I followed the influences of the people whose style and cooking I admired. When I went to Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in the early days, it was the best and the most exciting cooking in the UK at that time. Later on I worked with Thomas Keller and Alain Ducasse and eventually I chose to go to work in Le Louis XV because when I set foot in the kitchen, I just knew it was for me. I think you can see all of those influences in the techniques and the flavors that I use: there’s a real purity to the way that we cook and a real natural process here at my restaurant, Core, that always stayed with me from my time at Alain Ducasse.

Totally. I’d say parents, brothers, sisters, and don’t go far beyond that for the moment. If you’ve had a long-term relationship with an agent, that’s a whole different thing, because that agent is there to care.