Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent

Let's go to Bali! Dwi Ermayanthi owns Little Talks cafe in Ubud and also works on Ubud's food and writers' festivals. Erma learnt a lesson from the Agung volcano explosion two years ago that's also helped her weather the pandemic. She speaks about that, and about an Ubud that's open but quiet, so quiet that the monkeys have left the forest to find out where everyone is. https://www.instagram.com/l...

Junichi Onuki is the chef and owner of Isana Sushi Bar in Tokyo. Life in Japan feels mostly normal though density restrictions and a lack of international visitors mean tiny Isana is very quiet and unable to make a profit. We talk about the pandemic and then deep dive into sushi: what is Junichi-san's style, how did he learn and what are the important principles that turn raw fish and vinegared ri...

Chicco Cerea is the chef and patron of three-Michelin-star Da Vittorio near Bergamo in northern Italy. The Michelin guide says the restaurant is 'elegant without being stuffy and sumptuous without being cold...a truly memorable gastronomic experience!' Bergamo was the epicentre of Italy's COVID disaster and Da Vittorio closed as a restaurant and started catering to pop-up hospitals and army person...

Annette Tan is a cook and food writer in Singapore where restaurants are open but drinking stops at 10.30pm on the dot and 'COVID ambassadors' patrol to ensure people are distancing and masking. We chat about the foreign worker dormitories which are the main site of Singapore's infections, the joys of prawn noodles and her contemporary spin on Peranakan cuisine. https://fatfuku.com https://www.ins...

We head to Mumbai, India today to talk to Masque chef Prateek Sadhu. Masque explores India's regional food in thoughtful tasting menus, inspired by the chef's time at restaurants including Noma and French Laundry. Or at least, that's how it used to be...Now Prateek is making chicken burgers and delivering them around the city. When Prateek was a child, the Sadhu family became refugees from their K...

Food writer and social entrepreneur Janice Leung Hayes speaks to us from Hong Kong. Janice is used to packing a bag and jumping on a plane but the pandemic has halted her globetrotting for now - except for the time she spent in New Zealand in lockdown. We talk about the magnificent food city that is Hong Kong - with its milk tea, political turmoil and efficient quarantine - and I have a little mom...

Dirty Linen goes to Beirut today to Jade George. Jade is an owner of Kalei Coffee, founded by her friend Dalia Jaffal. She also publishes The Carton, a magazine about Middle Eastern food culture. It's two weeks since the Beirut blast, a terrible explosion which devastated the city and pushed the pandemic to the very edges of consciousness. Jade puts the current situation in Lebanon in historical c...

Today we head to London to speak to Tomas Lidakevicius, who was executive chef at Michelin-starred City Social when the pandemic bit. Tomas has left behind the 80-hour weeks to partner with Borough Market stall Turnips. They've opened a veg-focused pop-up that he wants to make permanent. We talk about Michelin stars, the night restaurant critic Jay Rayner visited, and the UK government's Eat Out t...

Noemi Lekube takes Australian, American and Asian tourists on food adventures in the Basque country around San Sebastian. Or at least she did. Noemi talks about a San Sebastian that's suddenly full of Spanish tourists, the difficulties of getting reliable information during a pandemic, and how normal it is to drink G&Ts at 2am. She also proposes a Basque culinary treat that she hopes will overtake...

Liam Tomlin used to be an owner and executive chef of Sydney's three-hat Banc but he now owns five restaurants in Cape Town, South Africa. We talk to him as he's planning to reopen his restaurants in the city and surrounding wine country. The prompt for this week's opening is that the government has just announced the lifting of a COVID-inspired five-month-long alcohol ban that crippled restaurant...

Our trip around Planet Pandemic takes us to Brazil, where chef Jorge Curi runs three restaurants in Pelotas, a city on the far south coast, two hours from Uruguay. Brazil is in deep crisis, with 100,000+ COVID deaths and corrupt leadership. Jorge tells us what it's like to be a chef, restaurateur and citizen in such a terrible situation. https://www.facebook.com/fusaolatina/ Follow Dirty Linen on...

For 24 years, Sam Crofskey has been running C1 Espresso in Christchurch, New Zealand. That's long enough to see off a couple of earthquakes and a global pandemic. We talk about getting through tough times and his half-wish that his restaurant crises would include normal disasters like a drug habit or dumb infidelity. He speaks about the pandemic as a ship he fears is steaming rudderless towards hi...

Di Keser owns Hardware Societe cafes in Melbourne and Paris. In February, she and her husband Will moved to Barcelona to open up there too...just before a lockdown so hard she needed a permit to go to the supermarket. We talk about fortitude and optimism, the differences between running a cafe in Paris and Melbourne, and her view that Australian businesses should be grateful for the amount of supp...

This week on Dirty Linen, we're hearing voices from around the world. Justin Burke is a pastry chef in North Carolina. He tells us about the US mess, what it was like when he had COVID, and the devastation of 'recovering' but losing his sense of smell and taste. We also talk homophobia in kitchens, marginalisation in food generally, and we decide that poke cakes need to become a thing in Australia...

Philipp Hockenberger is a visa worker who's determined to stay positive and find the upside in the COVID times. He's an unusual brand manager in that he thinks the most important brand ambassadors are his own staff at Hof Group, which owns German pubs in Melbourne. He's using stage 4 as a time to motivate, engage and concoct plans for the future. Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagr...

Anna Bailey is a little bit English and a little bit Canadian but she's built her life in Australia. And now that the pandemic has struck, her visa status means she's fallen through multiple cracks. We chat visa stereotypes, how the government creates 'others', Nigella Lawson and Anna's morning ritual (screaming 'Everything's F***ing Fine!!' before getting out of bed).

Zefy Souvlakis is an immigration lawyer who works with many temporary visa holders, guiding and advising them as they tackle a flawed and faceless bureaucracy. She shares her own joys and frustrations and gives practical tips too. https://ethosmigration.com.au Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deepintheweedspodcast/?hl=en Follow Dani https://www.instagram.com/danivalent/ Fo...

Michael Ng is a chef from Hong Kong and he's in Melbourne on a 482 sponsored visa. This means he's tied to his employer even though he's stood down from his job, has no income or government support, and is now looking at a period of unemployment stretching beyond six months. Going back to an increasingly tense and troubled Hong Kong is not an appealing fallback.

Mike Rapajic is a sommelier who's worked at top restaurants in Melbourne and Sydney, as well as Paris and Montreal. A trained scientist with a penchant for analysing and problem-solving, Mike applies himself to the visa worker situation and finds that the whole hospitality industry needs a big shake up. https://feravina.com.au Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deepintheweed...

Paul Waterson is the CEO of Australian Venue Co which employs over 4000 staff across 160+ pubs. When the pandemic struck, Paul moved quickly to support the 900 visa holders on his staff, paying them a JobSeeker equivalent. We chat foreign workers, what it's like when there's a COVID case in a venue you own, the fate of CBDs and what happened with a planned deal to buy the Espy.

Attila Yilmaz runs Pazar Food Collective in western Sydney. He employs a lot of visa holders in his restaurant and reckons he wouldn't have a business without them. We chat work rules, life rules, corona rules and how to build a better society. Oh, and oven meat - I'm flying to Sydney for that as soon as my Melbourne germiness allows me.

Kaitlin Chase is a front-of-house star from Texas but she's been back and forth to Australia for five years and has just applied for permanent residency. While she's waiting for that to (hopefully) come through, she's in pandemic limbo - only able to get two shifts a week at her work, and coping with an intense family situation back in the USA.

Clement Demarais is a highly accomplished restaurant manager who lost his Melbourne job when the pandemic hit. As a sponsored worker he's stuck: can't work for his previous boss, can't be hired by anyone else. Clement is French, he's built a life in Australia and he has a few bon mots for our Prime Minister.

This week on Dirty Linen, our topic is visa holders in hospitality. Who are they? What are they struggling with? Is it fair that they were told to 'go home' if they couldn't support themselves during the pandemic. First up, Tugce Bayrakdar is a geneticist turned chef who moved from Turkey to study hospitality in Melbourne. She lost her job at Omnia in March and instantly spiralled into a demoralis...

We wrap up 'mental health fortnight' with Dr Claire Kelly, the Director of Research and Curriculum at Mental Health First Aid Australia, a training organisation devoted to 'mental health CPR' - what can we all do to spot the signs of a mental health crisis and be on the frontline of assistance? https://mhfa.com.au Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deepintheweedspodcast/?hl=...