Communal Table
103 episodes - English - Latest episode: 10 months ago - ★★★★★ - 105 ratingsHello beautiful people! Welcome to Food & Wine Pro's weekly Communal Table podcast. Chefs and restaurant workers take great care of everyone else, but often they need a little help themselves. Each week, Food & Wine’s senior editor Kat Kinsman talks with hospitality pros about how they manage their business, brain, and body for the long haul. Some of our very special guests include Samin Nosrat, Angie Mar, Seamus Mullen, David Chang, Pete Wells, and more. Subscribe now.
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Episodes
Communal Table Presents: Tinfoil Swans from Food & Wine
July 07, 2023 20:30 - 1 minuteFood & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a new series of intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting interviews with the biggest names in the culinary industry, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made them who they are today. Each week, you'll hear from icons and innovators like Guy Fieri, David Chang, Mash...
Nigella Lawson Talks Solitude, Imperfect Housekeeping, Squishy White Bread, and Listening to Your Food
April 17, 2021 03:28 - 1 hourLike many of us, Nigella Lawson has spent the last 13 months hunkered at home, in an endless cycle of cooking, eating, washing up (reluctantly), and doing it all again just hours later. Unlike the rest of us, she's adapted her practices into a glorious cookbook—called Cook, Eat, Repeat—that celebrates and elevates this cycle into something contemplative and pleasurable. The renowned author and TV star joined Communal Table for an intimate conversation about isolation, grief, keeping house, re...
Preeti Mistry Is Hanging Out with Puppets, Planning a More Inclusive Food Future
April 15, 2021 21:59 - 1 hourWe're living in a golden age of Preeti Mistry and the world is so much more delicious for it. The Juhu Beach Club chef, cookbook author, speaker, and podcaster (among other things) can currently be seen teaching kids and puppets alike about the marvelous universe of herbs and spices on the Netflix show Waffles and Mochi; heard on their new podcast Loading Dock Talks in conversation with food and justice activists; read on their super feisty and smart social media feeds; and channeled via thei...
Sam Fore Talks Feeding Restaurant Workers in Need, Therapy, and Tomato Pie
April 02, 2021 19:52 - 1 hourWhen chef Sam Fore sees something she can fix, she jumps in to help. As the restaurant industry was devastated by COVID-19, she joined The LEE Initiative to help make sure that workers were being fed—and help create a system where the whole community could benefit in the long term. That's just who she is as a person, but it wasn't until recently that she offered that kind of care to herself, in the form of starting therapy. In part two of this two-part conversation, Fore talks about the nitty...
Sam Fore Will Not Stay Silent, and That's a Very Good Thing
March 19, 2021 20:03 - 56 minutesWhen it comes to calling out cruddy behavior, chef Sam Fore has never been afraid to speak her mind. Growing up as a first-generation Sri Lankan American in North Carolina, she had a supportive community (and a mom who always warned her about how her mouth would get her in trouble—not that she listened) but outside of it, she began to question why the rules and standards were different for her than for her white peers. Fore's sense of justice and fearlessness has only strengthened over the ye...
Pinky Cole Talks About Entrepreneurship, Intentions, and Setting People Up for Success
March 12, 2021 15:23 - 1 hourPinky Cole has always known that she would lead an extraordinary life. As a girl growing up in East Baltimore, she wasn't sure what form that would take, but when her friends were outside playing, she was setting goals for herself, like "earn my first million by age 30." Which she did. Next goal—a billion by 40. She's got time. The restaurateur and philanthropist joined Communal Table from her secondary office in Atlanta—a.k.a. her car—to talk about the extraordinary growth of her Slutty Vega...
Adrian Lipscombe Talks Black Land Ownership, Texas Tribulations, and Studying Sake
March 05, 2021 17:00 - 1 hourWhen city planner and architect Adrian Lipscombe visited a cafe in La Crosse, Wisconsin for a business meeting, little did she know she'd end up moving her family up all the way from Austin, Texas, running the cafe herself, and revitalizing a whole section of the city. And if running a restaurant during a pandemic isn't a full-time-plus job, Lipscombe also developed an initiative—40 Acres and a Mule—to preserve, research and celebrate Black foodways and support Black land ownership, makes hun...
Matt Jennings Talks Sobriety, Pivots, Flextaurants, and How Chefs Can Evolve
February 26, 2021 18:40 - 1 hourThe day Matt Jennings woke up on his bathroom floor, he knew something had to change, or else he'd die. Five years later, the chef and cookbook author is sober, happy, healthy, and on a mission to help other people in the industry find their way forward—even if it looks nothing like they'd imagined. Jennings joined Communal Table to talk about the obsessions that drove him, what "chef" means now, his hopes for the future of restaurants, and why grocery stores matter so much. Full Heart Hospit...
Vinny Eng Talks Mutual Aid, Empathy, and the Art of Hugging Trees
February 20, 2021 15:07 - 1 hourThe day after Vinny Eng was named as one of Food & Wine's 2019 Somms of the Year, he said his thank yous for the accolade, then promptly announced that he was stepping away from the industry for a while to work on a political campaign. For those who know Vinny, this wasn't a surprise, because the industry veteran has always made it his business to act with intention, infusing every act of hospitality with an eye toward making the world a more equitable place. He joined Communal Table to talk ...
Anita Lo Talks Solo Cooking, Throwing Butter, and Constant Reinvention
February 11, 2021 02:47 - 1 hourLittle did she know at the time she was writing it, but Anita Lo's Solo: A Modern Cookbook for a Party of One became, for many, the ideal guide for this time in history. The 2001 Food & Wine Best New Chef and much-lauded chef, author, and TV personality joined Communal Table from her home on Long Island to talk about the ever-changing role of chefs, cooking for pleasure, coping in a tough kitchen, and the free online cooking classes she's teaching to celebrate the release of the film A Writer...
Claudette Zepeda Talks Cutting Through White Noise and Becoming the Leader She Needed to See
February 05, 2021 16:10 - 1 hourWhen Claudette Zepeda was at her most stressed-out, as she puts it, "my neck went away." Her shoulders were in a permanent state of hunch and she'd been advised at a new job to bring her "knives and anti-anxiety medication." But she learned along the way to advocate for herself, for people who'd always been marginalized in the world of food, and for the Mexican dishes that generations of her family held dear. The Top Chef alum and executive chef of the Alila Marea Beach Resort joined Food & W...
Norma Listman and Saqib Keval Talk Mole, Valuing Mexican Food, and What Restaurant Family Means
January 29, 2021 17:45 - 1 hourIt's hard to open a restaurant. It's indescribably stressful to have to open your restaurant four separate times, for reasons (earthquake, local government corruption, pandemic) out of your control. But Norma Listman and Saqib Keval believe in the vision of Masala Y Maiz, their Mexico City restaurant and co-op, so fiercely that they keep on working. They joined Communal Table for a fascinating conversation about recipes as documentation of a culture, the impact of white supremacy on food medi...
The Food & Wine Team Talks Dal and Roti, Sopping, Broiling, and Citrus
January 23, 2021 05:38 - 1 hourJanuary is a particularly cruel month. The days are short, the holidays past, and hey—we're still living in a freaking pandemic. But we've all got to find joy where we can, and this comes in the form of the recipes and stories we're running this month, celebrating the particular pleasure of sopping up stews and soups with bread, making perfect flank steak (and other things) under the broiler, and getting as much citrus into your life as physically possible. Plus: We're adding something pretty...
Carl Sobocinski Talks About Investing in People and Closing His Restaurants to Stop the Spread
January 15, 2021 16:37 - 59 minutesRestaurateurs live their lives by the numbers, and when Carl Sobocinski saw COVID-19 case rates racking up in Greenville, SC, he knew he had to take action. Even though it wasn't mandated by local or state law, he voluntarily closed down all but one of his restaurants for a period after the holidays in an effort to keep his team and his diners safe. It was a tough decision that carried a price tag, but for him, it was the right thing to do. He joined Communal Table for a discussion about the ...
Kiki Aranita Talks About Closing Her Restaurant, Collective Trauma, and Selling Sauce
January 08, 2021 18:17 - 1 hourA year ago, Kiki Aranita was in Hong Kong for a cousin's wedding when she heard the first rumblings about a virus that was highly contagious and beginning to spread. There's no way she could have known that just months later, she'd have to shut down her much-loved Philadelphia restaurant Poi Dog because of its impact. It was an agonizing decision, but the multi-talented chef, writer, and artist is finding purpose in the pivot with a line of condiments that are based in her Hawaii heritage, ma...
How to Holiday in Limbo
December 18, 2020 20:06 - 1 hourNo one on earth needs to be told that this is a holiday season unlike any other because we're all living it. If you're a listener of this podcast you are painfully aware of the kind of year it's been, and that no one quite knows the way forward. In this year, more than any other, joy, rituals, and traditions matter—especially if we can't be together to celebrate. In this episode, the Food & Wine team and friends joined forces to talk through some of the foods that keep them feeling warm and b...
Rocco DiSpirito Talks About Why Therapy Is a Lifesaver and How to Snap Back to Feeling Like a Chef
December 11, 2020 02:16 - 1 hourIn 1999, Food & Wine named Rocco DiSpirito as one of its Best New Chefs—a vote of confidence in the future of a brilliant young cook who earned the esteem of his peers as well as a rabid fanbase of diners captivated by the handsome fella who quickly became a staple of the gossip pages. Just a few years later at the height of his fame, DiSpirito walked away from the restaurant world, leaving colleagues and fans scratching their heads and spinning theories. DiSpirito shared his story with Food ...
Bryan Washington Talks About Showing Up, Growing Up, and Morning-After Omelets
December 03, 2020 19:12 - 1 hourBryan Washington's extraordinary new novel 'Memorial' shares the story of two men in love and at a crossroads in their four-year relationship, when some family dynamics shift and they have to reevaluate who they are in the world, and to one another. There's also a ton of great food on every other page. Washington joined Communal Table on a call from Houston, TX to talk about the care and feeding of loved ones, writing a place for himself in the contemporary fiction landscape (it helps when Ba...
The Food & Wine Kitchen Team Talks About What's on the Thanksgiving Table in 2020
November 12, 2020 14:00 - 1 hourThe holidays this year will look a lot different. With COVID-19 still raging across the country, celebrations will be smaller, sometimes huddled around a Zoom screen or FaceTime, but there are still things to celebrate. In a special episode of Communal Table, Food & Wine's Senior Food Editor Mary-Frances Heck, Food Editor Josh Miller, Associate Food Editor Kelsey Youngman, and longtime (we're talking since 1982!) Test Kitchen Deity David McCann gather around a virtual table to talk through th...
Vivian Howard Talks About Southernness, Pride, Pivots, and Politics
October 29, 2020 15:56 - 59 minutesIt took leaving home for Vivian Howard to appreciate where she'd come from. The chef, restaurateur, TV star, and author of the new cookbook This Will Make It Taste Good is the daughter of an Eastern North Carolina tobacco farmer, and everything she saw on TV told her that she shouldn't be especially proud of that, that southernness was somehow the butt of a joke. She moved away to New York City, started working in restaurants, and came to realize how special the food and culture of her birthp...
Timothy Hollingsworth Talks About Kitchen Intensity, Belonging, and Cooking for Your Mom
October 23, 2020 15:31 - 1 hourIn what feels like a different lifetime, The Final Table star and vaunted chef Timothy Hollingsworth sat down in the Food & Wine studio to talk about his path from dishwasher to chef de cuisine at The French Laundry to striking out on his own as a restaurateur (Otium LA, CJ Boyd's, and Freeplay LA)—as well as using food to connect with a parent who has dementia. So much has shifted since then as a result of the pandemic, but while circumstances may be vastly different, some lessons remain the...
Joe Yonan Talks About Beans and Being Seen
October 15, 2020 13:00 - 1 hourBefore COVID-19 brought life as we know it to a halt and people started hunkering down at home, stirring up comforting stews, Joe Yonan stopped by Food & Wine headquarters to talk about his gorgeous—and prescient—new cookbook, Cool Beans. The Washington Post food editor opened up about his decision to eliminate meat from his diet, how he decides what and whose stories to tell, and the effect that testing a bean cookbook has on a marriage. Buy Cool Beans https://www.amazon.com/Cool-Beans-Ultim...
Dale DeGroff and Julie Reiner Talk About the Cocktail Renaissance and What Comes Next
September 22, 2020 21:22 - 52 minutesIn July 2019, which seems like a lifetime ago, beverage pros from around the world converged on New Orleans for the annual Tales of the Cocktail conference—an annual event highlighting and celebrating the best of bar culture past, present, and future. Veteran bartenders Dale DeGroff and Julie Reiner have had something to do with every step of that, and together are a walking library of modern bar culture. As DeGroff's classic book is being reissued some 18 years after its original publishing ...
Kelly Fields Talks About Writing a Cookbook, Weathering Storms, and Accepting Help
September 08, 2020 19:54 - 1 hourFor years, people had been poking at Kelly Fields to write a cookbook, but she resisted. She'd been perfecting her craft as a pastry chef in some of New Orleans' most lauded restaurants, and expanded her scope into the savory realm at the wildly successful Willa Jean, winning a James Beard Award in the process. But she still doubted herself, wondering what worth her voice and expertise had in the world—especially since so many restaurant kitchens notoriously devalue the work of women. It's ta...
Eric Rivera Talks About Pivoting, Selling Plants, and Planning Ahead
September 04, 2020 20:38 - 1 hourWhen COVID-19 sent the hospitality industry into a tailspin, Eric Rivera had already charted a course to the next destination. His restaurant, Addo, has always been a venue for innovations both cultural and culinary, so a sudden shutdown of indoor dining was a chance to explore new ways of serving their customers and their community. First items on the menu: caring for the wellbeing of workers, and making sure the most vulnerable people are fed. Rivera joined Food & Wine from Seattle to talk ...
The Communal Table Podcast: Erick Williams
August 25, 2020 04:00 - 1 hourWhen Erick Williams began working in restaurants, it was a means to an end. The Chicago native believed the best way he could serve his community would be through rehabbing neglected buildings in his neighborhood, and he was just looking for a way to fund that. But over the next two and a half decades, Williams came to realize he had the skills, temperament, and vision to build a foundation for a better, more equitable industry for all. Williams joined Food & Wine for an unfiltered and inspir...
The Communal Table Podcast: Jenny Dorsey
July 29, 2020 14:00 - 1 hourWhen Jenny Dorsey was working in the fashion world at the start of her career she found herself looking at the people above her and realizing it wasn't the life she wanted for herself. Subsequent culinary and business school taught her a lot about what she really valued—and also where she felt welcome and included. Since then, she's used food as a means to explore vulnerability, identity, and connection, and also a way to have some necessary and often uncomfortable conversations. Dorsey joine...
Restaurant Lawyer Jasmine Moy Talks About Reopening, Racism, and Rent
July 22, 2020 14:00 - 1 hourIt feels like a lifetime ago that restaurant lawyer Jasmine Moy sat for a conversation about what people need to know before they open a restaurant. Public life has changed in almost unfathomable ways since that podcast in May, 2019, with the spread of COVID-19 and the overdue national reckoning on police brutality and systemic racism that was sparked by the murder of George Floyd. Restaurants owners and their employees have weathered a catastrophic loss of income, convoluted governmental sup...
Justin Burke Talks About Inclusive Spaces, Being a Queer Single Dad, and Baking As Activism
June 22, 2020 15:51 - 1 hourJustin Burke is renowned for his "modern gramma" style of baking, but is perhaps just as appreciated for the inclusive spaces and community he creates wherever he goes. In the weeks before the pandemic shut down the world, Burke—who makes his home in North Carolina—sat down at Food & Wine HQ to talk about finding his home in restaurants, teaching his grandmother's recipes to his young son, and why it's so important to represent all kinds of families on the pages and covers of cookbooks. Justi...
The Communal Table Podcast: Devita Davison
June 02, 2020 01:00 - 1 hourIn her work as the Executive Director for FoodLab Detroit, Devita Davison has been laser-focused on making sure that residents of her beloved city have access to and equity in the systems that bring healthy food to their tables. In the era of COVID-19, with Black and brown people bearing the brunt of the illness, this public scrutiny and solution seeking is more important than ever. Davison took the time to sit down with Food & Wine Senior Editor Kat Kinsman to talk about why she uses the ter...
The Communal Table Podcast: Romy Gill
May 29, 2020 00:45 - 1 hourRomy Gill was getting ready to sell her jewelry to finance her first restaurant. As an immigrant to England from India—and a woman—she was finding it very difficult to get a bank loan, but they didn't know Romy Gill. After a BBC feature, she not only got the loan to open Romy's Kitchen, but went on to become a frequent and beloved presence on the radio and TV throughout the UK, write a stunning new cookbook, Zaika, on vegan Indian cooking, and become a mentor to people in the industry who hav...
Paola Velez Talks About the Art and Pleasure of Being an Empathetic Leader
May 22, 2020 15:00 - 1 hourPaola Velez was listening to the James Beard Award finalist announcements hoping for the chance to cheer on some friends and colleagues. She was gobsmacked to hear her own name called out in the Rising Star Pastry Chef category. No one else was surprised. The Kith/Kin dessert master is revered and adored not just for her culinary chops, but also for her thoughtful, forward-thinking, and generous leadership—every day, but especially in times of crisis. Velez spoke with Food & Wine Senior Edito...
How Restaurant Editor Khushbu Shah Picked Food & Wine's Best New Chefs 2020
May 13, 2020 13:38 - 1 hourFor months, Food & Wine's Restaurant Editor Khushbu Shah spent every waking (and sleeping) second scouting out restaurants across the United States and Puerto Rico to assemble the 2020 class of Best New Chefs. Just a very short time after her final flight, restaurants all over the country closed their doors—some temporarily and some permanently—as social distancing regulations set in and the coronavirus pandemic threatened the lives and livelihood of millions of hospitality workers. On the da...
The Joy of Cooking Is Here for You
May 07, 2020 21:41 - 1 hourThere's a good chance that The Joy of Cooking is somewhere in your orbit, whether it's a vintage edition handed down through your family, a copy bestowed upon you when you moved away from home, or even the newest version that came out at the end of 2019. What many people may not realize is that JOY has been a family enterprise since Irma Rombauer published the first edition in 1931. Now, with more people cooking at home than ever before, it's the perfect time to get to know Rombauer's great-g...
Trigg Brown Talks About Taking Care of Vulnerable Workers
April 28, 2020 13:52 - 48 minutesWhen it became evident that the COVID-19 pandemic was going to hit New York, Trigg Brown had some tough decisions to make. As the chef-partner of Win-Son and Win-Son Bakery in Brooklyn, he was listening closely for guidance from authorities, but it was slow in coming and he did what he thought was best for his team—including setting up a fund to protect people who were ineligible for help from the government. Brown took time from his intense schedule of prepping for delivery service and being...
Ellen Yin and Gia Vecchio Talk About a New Mental Health Resource for the Industry
April 21, 2020 22:00 - 33 minutesEven before COVID-19 laid waste to the industry, mental health and addiction were issues that disproportionately affected hospitality workers. Now with a staggering segment of the population laid off and most people isolated from the routine and people they relied on, things are more dire than ever before. After the overdose of one of her employees soon after the pandemic struck, Ellen Yin of the High Street Hospitality Group joined forces with Gia Vecchio of Foxglove Communications and A Bet...
Rachael Ray Won't Rest Until Everyone—and Their Pets—Is Fed
April 13, 2020 04:00 - 48 minutesSome people are just called to a life of service, and Rachael Ray gratefully counts herself among them. When the coronavirus pandemic swept the nation, she didn't have to think twice. She built charity into her business from the very beginning so that her brand would financially support the care and feeding of the people who need it most—as well as the animals who are keeping so many of us from capsizing right now. Food & Wine Senior Editor Kat Kinsman spoke with Ray about how her non-profit ...
Kwame Onwuachi Talks About Restaurant Recovery and Representing Inaudible People
April 10, 2020 13:35 - 37 minutesOn a recent press call with the Independent Restaurant Coalition, Bronx-raised chef Kwame Onwuachi pointed out the painful truth that a tiger at the Bronx Zoo was able to get a COVID-19 test, and yet the human beings in his home borough don't have access to that care and are getting sick and dying at a rate much higher than those in Manhattan. The 2019 Best New Chef spoke with Food & Wine Senior Editor Kat Kinsman about the work the IRC is doing to save restaurants, what he is doing to stay a...
Hospitality Veteran John Winterman Talks About Opening a Restaurant During a Pandemic
April 08, 2020 20:14 - 43 minutesJohn Winterman got fired from his first restaurant job in 1986, and he's been in love with the industry ever since. He honed his appetite for fine dining under the stewardship of Charlie Trotter and Gary Danko, ascended the ranks in Daniel Boulud's empire to become maitre d' at the flagship Daniel, then joined forces with Drew Nieporent's Myriad Restaurant Group to open the 2015 James Beard Best New Restaurant Award-winning Batard as managing partner. Francie—Winterman's first independent ven...
Edward Lee Talks About Making a Pivot and Feeding His Community
March 30, 2020 23:22 - 26 minutesLouisville-based chef Edward Lee is the kind of person who sees a community in crisis and doesn't think twice—he steps in and figures out a way to keep people fed. When the government furloughed workers, he rallied the people around him to make meals for those who were suddenly without a paycheck. Through his charity, The LEE Initiative, he's set up mentorship and education programs for women and young people interested in the culinary arts. Now with the coronavirus pandemic shuttering restau...
Everything Restaurants Need to Know About Dealing with Their Landlord
March 27, 2020 20:02 - 32 minutesIt's nearly the first of the month and for most businesses (and people) the rent is due. But what happens if you're a restaurant owner who has had to scale back or shut down entirely due to coronavirus? Can you just not pay, or is there anything the government is working on to help? Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman happens to be responsibly socially distancing alongside an expert on the matter: her husband Douglas Wagner, who is a 25-year veteran of the New York City real estate industry...
Angie Mar Talks About Grief, Getting Creative, and Pushing Through
March 26, 2020 13:19 - 41 minutesAngie Mar arrived back in New York City from a stint cooking in London, and found a restaurant landscape completely changed. After a painful period of self quarantine for the safety of the people around her, she put on her game face, went to her restaurant, and made some tough but necessary decisions to ensure a future for the business, and the financial stability of her team. The Beatrice Inn is known and lauded as a luxurious, over-the-top, and spendy place where the atmosphere is as much a...
Steve Palmer Talks About Resources for Maintaining Sobriety in a Crisis
March 23, 2020 20:43 - 24 minutesWhen Steve Palmer and Mickey Bakst started Ben's Friends, they had no idea that it would be the force that it is today. What began as an industry-specific recovery meeting in Charleston, SC has since transformed into a national lifeline for chefs, servers, bartenders, and other hospitality workers trying to achieve and maintain sobriety in an industry that often celebrates and enables excess and masochism. Though the meetings until now have been held weekly and face-to-face in the cities that...
Ming Tsai Talks About the Fears Restaurant Workers Face and Actions to Take
March 20, 2020 20:47 - 39 minutesMing Tsai is one of the best-known chefs in America, but that doesn't insulate him from the onslaught of challenges and unknowns that the restaurant industry is facing right now. Rather, he's had to take quick action to take care of his employees and community—especially the most vulnerable people—and knows he can't do it alone. Tsai spoke with Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman over the phone to talk about the actions we all need to take, the importance of lobbying our elected officials, ...
How to Use Your Voice and Ask for Help
March 18, 2020 22:37 - 20 minutesRestaurant workers are usually the last people to ask for help because they're too busy serving others. On today's Communal Table podcast, as COVID-19 spreads across the country, Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman shares resources and coping strategies for chefs, servers, bartenders, and other hospitality people who are fighting for their lives and the industry they love and rely on. Matt Jennings: It's Time to Demand Government Action to Save the Restaurant Industry https://www.foodandwi...
Restaurant Workers and Owners Scramble to Figure Out Next Steps As Coronavirus Spreads
March 16, 2020 22:26 - 46 minutesAs COVID-19 spreads across the country, restaurant workers and owners are in uncharted waters trying to figure out how to take care of their employees, stay in business, and feed their community. Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman spoke by phone from her home in Brooklyn with Salem, MA pastry chef and Industry United co-founder Kate Holowchik and Amanda Toups, co-owner of Toups' Meatery in New Orleans about how the industry is coming together in these trying times, and what they see for th...
Anxiety, Coronavirus, and Making Sure Your Local Restaurants Stay in Business
March 13, 2020 22:52 - 59 minutesDuring times of crisis, restaurants are there for us. They're where we celebrate, gather, catch-up, connect, and nourish ourselves body, mind, and spirit. At this unprecedented and uncertain moment when people are told to socially isolate because of coronavirus, many of them are in danger of shutting down for good. Food & Wine senior editor Kat Kinsman spoke by phone from her home in Brooklyn with Houston chefs Chris Shepherd and Ryan Lachaine, NYC chef Amanda Cohen, and No Kid Hungry's Natio...
Jay Rayner Talks About Restaurant Criticism, Coronavirus, and Confronting His Own Mortality
March 12, 2020 21:49 - 1 hourIn addition to writing books, playing gigs as a professional musician, hosting podcasts, performing one-man shows, and appearing on TV shows like Masterchef and Top Chef, Jay Rayner has served the last 20 years as restaurant critic for The Guardian. The question he has received with extreme regularity: "What would you eat for your last meal?" Rayner made it his business to contemplate that question, and embarked on an intercontinental journey to explore the foods that brought him the most ple...
Sarah Robbins Talks Vulnerability, Celebrities and What the Military Taught Her About Hospitality
March 05, 2020 21:59 - 1 hourWhether you're away from home for business or pleasure, you're in a vulnerable spot when you stay in a hotel, away from your normal patterns and dependent on other people. Sarah Robbins knew hospitality was her calling, got an ROTC scholarship to put herself through school to learn all about it, and has spent her entire career finding ways to make restaurant and hotel guests—and the people who work in them—feel taken care of. Robbins, now the COO of 21c Museum Hotels, sat down (fittingly enou...
Emma Bengtsson Talks About Open Kitchens and (Reluctantly) Learning to Sit Still
February 27, 2020 16:37 - 1 hourEmma Bengtsson has always been stubborn and driven, and in many ways, it's served her well. Growing up as an elite athlete, she developed the intense discipline it took to rise to the top, and when she started working in kitchens, the same rules applied. She worked through the often intense pain of a spinal injury for many years, rarely asking for help and steadily getting worse. When her Michelin-starred restaurant Aquavit closed for renovation this past summer, she finally had surgery. She ...