These days, we've become accustomed to the superstar chef who is affiliated with a multitude of restaurants and can be seen all over television. Rarer is the chef who is synonymous with one special restaurant. That is the story of Eric Ripert. NY1's Budd Mishkin filed the following report.

Would you invite acclaimed chef Eric Ripert to dinner?

This is a man whose food is beloved. But not always. There was that one time with his son.

"I did something like a custard with some cherries in it, I don't remember, for breakfast. And he tasted and he looked at me and said, 'Dad, really, that's not possible,'" he says, laughing.

Eric Ripert is the chef and co-owner of the Midtown restaurant Le Bernardin, where the four-course prix fixe dinner costs $147.

The Michelin Guide ranks it as one of the top 25 restaurants in the world.

It is the only restaurant to have earned five consecutive four-star ratings from The New York Times.

Accolades are nice, but, Ripert says, "If we start to think about the stars, and the good reviews and so on, we are distracted and then we cannot be at our best. It's like an actor who thinks about winning the Oscar while he is acting. I don't think he is going to win the Oscar. He'll be distracted too."

"Every morning, we start from scratch," Ripert says. "Whatever we did yesterday doesn't count any longer."

Ripert chalks up part of his success to the free give and take with his staff in Le Bernardin's kitchen, allowing the freedom to create.

"If you start to be scared of looking ridiculous with your ideas, then you are paralyzed," he says.

But when Ripert first came to America from France, his kitchen was much different.

"I was a very angry chef, emulating some of my mentors, having tantrums, screaming at the cooks, breaking plates on the floor, and then I realized that it was the wrong way to manage a kitchen," he says. "And I changed overnight. And today, we work in an environment that is very Zen and very peaceful."

Mishkin: Can I imagine the word "Zen" was not mentioned a lot when you were growing up and learning the business in France?
Ripert: Not really.

Ripert is quite serious about his practice of Zen Buddhism. He has a meditation room in his apartment, and it's played an important role on several trips to South Korea for his Emmy Award-winning show on PBS and then the Cooking Channel, Avec Eric. 

"I spent time with the monks and the nuns. I studied the philosophy and the craftsmanship of temple food," he says. "They meditate, and it's an exercise of mindfulness. But they also put in the food the thought of love and compassion and good energy."

Eric Ripert grew up in France and Andorra, the small principality between France and Spain.

His mother was a successful businesswoman who made nouvelle cuisine-inspired meals for Eric at home.

"She was duplicating and doing food that was very refined," he says. "I thought at the time that the entire planet was eating like me, of course."

His mother introduced her son to an influential local chef.

"Every day after school, he allowed me to come and see him in the kitchen, preparing the dinner. And he was feeding me a lot of chocolate mousse and apple tarte tatin and things like that. Life was good!" Ripert says.

Except when it wasn't. In his memoir 32 Yolks, Ripert describes a difficult childhood.

His parents divorced when he was young. His father died of a heart attack when Ripert was 11. Ripert suffered abuse, primarily emotional, at the hands of a stepfather. And Ripert had to fend off advances by a priest at a boarding school.

Despite all of the sorrow, Ripert says he was still a dreamer.

"My childhood, I mean, if I may, 32 Yolks is not 'Les Miserables' by Victor Hugo. It's not that bad," he says.

Ripert admits he wasn't a very good student. He entered culinary school at 15 and quickly found his passion. And then the real education began.

32 Yolks refers to an episode on Ripert's first day of work after culinary school.

"I cut myself after 30 seconds. I don’t know the name of some ingredients. I’m kind of lost in that kitchen. And instead of making a hollandaise sauce with egg yolks being emulsified, I make scrambled eggs," he says.

The pressure was intense. Ripert describes one job in which he was required to squeeze 90 perfectly spaced dots of sauce on a signature dish. When he slept, he dreamed of dots.

"When we were going to those kitchens, with those very talented chefs, we knew that it was a price for the experience," he says.

Ripert left France for America in 1989, working first in Washington, and then two years later in New York. He started working at Le Bernardin in 1994. Since then, the image of chefs has changed dramatically.

"I think it's a good thing. Thirty years ago, we were forgotten in the back," Ripert says. "If you’re a young person, and you come to my industry because you think you’re going to be a rock star, you're going to have a disappointment. It's not glamorous at all. Soon as you push the kitchen door, it's hard work."

Ripert has a second restaurant in the Cayman Islands. But that's it. There's no food empire to oversee.

"What pleases me is to work closely with my team, to see my family," he says. "I have a good lifestyle. Very balanced. And I think if I were opening a restaurant here and there, I would lose this balance that I have created in my life."

Le Bernardin is known for its preparation of fish. So, any state secrets on preparing fish for the rest of us?

"When you go to the store, you should always smell the filet of fish," he says. "And make sure that the eyes are bright if it's a whole fish, that when you touch the skin with your fingers, it springs back, doesn't make a hole."

For more than 20 years, Ripert has been one of City Harvest's foremost chef advocates, helping to feed New York's hungry and homeless. Five days a week, a truck comes to Le Bernardin to collect leftover food that's stored in a refrigerator specifically designed for City Harvest.

It's yet another sign that Eric Ripert is entrenched here, a true New Yorker. But his outlook on food is still French.

"And even if it’s something that can be rich or too sweet or something like that, if you do it and you have pleasure and you don't overindulge, you will not have to pay consequences. So therefore, you know, why have guilt?" he says.