This Is TASTE

Pat LaFrieda is one of the world’s most celebrated butchers and sells ground beef, strip steaks, and rib eyes to more than a thousand New York City restaurants alone. On this episode we talk about the birth of the boutique burger blend, tracing its lineage back to Minetta Tavern, and dig deep into the meat business. We also discuss Pat’s own personal favorite way to cook a steak, roast a chicken,...

Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel is the chef and co-owner of Birdie’s, an Austin, Texas, restaurant that is innovative and exciting, and by far one of our favorite meals of the year. On this episode, we speak with Tracy about her journey from cooking at Lula Cafe in Chicago to working the line at some of New York’s most acclaimed places—Del Posto, Blue Hill, and Gramercy Tavern—and how she met her partner i...

Here are three classic conversations from This Is TASTE with three key members of the New York Times food desk. Melissa Clark is a prolific cookbook author, longtime NYT columnist, and one of the most respected food writers in the game. In this interview, we talk about her days collaborating with great chefs including Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, and Claudia Fleming, as well as her action-packed c...

Clare de Boer is the chef-owner of Stissing House, a restaurant located in New York’s Hudson Valley and one we like very, very much. Clare is also the chef-owner of two New York City restaurants, King and Jupiter. On this episode, we speak with Clare about her time cooking at the River Cafe in London and her journey to America to open some of the country’s best restaurants. We also talk about her...

Michael Symon is the star of Symon’s Dinners Cooking Out and the author of a great new cookbook, Simply Symon Suppers, as well as a longtime TV host, Iron Chef, and food commentator. But we know Michael best as a really, really great chef who’s run well-regarded restaurants in New York City and Cleveland, where he was born. On this action-packed episode, we talk about Symon’s Greek and Sicilian ba...

Jason Hammel is the executive chef and owner of award-winning Lula Cafe in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. Jason grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, and is the product of a tight-knit Italian family. He studied writing at Brown University and then traveled in Italy, where an accidental stay in an apartment above a produce market left a lasting impression and presaged his career as a chef. In t...

Writer, podcaster, and cookbook collaborator Andrew Friedman has a unique vantage point in talking about chefs and food writing as a profession. He’s worked with some of the most interesting voices in the restaurant world (going back a decade and longer), including Daniel Boulud, Alfred Portale, Michelle Bernstein, Bill Telepan, and David Waltuck. In this episode we talk to Andrew about his most r...

Sue S. Chan is an expert marketer, brand builder, and all-around busy bee on the global food scene. She was Momofuku’s first brand director, and in this episode we go back to her time helping to build the David Chang empire (and figuring out how to tell DC what to do). She later founded her own agency, Care of Chan, which has become a go-to for major fashion and retail brands looking to engage wit...

What a thrill it is to have our friend Adeena Sussman back on the show. Adeena is the author of numerous cookbooks, having cowritten three with Chrissy Teigen, and the voice behind the best-selling Israeli food tome Sababa. Sussman is back with a great new book, Shabbat, and in this episode we talk about the multitudes of Jewish food around the world. We discuss what is so exciting about food in h...

Ellen Yin is the founder and co-owner of Philadelphia’s High Street Hospitality Group. She’s behind some of the best restaurants in not just Philly but the entire country, including Fork, High Street on Market, and High Street Provisions. On this episode we speak with Ellen about her journey to hospitality, what’s special about the Philly restaurant scene, and what it was like to win a James Beard...

James Park is a content creator and the author of Chili Crisp, a sharp look at one of America’s favorite ingredients today. On this episode we speak with James about the different types of chili crisp to buy and make at home, as well as some unexpected discoveries he’s made. We also talk about his upbringing in Korea and dig into the exciting things happening in Korean food these days. We hope you...

Ben McKean is the founder of Hungryroot, an online grocery retailer that has changed the way millions of Americans cook dinner (and lunch, and breakfast) and taught them to love plant-based cookie dough. On this episode, Ben shares his journey to launching Hungryroot, and we dig into how the modern grocery store is quite broken. We also talk about what it’s like running his company nearly a decade...

Chandra Ram is the associate editorial director at Food & Wine and coauthor of cookbooks like Korean BBQ and The Complete Indian Instant Pot Cookbook. On this episode, Chandra takes us into the test kitchen at Food & Wine, and we hear about some of the cool stories she’s been working on. We also talk about how postwar and post-pandemic times share similarities in the way the events have changed th...

Susan Spungen is an author, a food stylist, and a real food media legend. She was the founding food editor at Martha Stewart Living, and she has worked in television and film, including teaching Meryl Streep how to flip an omelet. On this episode, we learn about food in 1980s New York, about Susan’s job interview process with Martha, and about her famous sister. We also talk about her wonderful ne...

Becca Millstein is cofounder and CEO of Fishwife, one of the buzziest brands in not just the emerging tinned seafood market but all of food. We had such a fun time catching up with Becca to talk about her brand’s journey from big idea to big-time retail. We also find out where the tinned fish movement is heading and hear about some of the bumps along the road that the company has had to overcome....

Today’s special episode is from our recent conversation with baking cookbook authors Natasha Pickowicz and Claire Saffitz, live at Rizzoli Bookstore in NYC. Natasha is a chef, the founder of the pop-up Never Ending Taste, and the author of More Than Cake. Claire is a recipe developer and the author of the best-selling cookbooks Dessert Person and What’s for Dessert. It’s a fun conversation about d...

C Pam Zhang is the author of the acclaimed novel How Much of These Hills Is Gold. Her new book, Land of Milk and Honey, is set in a near future where smog has choked out almost all agriculture, and where a chef is lured to cook at a reclusive mountain institute for the global elite with the promise of produce. It’s a gripping book about power and politics and, mostly, a love letter to food, and we...

It’s really fun having Alex Delany back on the show and getting to know the food and drink writer (and rare book collector) a little bit better. You may know Alex from his time working at Bon Appétit as a writer covering home cooking, wine, cocktails, and naturally processed coffee (respect), as well as a series of memorable YouTube videos. But since leaving BA in early 2021, Alex has been busy wo...

Here are two classic conversations from This Is TASTE featuring two literary titans. George Saunders is the author of many works, including the Booker Prize–winning Lincoln in the Bardo. Here we talk about pizza and Italian delis on the South Side of Chicago, as well as lunch in the Texas oil fields. We discuss success in the kitchen and how intuition crashes together with luck, and we speculate o...

Today we have an amazing conversation with Naama Shefi. Naama is the founder of the Jewish Food Society, a nonprofit organization that works to preserve, celebrate, and revitalize Jewish cuisine to build and promote a meaningful connection to Jewish and Israeli culture. She is also the chair of Asif Culinary Institute of Israel. Also on the show, Aliza and Matt discuss three things they each are i...

Dirt Candy is a vegetarian restaurant on New York’s Lower East Side that has become famous over the past decade for making eggplant tiramisu, kimchi donuts, and tomato fruit leather. But its chef, Amanda Cohen, makes one thing very clear—the restaurant’s mission is not about vegetarianism or health or politics. It’s just about making vegetables taste really good. In this episode, we talk with Aman...

Ham El-Waylly is a chef, recipe developer, and video creator based in New York City. You may know him from the NYT Cooking channel, where he shares ingenious tips and whips up opulent feasts from niche ingredients alongside his wife, Sohla. But you probably don’t know Ham’s rich history in food, from growing up in Doha, Qatar, with Bolivian-Egyptian parents in the food business to running research...

Hillary Sterling is a longtime New York City chef who is currently the executive chef at Ci Siamo, one of our favorite restaurants in all the land. We’ve known Hillary for years, and it was really fun to dig into her history to find out about her early food memories growing up deep in Brooklyn and her many cooking jobs in Chicago and NYC. We talk about traveling around Italy for research and her f...

Dan Pelosi is the self-proclaimed “Italian American meatball" behind the popular social media account and home entertainment mood board GrossyPelosi. In this episode, we catch up with Dan to talk about his journey from working at a creative agency to running a megapopular online food community. We talk about some of his favorite summer and fall recipes and dig into his debut cookbook, Let’s Eat. W...

Chef Eric Adjepong was a finalist on season 16 of Bravo's Top Chef and a contestant on season 17 of Top Chef All-Stars, where he earned consistent acclaim from judges and popularity among viewers. As a first-generation Ghanaian-American born and raised in New York City, Eric sources the flavors and influences in his cooking from many of the West African dishes he grew up eating. He is passionate a...