Soleil Ho isn’t like other restaurant critics. She doesn’t use a star system to rate restaurants. She doesn’t use terms like “up-and-coming” or “ethnic” or “addictive,” and there’s a reason for that. Since she became the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle a few months ago, she’s been shaking things up, rethinking the system, and…yeah, pissing some people off. We talked about this approach and what a restaurant critic’s responsibility is to their city. We also got to catch up about...
May 20, 2019•29 min•Ep. 58
After working as a fact checker for years at The New Yorker and contributing to the magazine’s Tables for Two column, Hannah Goldfield was named the magazine’s first full-time restaurant critic in 2018. What a gig! It was great fun having her on, and we talked about how the column has evolved—it has gotten longer and tackles big ideas happening in food today through the lens of New York City restaurants. She reveals some of her favorite, and not favorite, meals from the past year and how she kee...
May 14, 2019•53 min•Ep. 57
You might remember her cardamom-pistachio Swiss rolls from the Great British Baking Show , or the orange savarin that blew Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood away. But in her new book, Chetna Makan is moving from all the butter and sugar onto another topic: Healthy Indian . We talked about daily baking habits, canned chickpeas, and why her black lentil recipe is better than her mom’s. She also told the story of a recent Great British Baking Show reunion at a wedding that involved not one, but 10 cake...
May 07, 2019•20 min•Ep. 56
Chef and restaurateur Meherwan Irani is on a mission to change the perception of Indian food in America. Born in London, raised in India, and living in America for many decades, Irani’s experience with his native food is textured. At his outstanding and innovative Asheville and Atlanta restaurants, Chai Pani , he articulates a clear vision in the form of street food, which on this lively episode of the show we discuss in detail. From his Internet famous kale pakora, to the idea of jugaad —which ...
Apr 30, 2019•48 min•Ep. 55
Mike Fadem and Marie Tribouilloy love bitter amaros, buttery mortadella, and what some people might call “salad” but Marie calls “room temperature vegetables.” Their unpretentious Bushwick pizza restaurant, Ops , was just named as a James Beard Award semifinalist for its unique wine program. Most of the selections are natural wines picked by Mike (who also makes the pizzas), and when part of a bottle is leftover at the end of a night, Marie turns them into homemade vinegars. We talked about thei...
Apr 23, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 54
The sudden and rather intense rise of Carla Lalli Music and her test kitchen crew at Bon Appétit to legit food-world celebs has been simply amazing to watch from the sidelines. Lalli Music is the longtime food director at the publication and stars in many of the YouTube videos BA puts out each month. On this highly entertaining episode of the podcast, Lalli Music talks about what’s in the special sauce for viral-video glory. And, oh yeah, she has written one of the year’s best cookbooks: Where C...
Apr 16, 2019•38 min•Ep. 53
For near five years, journalist and former chef Bill Addison traveled America as Eater’s first, and only, roving restaurant critic. It was an epic and sometimes grueling run, one that I am sure will end up on the shelf of Kitchen Arts and Letters in memoir form in due time. Bill has since landed a new job in a city many consider to be the beating heart of American food culture today: Los Angeles! In this candid interview, Addison talks about his new gig as co-restaurant critic at the Los Angeles...
Apr 09, 2019•54 min•Ep. 52
Longtime New York City restaurant critic and neighborhood wanderer Robert Sietsema used to fear for his job. “I feared for decades that I would get off the train and spot a dozen other food writers combing the neighborhood and beating the bush for restaurants, and I would have to engage them in fisticuffs to decide who got to go into this new restaurant from Indonesia in Elmhurst.” LOL. The fact of the matter is, as the extraordinarily articulate Sietsema explains in this sprawling and highly en...
Apr 02, 2019•42 min•Ep. 51
When Nasim Alikhani opened Sofreh, an Iranian restaurant in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights, she was 59 years old. She was an experienced home cook but had never worked in a restaurant in her life. We sit down to talk about some of the biggest surprises along the way and most important things she learned about keeping herself sane and keeping the restaurant steady. And, we talk about the subtle changes she and her chefs have made to a whole suite of classic homey Iranian dishes to make them restaura...
Mar 26, 2019•40 min•Ep. 50
After studying architecture at UC-Berkeley, Pichet Ong eventually made it to New York and worked as a chef with Jean-Georges Vongerichten from 1998 to 2004, cooking at the restaurant 66 (shout out to Sex and the City ) and Spice Market, located in the then up-and-coming meatpacking district. Soon Ong established himself as one of the city’s most innovative pastry minds, weaving the flavors of Southeast Asia into classic French desserts. He also low-key popularized the salt-and-caramel flavor pai...
Mar 19, 2019•45 min•Ep. 49
The Four Horsemen in Brooklyn. Have you been there? Have you drank some wine there? Had some of the restaurant’s bread and cultured butter? It’s an amazing place, up on Grand Street, and I had a great time talking with the chef, Nick Curtola , and co-owner, James Murphy . James of the band LCD Soundsystem and fan of drinking natural wines by the Jeroboam. Nick of making really great bread—among other fine things. We talked about the unique way they run their place (we talk fancy water filtration...
Mar 15, 2019•35 min•Ep. 48
Michelle and Suzanne Rousseau are two sisters on a mission. They want the wide world of home cooks to think of Caribbean food as more than just jerk chicken. As they explore in their latest book, Provisions: The Roots of Caribbean Cooking , the food from the West Indies is layered with the history of colonialism, slavery, plantations, and the food businesses and home cooking that arose after emancipation. On this episode, we talk about some of the women throughout history responsible for preserv...
Mar 12, 2019•38 min•Ep. 47
There is no journalist I would rather talk to about Italy—and, really, talk about food in general—than Katie Parla . Her mind, her spirit, her willingness to drive around the wonderfully off-the-grid cow towns of Calabria for the sake of a book project. It’s all really special. In this episode, we talk about her decade-long obsession with the Italian South (and how this is a different thing entirely than “southern Italy”). We discuss her visiting places in Italy that “haven’t seen the Google van...
Mar 05, 2019•35 min•Ep. 46
I swear Akira Akuto and I only talked a little bit about the sandwich. What sandwich? The Sandwich. You can read about it in The New York Times : The Egg Salad Sandwich That Drew Eyes on Instagram . Sandwiches are beautiful; sandwiches are fine. But Akuto, a crazy-talented Los Angeles chef with New York City lineage, sure doesn’t want to make them all the time. In this wide-ranging interview, we talk about the opening of his new Echo Park restaurant, Konbi, and how he ditched the world of invest...
Feb 26, 2019•42 min•Ep. 45
The Los Angeles food world has the most low-key power couple. And they are very OK keeping it low-key. Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis are the chefs and owners of two of the buzziest and most influential restaurants in the city: Bestia and Bavel. They are also the authors of a cool new cookbook: Bestia: Italian Recipes Created in the Heart of L.A . During this interview, conducted before service at Bavel, we talk about Ori’s time spent in the Israeli army and how the experience informed the way...
Feb 22, 2019•33 min•Ep. 44
British journalist and cookbook author Yasmin Khan writes about Palestinian food tasting alive. But what does that mean? So much, it turns out, and we have a really great conversation about this incredible cuisine and history. Khan spent years reporting for her new book, Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen, and she discusses her on-the-ground reporting process. And she does something remarkable: Explaining za’atar (a cool though sometimes confusing Middle Eastern spice blend) in the mo...
Feb 19, 2019•41 min•Ep. 43
Los Angeles chef Minh Phan has a really cool story to share with us. She is the owner of a highly original restaurant, Porridge + Puffs , located in the city’s Historic Filipino Town neighborhood. It’s a mushy good time—you know you like mushy foods. We all do. And the Puffs part, what does that mean? Tune in to find out. Phan talks about P+P’s journey from farmer’s market pop-up to breakout hit restaurant and how her time working in Denmark shaped her vision as a chef. Also on the show chef Dan...
Feb 12, 2019•27 min•Ep. 42
Listener, subscriber: This is a good one. Pete Wells is the longtime restaurant critic at the New York Times and a man of slight mystery and sound judgment—or bad taste, if you ask some of the chefs he’s goose-egged during his prodigious reviewing career. Before being named critic in 2011, he was an editor at Details and Food & Wine , and we talk about the process of writing the review week after week—and how he thinks like an editor with weekly writing. I also ask him: What should the next ...
Feb 05, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 41
Nicole Rucker is a star baker and the co-owner of Los Angeles restaurant Fiona. She’s also competed in national pie-making competitions and will publish her first cookbook about fruit pastry in the fall. And she’s simply a pleasure to speak with: She’s honest, she’s articulate, and she’s got some amazingly honest thoughts about running a restaurant and the buildup to her recent review in the Los Angeles Times . “Tacos are a public service,” she says, wisely, of the city’s most iconic foodstuff, ...
Jan 29, 2019•23 min•Ep. 40
The Ivan Orkin story has been well documented. In summary—and you can read it in the excellent memoir-cookbook he wrote with Lucky Peach editor Chris Ying, or stream it on Orkin’s also excellent episode of Chef’s Table —ebullient white man lives in Japan, makes magic with ramen, stays humble, works hard; the crowds and critics and media swarm. In this episode of the TASTE Podcast, we catch up with Orkin to tell the story of how he first brought his unique style of ramen to America, through a leg...
Jan 22, 2019•44 min•Ep. 39
Laurie Woolever is a fresh and highly original voice in the food writing game. She’s a journalist—having worked as an editor at Art Culinaire and Wine Spectator —and was Anthony Bourdain’s longtime assistant. On this episode we talk to Woolever about the two Bourdain book projects she is busy working on and a story she wrote for TASTE about cooking the whole damn heart. She also talks about Carbface , the podcast she does with Chris Thornton (aka Shit Food Blogger ). And finally, we get her take...
Jan 15, 2019•54 min•Ep. 38
What a treat! Today on the show we have Meredith Erickson . She’s a journalist, cookbook writer, cycling fan, and the co-author of the new book Joe Beef: Surviving the Apocalypse . We talk about her many chef collaborations—she compares her writing style to that of creating a mixtape—and discuss a big project she’s been working on for years: documenting the foods of the Alps. Erickson also chats about splitting time between Milan and Montreal, which is just about the best way to split time. Also...
Jan 08, 2019•19 min•Ep. 37
While the name Zabar is most associated with a delicatessen empire based on New York’s Upper West Side, it’s Eli Zabar (the punk rock Zabar of all in the Zabar clan) who has the most interesting story to tell. He founded one of NYC’s first specialty food stores in 1973, introducing the city to exotic imports like balsamic vinegar and fraises des bois shipped in from France. And he’s sharpened his bread-baking skills through thousands and thousands of loaves. Eli Zabar is low-key one of the city’...
Jan 01, 2019•33 min•Ep. 36
Helen Rosner is a journalist, Twitter commentator, and the editorial force behind much of the New Yorker ’s food coverage. This year, we were treated with her writing about iceberg lettuce, fermenting blueberries with René Redzepi, a visit to an MSG factory in Japan, and a method for preparing chicken that involves a hair dryer. I sat down with Helen to talk about her work, and to look back at some of the highlights of 2018 in food writing, cookbooks, and Twitter outrage. Also on this episode, A...
Dec 28, 2018•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 35
Before he edited Epicurious, sharply reviewed restaurants in Chicago, and wrote a cool new cookbook, Cook90: The 30-Day Plan for Faster, Healthier, Happier Meals , David Tamarkin worked as a story producer on the first incarnation of Queer Eye . David is an interesting dude! In this fun interview we discuss what it means to cook 90 meals over a 30-day period—and how this Herculean-sounding task is actually quite doable and offers several lasting benefits to the home cook—as well discussing some ...
Dec 24, 2018•50 min•Ep. 34
Dirt Candy is a restaurant that has become famous over the course of the past decade on New York’s Lower East Side for making eggplant tiramisu, rosemary cotton candy, and tomato fruit leather. But its chef Amanda Cohen makes one thing very clear—it’s not about vegetarianism or health or politics. It’s just about making vegetables taste really good. On this episode, we talk to Amanda about what’s changed over the years—especially as Dirt Candy has rolled out their tasting menu full of tricks, su...
Dec 18, 2018•25 min•Ep. 33
Maybe you’ve been making macarons your whole life, could temper chocolate with your eyes closed, and have enough cake pans to fill a walk-in closet. But maybe, more realistically, you’re like the rest of us who love cake, have no idea what mousseline is, and are still fuzzy on the difference between cocoa and Dutch process cocoa. No matter which of these categories you fall into, Rose Levy Beranbaum ’s books are written for you. Beranbaum’s books, like The Pie and Pastry Bible , The Cake Bible ,...
Dec 10, 2018•47 min•Ep. 32
The chef and cookbook author Anita Lo occupies a very special place in the hearts of many in the New York City restaurant world—chefs, journalists, civilians who merely dine at restaurants (that is, most people). Lo is a supreme talent, having run one of the city’s top restaurants—Annisa—for 17 years. She’s also a mentor to many in the industry. A leading light and an example of how to do things the right way. Stories of this journey, as well as some pretty cool recipes, are detailed in her new ...
Dec 04, 2018•50 min•Ep. 31
Let’s just not dwell on the fact that Flynn McGarry is only 20. He’s young. The end. This is because McGarry, the chef and owner of the ambitious and well-reviewed New York City tasting-menu restaurant Gem , is an incredibly talented dude. Period. This is a really fascinating conversation, one that surprised us in many ways. We go over his time working in Los Angeles restaurant Alma at age 13—while being homeschooled—and his famous pop-ups even earlier in his career. “My formative years were spe...
Nov 30, 2018•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 30
If there’s one thing Naomi Pomeroy has noticed in her years of cooking and running restaurants, it’s that people don’t seem to have time to eat anymore. Whether it’s the traffic in Portland, Oregon, where she is a restaurateur, or whether we’ve all just subconsciously sped up over time, it’s getting harder and harder to convince people to settle in for a leisurely several-hour-long dinner. This hasn’t stopped her from serving a six-course tasting menu at Beast, the restaurant she’s owned for mor...
Nov 26, 2018•33 min•Ep. 29
