The Taste Podcast

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 spent in some of the most stressful environments,” McGarry admits. The journey is all documented in a new film, Chef Flynn, and we get into McGarry’s many travels and eventual opening in NYC—the most competitive and ruthlessly cutthroat restaurant city in America. There’s a fearlessness in McGarry that’s extraordinary. Also on this episode, we get to catch up with Steven Hall, a longtime NYC restaurant publicist and consultant. He tells some old war stories about NYC dining in the 1980s (he almost poisoned Mike Nichols) an

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 more than 10 years, or from serving leisurely drinks and snacks (like her famous take on James Beard’s raw-onion sandwich) at Expatriate, the restaurant across the street. But slowing down and enjoying things is important to her, whether it’s the meals she eats with her kitchen staff or the time she spends on floral design at her new plant shop, Colibri. On this episode, we talked about what’s changed in Portland since she opened her first restaurant, what’s changing in restaurant work culture, and what cooking and flower

As Max Ng tells it, his start at Momofuku—where he has risen to executive chef at the restaurant group’s New York City flagship, Ssam Bar—began when he showed up, as a young CIA student, with a backpack, knives, and a chef coat. Unannounced. On a busy Saturday afternoon. Asking for a “trail”—restaurant parlance for an unpaid tryout. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, this is a fucking Saturday and you are demanding a trail,” Max, laughing, recalls a cook telling him. “Come back in a week.” Ng did return, and has never left, and I wanted to talk to him this week about his experience working for David Chang and his time living in the United States far from his home in Singapore. It was so good to get to know this rising star in the chef world. Also on the show we have the editors of influential coffee blog Sprudge, Zachary Carlsen and Jordan Michelman. During a live taping at the Counter Culture Training Center in New York, they discuss their new book, The New Rules of Coffee. This episode is sponsored by Joule by C

London chef and author Yotam Ottolenghi puts out cookbooks that meet at the intersection of cool and practical—with a recipe development process that is part Warhol Factory, part Bon Appétit Test Kitchen, and pure Ottolenghi. After tackling baking with his last book (Sweet), and before that putting Israeli cooking on the international stage (Jerusalem), he most recently tackled the concept of simplicity—and how Simple (the book’s title and mission statement) means something different to all home cooks. You mean a 30-minute simple meal isn’t exactly simple for everybody single person attempting to make it? What a notion! Also on this episode, we speak with Sarah Gavigan, the talented chef and author of a new cookbook: Ramen Otaku. The book promises to guide readers through the totally worthwhile process of making bowls of ramen at home. The pressure cooker is your friend! It’s a great read. This episode is sponsored by Joule by ChefSteps.

You may know her from her New York Times column, On Dessert, or you may know her from trying one of her unbelievably chocolaty, world-famous World Peace Cookies at a party that one time. But before Dorie Greenspan was famous for her cakes and shortbreads, she was an early pioneer of food television and a coconspirator (and coauthor) with Julia Child. On this episode, Anna catches up with Dorie to talk about her new book, Everyday Dorie, and ask about what she actually does cook every day. We also talk about why gooey, underbaked cookies’ days are numbered but lava cake is here to stay. Later on the show, Anna chats with Lisa Ludwinski, the owner of Detroit’s Sister Pie bakery and the author of the new cookbook Sister Pie. We talk about the evolving Detroit food scene, malted milk powder, and why making pie crust is easier than people think.

Let’s get this out of the way first. Jeremiah Stone and Fabian Von Hauske are sweet dudes: extremely hardworking, generous, with lots and lots and lots of friends in the food world—in the United States, France, Mexico, and the darkest corners of the Noma fermentation lab (all spots the pair have worked in their short and ambitious careers). They own a trio of influential restaurants on New York’s Lower East Side: Contra, Wildair, and the newly reopened Una Pizza Napoletana. And they have just released their first cookbook, A Very Serious Cookbook (there’s a wink in there somewhere). On the show we dive into their story (how they met in a chat room that may or may not be branded America Online) and explore how they organized their very serious cookbook into very unique chapters. Plus, Jeremiah Stone in praise of Maryland blue crabs: “It’s in your blood when you grow up around Washington, D.C.” Also on the show, we talk with Sohui Kim, the chef behind Brooklyn's Insa and the Good Fork, as well as the author of

There isn’t a restaurant in New York City that’s having a bigger and brighter fall 2018 than Atomix. It’s supremely ambitious, highly polished, and uncompromisingly Korean. We love it! After it got rock-solid reviews in Eater, The Washington Post, and New York, the New York Times critic Pete Wells last week dropped 3 stars on the restaurant, anointing it as one of the city’s top tasting menus. Period. “The way the Parks put Korean culture in the foreground recalls the early days of the Four Seasons,” writes Wells. The Parks here are Ellia and Junghyun Park, and we got to talk to them about the art of banchan, the distinct aesthetics they maintain in both of their spaces, and what Americans need to know most about Korean cooking in general. Later on the episode, Matt talks to chef Daniel Holzman in our ongoing series, 100 Questions for My Friend the Chef. This time we're talking about XO Sauce.

Stay calm and…just act like Eric Ripert. Young cooks, are you listening? Ripert, a celebrated chef and TV personality, is a balancing force in this trash-fire age. And he’s also just a really good interview, as we find out. He joins the podcast to talk about communication. How one at the top of the kitchen chain needn’t yell to get his point across. “I don’t believe the pilots in the plane are having a screaming match,” he observes. True. We also discuss the Michelin stars at his restaurant, Le Bernardin, and how he finds out if he still has them. (He’s had the maximum three stars since the guide launched in New York City). And we talk about his love of Korean food and culture—from the late-night partying to the vegetarian temple style of cooking that aligns with the Buddhist religion that is so important to the chef. He loves it all, and we remember a trip we took to Seoul a couple years back. Also on the program, we ask Smitten Kitchen’s Deb Perelman which of her favorite NYC restaurant dishes has she been

Just imagine: It’s the tail end of a dinner party you just cooked for, you’re dangerously full of food, and you realize you made about three times too much food. What are you going to do with that half-eaten plate of lukewarm crab toasts? If Julia Turshen had anything to say about it, you’re going to throw them in the refrigerator until tomorrow night, when you’re going to pulverize them to bits and turn them into buttery crab cakes for dinner. Turshen’s new book, Now & Again, thinks about leftovers not as inevitable detritus of entertaining, but as ingredients themselves that you can mix up and have fun with. On this episode, we talk about some of these party (and postparty) tricks, getting her start working with Gwyneth Paltrow, and why she decided to start Equity at the Table, a database of food professionals in the POC and LGBTQ community. Later on the episode, Matt talks to chef Daniel Holzman in their ongoing series, 100 Questions for My Friend the Chef. This time they’re talking about MSG and how to co

You might know him from the Eat column in The New York Times, for which he went into dozens of restaurants, home kitchens, and church basements to report on some of the untold food stories from New York’s many immigrant communities. Or you might know him as the voice you hear when you tune into The Splendid Table, interviewing everyone from activist Cecile Richards to chef Jacques Pépin. But I was especially excited to talk to Francis Lam about his work as a book editor at Clarkson Potter, collaborating and conspiring with hilarious, colorful personalities like Christina Tosi, Tyler Kord, and Chrissy Teigen. In this episode, Francis talks about why he thinks it’s important as an editor to let your authors be a little bit weird. We also look back on some of his writing for the Times and talk about why he misses reporting so much more than he misses writing. Oh, and he tells the story of the time he hung out with Chrissy Teigen’s mom and she wouldn’t stop feeding him. Also on this episode, Matt catches up with

Christina Tosi is a chef, TV personality, Milk Bar CEO and CCCO (Chief Compost Cookie Officer), and the author of a new cookbook, All About Cake. And indeed, during this lively episode taped live in front of a packed house at our offices at Penguin Random House, we talk about cake. Like, we get her hot take on what is up with the addictive boxed yellow cake flavor? Which great American classic cake would she eff, marry, and kill? We also find out if the kids of MasterChef Junior really make all that food. Plus, we get some memories from the Tosi childhood: Otis Spunkmeyer, Orange Julius, and bowl cuts at the mall. It's all in here. Also on the show I get to ask my buddy chef Daniel Holzman a burning question for our column 100 Questions For My Friend the Chef. It involves what he calls the “fertile crescent of pizza”—which may or may not be in Italy.

Mike Solomonov planted his flag in Philadelphia more than a decade ago with the groundbreaking Israeli-American restaurant Zahav, and people went nuts. Two words: pomegranate lamb. He’s since won many awards, opened restaurants focusing on Israeli staples hummus and falafel, and essentially put Israeli cuisine in the American zeitgeist, sitting right next to Italian and Mexican. He’s the author of several books, including the new Israeli Soul: Easy, Essential, Delicious. In this fun and wide-ranging conversation, we talk about Israel’s major food groups—falafel, pita, sabich, and schnitzel—and dive into the history of the often-overlooked Ashkenazi food traditions in Israel. We swap stories about some of our favorite Tel Aviv and Jerusalem restaurants, and Mike shares the details of his five-minute hummus recipe—which is accurately called a “medium step forward for mankind.” And his dad used to own Subway restaurants! This is a cool fact. We discuss how this may have just informed the way he looks at his grow

Daniela Soto-Innes is the chef-partner at two New York baby institutions, Cosme and Atla. These young and progressive restaurants—a modern Mexican cantina featuring supremely delicious tortillas and corn meringue firmly supplanted in my dessert hall of fame, and a Mexican/Latin all-day café—are reshaping the way the city thinks about “Mexican food” writ large. Soto-Innes, winner of the prestigious James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year award in 2016, was born in Mexico City and raised in Houston, where she worked in kitchens before linking up with Enrique Olvera, and later partnering on the NYC restaurants. It’s a colorful conversation. I ask her about the ashwagandha root popping up on her IG feed. About her Mexican roots, and the regionality of Mexican cuisine—the vanilla of Veracruz and the wines of Ensenada—and the high percentage of women who make up her kitchen workforce. “It’s just the way it worked out; we hire nice people,” she says of her staff. Also on the show is Michael Harlan Turkel

Deuki Hong is a San Francisco–based chef and restaurant-empire-builder in the making. He’s also the coauthor of Koreatown: A Cookbook. Here he catches up with his longtime collaborator for a wide-ranging conversation. They hadn’t seen each other in a minute! They discuss the exciting state of Korean cooking in America—and how it’s evolved significantly since the book’s release in early 2016. They also discuss Deuki’s first trip back to Korea since he was born. He covered the Olympics for the Today show, and, as he tells Matt, “It broke everything for me, in a good way. I realized I know nothing about Korean food.” Untrue, but the trip was an amazing revelation for the young chef. Also on the program is Jordana Rothman, restaurant editor of Food and Wine. She and Matt go back a long way, and they discuss the shifts in covering restaurants in the food media world over the past decade. She also discusses the exciting things happening in the restaurant world in lesser-covered cities like Detroit and St. Louis, as

Natasha Pickowicz is the super talented pastry chef at New York City restaurants Flora Bar and Café Altro Paradiso, where fans (and oh, does she have fans) have been impressed with her ambitious cooking. Her dessert style? Italian-ish and simple-ish and generally not overpoweringly sweet. But before she was running the show in NYC kitchens, she worked as a journalist, writing about food and music mostly, in Montreal. She served as a Canadian pizza correspondent for Serious Eats and has a unique take on the relationship between professional chefs and the media. Here she talks about a crazy tryout she once had for a job and what she actually makes for dinner at home once her long day is over (she cooks at home regularly, slightly atypical for a professional). Also on the program, EyeSwoon creator Athena Calderone and Food52’s Kristen Miglore talk about their recent books, Cook Beautiful and Genius Desserts.

Is there an introduction needed here? Over her groundbreaking career, Ruth Reichl has served as the food editor of the Los Angeles Times, the restaurant critic of the New York Times, and the editor in chief of the legendary magazine Gourmet. She’s written juicy memoirs, mentored a generation of writers and editors, and still writes with regularity, curiosity, and a love for real journalism. She also whispers in beautiful character-count limits on Twitter if you haven’t checked that out. So what did we talk about? Reichl discusses editing the The Best American Food Writing 2018, grades the current New York Timesrestaurant critics, reflects on her time at the Los Angeles Times, when she would publish 60 pages a week and oversaw 20 full-time employees (food-media glory days!), discusses the terrible economic reality facing restaurants, and remembers her first cookbook, published in 1972. She also might surprise some with her take on journalism in the #MeToo era. Also on this episode, Smitten Kitchen’s Deb Perelm

Brooks Headley does not take vacations, read Yelp reviews, or make his burgers with beef. The chef-owner of New York City’s Superiority Burger and author of the new Superiority Burger Cookbook joined us for the latest episode to talk about vegetarian cooking, from fake meats to savory zucchini sludges that are cooked for hours. We talked about the advantages and disadvantages of cooking at a restaurant small enough to see the facial expressions of diners reacting to the food, and the inevitable occasional shock when an unsuspecting carnivore bites into a burger and finds there’s no meat inside. Also in this episode, we talked vegan cooking with Chloe Coscarelli, the author of Chloe Flavor.

The Netflix culinary travel series Somebody Feed Phil proves that food television can be both accessible and interesting. Populist and high-brow. Much of the show’s success is credited to its host, the delightful human being Phil Rosenthal. The creator and showrunner of sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, Rosenthal made a few bucks on the series and could have basically retired and traveled the world. Instead, the 58-year-old brings a camera along on travels around the world (along with his scene-stealing brother Richard) to destinations like Lisbon, Mexico City, and Tel Aviv. All pretension is left at baggage claim, which is why we love this show so much. Rosenthal joins us for this episode to talk about the booming Los Angeles restaurant scene, the best craft service in Hollywood, and where he’s traveling next season. Also in this episode, Games of Thrones author George R. R. Martin joins us to talk about the pizza scene in New York City. Dude has some opinions!

For six years, Angela Dimayuga served as the creative nerve center of New York City’s Mission Chinese Food, rising to executive chef and winning fans with her inventive culinary takes (shiso and umeboshi butter fried rice is in the fried rice hall of fame) and contagious free spirit. But in late 2017 she walked away from Mission to branch out on her own. She participated in a series of fundraising pop-ups, including an ACLU benefit at Art Basel in Miami, where she linked up with the guy running hotel and hospitality group Standard International. Now, nearly a year later, she’s been named the group’s creative director of food and culture and is determined to shake shit up. We find out about her big ideas (Asian bears in space!) in this colorful interview. Also in this episode, Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen answers a reader question: What is your favorite non-photogenic food?

For years, Peter Meehan was a mystery. As the New York Times’s "$25 and Under" columnist in the early 2000’s, he dined anonymously everywhere from Roberta’s to Momofuku Noodle Bar to hidden gems like Uminoie in the East Village. As an author of cookbooks and while helping run the show at Lucky Peach magazine (RIP), he avoided cameras out of some combination of annoyance and muscle memory. We caught up with him to discuss his upcoming barbecue cookbook, the terror of doing food TV, and the legacy (and life after) Lucky Peach. Later on the episode, we talked to Julia Sherman, the author of Salad for President, about the unexpected intersections between art and salad.