Andrew Talks to Chefs

Born in Mexico and raised in the Midwest, Adair Canacasco brings his personal background and passion to his role as executive chef of Roister restaurant in Chicago. While in Chicago recently, Andrew sat down with Adair to learn about his familial roots, his maturation as both a cook and a manager/mentor of cooks, and the complex nature of the live-fire cooking performed at Roister. This episode is...

During The Chef Conference in Philly this spring, Sean Brock graciously made time to sit down for this deeply personal and open conversation about his path to the pro kitchen, his development as a chef, and his various restaurants, including his current Joyland , Audrey , and june in Nashville. Please check out our fellow meez network podcasts and newsletter !   THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW: Andrew is a...

Hey, everybody! Please take 8 minutes and listen to this announcement of The meez Network . Andrew co-founded this new content hub with meez founder and ceo Josh Sharkey, and will initially serve the network as program director. The meez Network launches today (7/1/04) with an inaugural roster of podcasts, and one newsletter. Please check it out, take the participating podcasts and newsletter out...

After years mostly writing and editing "real life" articles and books set in and around the food and restaurant realm, Ruth Reichl recently published a new work of fiction,  The Paris Novel . The book follows young protagonist Stella as she discovers life's pleasures, and gets to know herself, in the most romantic city on Earth. In this Special Conversation, Ruth discusses the book's genesis, its...

Lyndsay C. Green covers restaurants and dining for The Detroit Free Press . She comes to her area of specialization from a background in beauty reporting. In this conversation--recorded after a chance encounter with Andrew at The Chef Conference in Philly this spring--Lyndsay shares her personal story and how she migrated from beauty to food, the honing of her writing style, Detroit's restaurant s...

LIVE! from Hot Luck (Austin, TX)--Perhaps best known as the force behind  Bakers Against Racism ,  Paola Velez  ( Dōekï Dōekï ) has made a life and career of intertwining baking and altruism. (As her website says, she just wants to "Bake the World a Better Place.") In this interview, recorded on the grounds of Hot Luck last weekend, Paola shares about her Bronx childhood, how she switched from sav...

Raised in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, Sal Lamboglia grew up on Italian-American food in a family populated by his chef father, butchers, and other food professionals. Following graduation from culinary school, he spent many years with a Manhattan-based restaurant group before returning to Brooklyn and launching his hit restaurant Cafe Spaghetti in 2022, and its follow up, Swoony's ,...

When Philly's Friday Saturday Sunday won the James Beard Foundation Award as Outstanding Restaurant in 2023, it was the culmination of chef Chad Williams' slow, patient development, of both his talent and craft, and of the restaurant he co-owns and co-operates with his wife Hanna Williams. In this conversation, recorded at The Chef Conference in Philly last month, Chad takes us through his career,...

Robert Simonson is one of our most prolific and witty scribes on the subject of cocktails. Along with cocktails, he also writes about the related topics of spirits, bars, and bartenders for the New York Times and is the creator and author of the Substack newsletter The Mix with Robert Simonson .  In his most recent book, The Encyclopedia of Cocktails , Robert offers, in his own singular voice, poc...

On the occasion of the relocation of his eponymous restaurant to its new home in Tribeca, Marc Forgione sat down for one of our special conversations--and, man, did he bring it. In just 30 brisk minutes, he and Andrew discuss NYC restaurant rents, the possibilities of a new space, the crucialness of having a private dining room, and the media's portrayal of the industry. You don't want to miss thi...

In their second literary collaboration, Koreaworld: A Cookbook , authors Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard take readers on an adventure to Korea, and to hubs of Korean food in the United States, to paint a vivid portrait of Korean food worldwide right now . On today's episode, Deuki and Matt share their impressions of modern Korea and its cuisine, and of some of is most important practitioners in the US...

After a few lurches and false starts early in his career, Evan Funke connected with the Los Angeles area dining public in a big way with his Felix restaurant in Venice, California, and has followed it up with a series of successes: Mother Wolf , Funke , Tre Dita in Chicago, and others on the horizon. In this conversation, recorded last week in New York City, Evan shares deeply about his personal s...

Between speaking on a panel at The Chef Conference in Philly and catching a flight back to New Orleans, chef Nina Compton took time to sit down with Andrew and share the milestones in her life and career to date. From a fondly remembered childhood in Saint Lucia to the Culinary Institute of America to stints working for and with chefs such as Daniel Boulud, Scott Conant, and Norman Van Aken ... to...

Austin Johnson has taken a circuitous route to NYC's One White Street and Rigor Hill Market . He's cooked or cheffed at institutions like Canlis, Noma, Eleven Madison Park, Frenchie, and others, as well as on an Alaskan fishing boat. ( His blog from his time on the boat is still online, and is well worth your time. ) He shares it all here, and takes time along the way to discuss kitchen culture, w...

If ever there were a guest who needed little introduction, it's certainly Alain Ducasse. The great chef--one of the most influential, prolific, and successful in the history of Western cuisine--sat down with Andrew this week to discuss his new book "Good Taste: A Life of Food and Passion." The book is a meditation on Chef Ducasse's life and career so far, and in this conversation, he expands on ma...

The Taste of Things is one of the most celebrated films of the past year, a beautifully rendered love story set amid an important chapter in culinary history. On this ATTC Special Conversation, the film's writer-director Trần Anh Hùng joins us from Paris to discuss the genesis of the film, what attracted him to the project, the involvement of chef Pierre Gagnaire, and working with actors Juliette...

Friends of the pod Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, of Border Grill and other restaurants, check in from Los Angeles to discuss the evolution of chefs and other industry figures making a difference by devoting time, effort, and resources to a variety of causes. In addition to their own substantial work on behalf of organizations such as The Abundance Setting , the James Beard Foundation , The...

This week, the chef and restaurant community suddenly lost one of its most talented and influential figures. David Bouley, who rose to prominence at Montrachet and Bouley restaurants in the 1980s , died of cardiac arrest at age 70. To remember this towering culinary figure, we are sharing a previously unaired interview recorded at Bouley restaurant in its then-current home in 2014. Our condolences...

In October 2023, Max Natmessnig and Marco Prins returned to Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare , where they once were cooks, as co-chefs of the celebrated tasting-menu restaurant. Four months into their tenure, they sat down with Andrew to share their individual and joint stories, describe their collaborative creative process, and explain their their attraction to New York City. THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:...

MIami's Brad Kilgore displays an easygoing demeanor beneath which resides a precise and driven chef. When Brad and his colleagues hosted Andrew for a book event last fall at the Arlo Hotel Wynwood (home of Brad's MaryGold's Brasserie ), the two of them sat down to record this interview. In it they discuss myriad subjects including Brad's adoption of the principles of Molecular and Modernist Cuisin...

While visiting his hometown of Miami, Florida, during his recent book tour, Andrew finally  had the chance to meet and interview with chef Michael Beltran of Ariete , Chug's Diner , and Eva and The Oyster Bar --all in Coconut Grove. Michael is also the host of the excellent Pan Con Podcast , which you should by all means check out. After years of corresponding by Instagram messages, Andrew and MIc...

Our fourth Mentorship panel was staged this past fall in Andrew's hometown of Miami, Florida, at the much-acclaimed   Maty's , part of the Itamae family of restaurants. As chef Valerie "Val" Chang and her crew prepared dinner for a full house of line cooks from around the city, her brother and business partner Nando Chang took to the mic along with his longtime protege Adriano Montano. Their uniqu...

** Content warning – this episode (briefly) discusses attempted suicide .** Sam Hart took a circuitous route to the professional kitchen. After a childhood in which cooking and food weren't especially central concerns, Sam was in a career in advertising when culinary inspiration struck, leading to jobs in such kitchens as  Alinea, and ultimately to becoming chef owner of Counter- and other concept...

For the first time in three hundred episodes, we're turning the tables on Andrew and sitting him in the hot seat, a.k.a. the guest's chair, to take you inside his new book The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food . Fellow writer and author Chandra Ram, of Food & Wine , takes the helm to ask Andrew all about the book: where the idea came from, what the research entailed, how difficult...

Cafe Mars, a six-month old restaurant in Gowanus, Brooklyn , has made quite an impression on guests and awards-bestowers alike with its unique brand of hospitality, which extends to both staff and guests, erasing many of the invisible boundaries long associated with dining out. Everybody on staff is cross-trained for the kitchen, dining room, and bar; the team closes out their preshift meeting wit...