Ben Elliot

Once you're involved in a business, it's part of what you do. It's the way you are. ”

I don't set out to be connected. My business has allowed me to meet lots of interesting people, some of whom have become friends; but you can't force it. This terrible word - 'networking' - I really hate. ”

I knew Quintessentially was a success when my father, who does a lot of business in Beirut, introduced himself to somebody and they said, 'Oh, do you know Ben Elliot? I'd really like to meet him.' I remember him ringing me up, really annoyed. ”

I'm a creature of habit and tend to favour small, traditional English businesses. ”

Now if I don't take exercise I feel a bit frazzled. ”

My obsession with eating out partly comes from having spent 10 long years at English boarding schools in the 1980s, where food was pretty low on the list. ”

Art is the ultimate luxury good, but one that can make you think, give a you a blast of beauty and enhance your life. Even if the work's made of plasticine. ”

Since childhood, I have been a cricket fanatic. ”

My father instilled in me an attitude that you couldn't really enjoy yourself unless you had done something to deserve it. So, my childhood was spent working on farms or local shops or, when I got older, in banks. ”

I eat out three times a day most days of the year. This is no big deal to most New Yorkers, and it is not something I am necessarily proud of - it's simply the nature of my itinerant life. ”