This Is TASTE

We're thrilled to have chef Norman Van Aken on the show. Norman is the founding father of “new world cuisine” and the man who introduced the word “fusion” into the culinary lexicon—at a 1989 symposium in Santa Fe, decades before it became widely used and sometimes critiqued. A former carnival worker and tar roofer who never went to culinary school, Van Aken built his vision in Key West and Miami,...

We're thrilled to have chef Norman Van Aken on the show. Norman is the founding father of “new world cuisine” and the man who introduced the word “fusion” into the culinary lexicon—at a 1989 symposium in Santa Fe, decades before it became widely used and sometimes critiqued. A former carnival worker and tar roofer who never went to culinary school, Van Aken built his vision in Key West and Miami,...

Caroline Chambers built the number-one food and drink newsletter on Substack, What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking, on one radical premise: most of us don’t want to cook, and that’s fine. Her debut cookbook became an instant New York Times bestseller. Her follow-up, Make It Fast, was written with the help of reader feedback and organized around a new concept: the “walk away” recipe. It’s...

Lydia Pang is a creative director and the author of Eat Bitter: A Story About Guts, and Food . It’s a memoir that connects to the Chinese cultural concept of 吃苦 (chi ku), “eating bitterness” or being resilient, to her own life, with each chapter rooted in a recipe. Today on the show, we chat about how the book began as a zine in 2020, being inspired by her Hakka-Welsh heritage, and more. And it’...

Lydia Pang is a creative director and the author of Eat Bitter: A Story About Guts, and Food. It’s a memoir that connects to the Chinese cultural concept of 吃苦 (chi ku), “eating bitterness” or being resilient, to her own life, with each chapter rooted in a recipe. Today on the show, we chat about how the book began as a zine in 2020, being inspired by her Hakka-Welsh heritage, and more. And it’s...

Chloe Frechette spent nearly a decade as executive editor at Punch, the James Beard Award–winning drinks media brand, writing seriously about cocktails and the culture around them. Then she did what most drinks writers most certainly do not do: she opened a bar. Echo Lake and Undercurrent , her two-story rum destination in Williamsburg with partner Paul McGee, opened this spring—one a breezy daiqu...

Chloe Frechette spent nearly a decade as executive editor at Punch, the James Beard Award–winning drinks media brand, writing seriously about cocktails and the culture around them. Then she did what most drinks writers most certainly do not do: she opened a bar. Echo Lake and Undercurrent, her two-story rum destination in Williamsburg with partner Paul McGee, opened this spring—one a breezy daiqui...

Bartender and author Toby Maloney has made somewhere north of half a million cocktails over thirty-plus years, from Milk & Honey and Pegu Club to the Violet Hour in Chicago and the Elbow Room in Vancouver, Washington. His new book with coauthor and drinks journalist Emma Janzen , The Classic Cocktail Sessions , is a deep-dive master class on 61 classic drinks: not their histories but their inn...

Bartender and author Toby Maloney has made somewhere north of half a million cocktails over thirty-plus years, from Milk & Honey and Pegu Club to the Violet Hour in Chicago and the Elbow Room in Vancouver, Washington. His new book with coauthor and drinks journalist Emma Janzen, The Classic Cocktail Sessions, is a deep-dive master class on 61 classic drinks: not their histories but their inner wor...

Hasung Lee spent a decade cooking inside other people’s restaurants—Gramercy Tavern, Geranium, Atomix, the French Laundry—before Netflix viewers met him as Culinary Monster, the mysterious “black spoon” who muscled his way into the final round of Culinary Class Wars season 2. While he lost in the finale, he opened Oyatte anyway and is clearly shooting for Michelin stars. In this episode, we talk w...

Hasung Lee spent a decade cooking inside other people’s restaurants—Gramercy Tavern, Geranium, Atomix, the French Laundry—before Netflix viewers met him as Culinary Monster, the mysterious “black spoon” who muscled his way into the final round of Culinary Class Wars season 2. While he lost in the finale, he opened Oyatte anyway and is clearly shooting for Michelin stars. In this episode, we talk w...

Vikas Khanna grew up in Amritsar cooking beside his grandmother, arrived in New York with $3 and a dream, and became one of the first Indian chefs in the city to earn a Michelin star. His restaurant Bungalow—now one of NYC’s most coveted reservations—tells India’s culinary story through its 28 states. We talk about Vikas’s early cooking career in NYC, the rise of Junoon and later Bungalow , and wh...

Vikas Khanna grew up in Amritsar cooking beside his grandmother, arrived in New York with $3 and a dream, and became one of the first Indian chefs in the city to earn a Michelin star. His restaurant Bungalow—now one of NYC’s most coveted reservations—tells India’s culinary story through its 28 states. We talk about Vikas’s early cooking career in NYC, the rise of Junoon and later Bungalow, and wha...

The Specialty Food Association's Summer Fancy Food Show is where the next year of grocery shelves gets decided, and Dan Frommer , founder of The New Consume r and one of the sharpest minds tracking how people spend their money, was there for all of it. Dan joins Matt to unpack the trends and new products they spotted on the floor of the Javits Center this week in New York. We talk about sparkling...

The Specialty Food Association's Summer Fancy Food Show is where the next year of grocery shelves gets decided, and Dan Frommer, founder of The New Consumer and one of the sharpest minds tracking how people spend their money, was there for all of it. Dan joins Matt to unpack the trends and new products they spotted on the floor of the Javits Center this week in New York. We talk about sparkling wa...

Jason Stewart , cohost of How Long Gone and one of food media’s sharpest outside voices, returns to the studio. We talk about his early vegan days, his current London dining life, and what he’s enjoying in his hometown of Los Angeles. We also revisit some of his past TASTE writing, including a review of Noma in Copenhagen. Subscribe to This Is TASTE :   ⁠⁠ Apple Podcasts ⁠⁠ ,  ⁠⁠ Spotify...

Jason Stewart, cohost of How Long Gone and one of food media’s sharpest outside voices, returns to the studio. We talk about his early vegan days, his current London dining life, and what he’s enjoying in his hometown of Los Angeles. We also revisit some of his past TASTE writing, including a review of Noma in Copenhagen. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ...

It’s the return of Food Writers Talking About Food Writing. Every couple of weeks, Matt invites a journalist to talk about some favorite recent food writing as well as their thoughts on the industry as a whole. Luke Fortney went from covering New York’s restaurant scene at Eater to contributing weekly to the terrific New York Times food newsletter ⁠ Where to Eat ⁠. In this episode, we talk about t...

It’s the return of Food Writers Talking About Food Writing. Every couple of weeks, Matt invites a journalist to talk about some favorite recent food writing as well as their thoughts on the industry as a whole. Luke Fortney went from covering New York’s restaurant scene at Eater to contributing weekly to the terrific New York Times food newsletter ⁠Where to Eat⁠. In this episode, we talk about the...

Tadashi Ono spent nine years as executive chef of La Caravelle, one of America’'s great French restaurants—twice earning a three-star New York Times review—before walking away to cook the Japanese food he actually wanted to cook. Since then, he’s run Matsuri and Maison O; written four cookbooks with Harris Salat on Japanese hot pots, grilling, and comfort food; and opened Teruko , a sushi bar and...

Tadashi Ono spent nine years as executive chef of La Caravelle, one of America’'s great French restaurants—twice earning a three-star New York Times review—before walking away to cook the Japanese food he actually wanted to cook. Since then, he’s run Matsuri and Maison O; written four cookbooks with Harris Salat on Japanese hot pots, grilling, and comfort food; and opened Teruko, a sushi bar and J...

Rita Gigante is not your average food influencer. She’s a psychic medium and healer and the author of The Godfather’s Daughter , an autobiography about growing up as the daughter of notorious Genovese crime family boss Vincent “Chin” Gigante. Rita is passionate about creating videos that showcase the old-school Italian restaurants and food businesses of her childhood, creating a new generation of...

Rita Gigante is not your average food influencer. She’s a psychic medium and healer and the author of The Godfather’s Daughter, an autobiography about growing up as the daughter of notorious Genovese crime family boss Vincent “Chin” Gigante. Rita is passionate about creating videos that showcase the old-school Italian restaurants and food businesses of her childhood, creating a new generation of f...

Becca Millstein built Fishwife into one of the buzziest brands in food, turning a sleepy pantry category into something people actually want to talk about. This time, we didn’t talk to her in our New York City studio—we followed her to Santoña, Spain, to board boats, participate in an anchovy auction, and visit the processing plants where tins of fish get packed by hand. Welcome to our new series,...

Becca Millstein built Fishwife into one of the buzziest brands in food, turning a sleepy pantry category into something people actually want to talk about. This time, we didn’t talk to her in our New York City studio—we followed her to Santoña, Spain, to board boats, participate in an anchovy auction, and visit the processing plants where tins of fish get packed by hand. Welcome to our new series,...