Fergus is a friend I've learned so much from. We met through the late Rose Gray in 1999 and many years later, my business partner Ken Friedman and I invited him to the Spotted Pig to co-create a nose-to-tail menu so that New Yorkers could meet him and taste his singular cooking. It was so successful that we expanded the dinners and named the event "FergusStock". Fergus is an icon in New York – it's cultish really. His food is simple and succeeds because of the little details.  Cooking with Fergus is always a wonderful experience for me and my team. He is a great teacher, always explaining why you should be doing something and he's very engaging and funny.

His style of teaching is unique; for example, he does this thing called "the claw" when he is making salads. He positions his hand as if it were a claw, lifts up the ingredients and kind of squishes everything around in a bowl before plating the salad and yet it comes out perfectly. He will also randomly "woof" like a dog when he is explaining something.

Once, when I was feeling a bit down, we went out for a drink to lift my spirits and he said, "I know what you need – come see [revered Italian cookery writer] Marcella Hazan with me." He knew Marcella was a hero of mine and soon enough we were on a plane to Florida, where she lived. Marcella made roasted veal shanks, and she had taken two spoons and stuck them inside the hollow of the bone, into the marrow.  I saw my chance to make his day as he had made mine and I leaned over and told him what we were about to eat. It was fantastic to see the joy on his face.

This type of cooking, being mindful of avoiding waste and using all edible parts of the animal, shows respect and love for food.

His biggest influence, in my opinion, is that he has created an opportunity for chefs to serve something other than what their guests might think they are comfortable with eating. He makes people try stuff that they think they wouldn't normally like: to realise that not all offal is poorly cooked creamy internal body parts and that offal is quite tasty, texturally pleasing and totally versatile, that is extremely exciting. Sweetbreads are a great example because a lot of cooks undercook them and when people try them they are turned off.  Fergus, however, cooks them in a way that is quite delicious and quite memorable.

His biggest influence, in my opinion, is that he makes people try stuff that they think they would not normally like. This has been liberating and inspiring for me and many other chefs.