Immersed in the food business from childhood, Chen detected a distant echo of his mother's "keep it simple" philosophy in the cuisine of Bordeaux: "I discovered that the food of Bordeaux specializes in duck and goose, and focuses on fresh ingredients and unadulterated flavors. The people there treat goose fat as a gourmet product, an unheralded ingredient crucial to producing fine dishes."
從小深諳食事的他，遙遙呼應母親「簡單就是美味」的想法：「我發現，波爾多菜擅長鴨、鵝料理，講究的是食材的新鮮與原味，鵝油在那裡更被認為是高級油品，是上好料理的幕後功臣。」