This Is TASTE

Kenta Goto is a bartender and the owner and operator of two acclaimed cocktail bars: Bar Goto on the Lower East Side and Bar Goto Niban in Brooklyn. Born and raised in Tokyo, Goto moved to New York and worked at the lauded cocktail bar Pegu Club for seven years before opening his own bar. Now he’s sharing his considerable wisdom in a debut cookbook: The Goto Bartender’s Guide. Today on the show, we chat about developing his cocktail skills and his signature approach toward drinks and how home bartenders can do the same. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adrianna Adarme has been cooking out loud since 2011, when A Cozy Kitchen was just a bored-at-work blog. This fall, she’s releasing A Cozy Kitchen Cookbook—a terrific book built around not seasons or courses but moods. In this episode, Matt talks to Adrianna about her cooking style and growing her highly personal brand, online and off. And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting to them in the world of food including Melissa Clark’s The Big Book of Dinner is incredible. Melissa and Matt will be talking all about the book at Rizzoli Bookstore in NYC on November 15. Get your tickets. Aliza visits Umas Rockaway and Paschal’s at the Atlanta airport, and is liking Jeni’s Pumpkin with Brown Sugar Blondies ice cream. Speaking of Jeni Britton, Matt is way into Floura bars. Lastly, he will be in Los Angeles at the LA Chef Conference.  Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kwame Onwuachi—the chef behind Tatiana, Dōgon, and restaurants from Miami to Las Vegas—joins Matt in the studio for the first time. We get into his big idea for the CPG game, his pull toward Ethiopian cooking, and his three books, capped by All Hours, which is less a cookbook and more a statement about what he actually wants to cook every day. And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting to them in the world of food including Aliza recaps her trip to New Mexico with stops at El Chile Toreado, Frontier, El Ray Court, and Tune-Up Café. Matt thinks Bessou makes the best caramel corn and has a great late-summer meal at I Cavallini. He also read the Legs McNeil memoir, Resident Punk for a true blast from the past.  Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Danny Meyer built Union Square Hospitality Group on a promise: he’d never close a restaurant. Then he closed one, and it changed how he thinks and writes about leadership. Twenty years after the release of his influential book Setting the Table, Meyer returns with a terrific new memoir, What Could Possibly Go Right?, and he joins us to talk about failure, scaling culture across 700 restaurants, walking back his progressive no-tipping experiment, and what it feels like to hand the reins of his own company to someone else. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everybody loves Carla Hall. Carla Hall is a chef and TV host who has appeared on many of our favorite food programs over the years, from Bravo’s Top Chef to Fox’s Next Level Baker. Her latest cookbook is also her first baking book—Carla Bakes: Sweet, Savory, and From the Heart. Today on the show, Carla stops by the studio to chat about all things baking, and what makes this book so special. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mohamed Attia spent nearly a decade running a food cart in Times Square before he became the person fighting to change the law that made carts like his semilegal in the first place. As managing director of the Street Vendor Project, Attia helped lead the campaign that, this past January, finally broke a New York City vending permit cap that had been frozen since 1979. He talks with Matt about his own path from vendor to advocate, and we go over so many great carts to visit in New York City. The fifth annual Street Heroes gala takes place on Tuesday, October 6 at MoMA PS1. Get your tickets here. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olivia Tiedemann is a chef who began creating videos while working as a private chef in the Hamptons. Her signature deadpan delivery and no-nonsense techniques have won her millions of fans. Now she’s sharing her highly craveable recipes in a debut cookbook: Eat (Like) the Rich. Today on the show, Olivia talks about why everyone is fascinated by private chefs, making crab cakes for Martha Stewart, and more. And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting to them in the world of food including Matt visits Philadelphia with stops at Middle Child Clubhouse, the Southeast Asian Market in FDR Park, Supérette, and the newly opened Manna Bakery. Aliza stops by Cafe Kestrel and Sake Bar Asoko in NYC, and has high praise for the new Apollo Bagels bagel chips. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joey Scalabrino is the cofounder of Apollo Bagels, a new-school bagel shop rooted in old-world techniques with nine locations across New York City and Jersey. He started making bagels in the kitchen at Leo, the Williamsburg sourdough pizza restaurant, and built Apollo through thoughtful pop-ups, design, and collabs. Today on the show, we chat about building up Apollo Bagels, its recent mega-popular pop-up with Dean & DeLuca in Tokyo, and its brand-new bagel chips. Also on the show Aliza and Matt preview some exciting cookbooks from the busy fall season, including: The Kitchen I Came Home To Nixta Taqueria Presents: From Tacos to Tahdig Radicchio: A Celebration of the Beloved Italian Vegetable Fundamentals of Flavor Korean Soups East to East: Recipes and Stories from Mumbai to New York The Little Green Book of Chartreuse The Little Book of Olives Today We Are Cooking . . . Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Dana Brown was a fixture of Vanity Fair’s Oscar-party machine and Graydon Carter’s inner circle for more than two decades before writing it all down in his memoir, Dilettante. He returns to the studio with a new job: editor in chief of Caper, the scoop-driven media start-up applying a Puck-style power-and-money lens to restaurants, chefs, and the food business. In this episode, we talk about economics at The Grill, the Keith McNally legacy, and what’s good in the world of Caper. Featured on this episode: McNally Family Values [Caper] Where Did the Italians of Carroll Gardens Go? [Curbed] How Eater Lost Its Bite [Caper] ⁠There Is a Misconception that The Grill Is Absurdly Expensive⁠ [Feed Me]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ruth Reichl reviewed restaurants for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, ran the country’s most legendary food magazine, and wrote five memoirs about all the meals enjoyed and life lived. Today she’s doing it again on her wonderful Substack, La Briffe, unfiltered and endlessly curious. Recorded live at the Traverse City Food & Wine festival, Matt talks with Ruth about her University of Michigan years, her passion for memoir, and her take on where food criticism stands today. Also on the show, I have a great conversation with Martin Sorge, author of the terrific new book Great Bakes. Read Ruth’s savage New York Times review of the Box Tree restaurant from 1998. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meherwan Irani has been sharing wisdom about Indian street food since first appearing on this show in 2019. That would be vada pav’s genius, naan’s overratedness, and his mom’s three-lentil dhansak. Now it’s all in his debut cookbook, No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World, alongside the two decades’ journey of building Chai Pani, Botiwalla, and Spicewalla. In this episode, Matt catches up with his old friend (and recent India travel companion) about auntie holdbacks, striking a balance between tradition and invention, and what he means about his strong stance on naan. And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting them in the world of food including food in the movie “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” is really fun. Plus: check out the movie box office podcast, B.O. Boys, from our producer Clayton. Also: Matt returns to Traverse City, Michigan and visits Farm Club. He also drops by Penny in NYC for another amazing meal. Aliza has great rice rolls at Sun Hing Lung in Manhattan’s Chinatown (and check out the Chinatown Records live streams), and visits Conwell Coffee Hall in the Financial District. And speaking of coffee, Matt checks out Heist Coffee and its ¼ caffeinated glory. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ali Francis is an Australian writer and pastry chef living in Salt Lake City, Utah. She’s the author of the new book The Curious Lives of Vegetables: An Artful Exploration of the Wonderful World of Edible Plants, Their History, and Their Crucial Role in Our Future. It’s a must-read for produce lovers everywhere, with in-depth reporting and beautiful botanical illustrations that ensure you’ll never look at the grocery aisle or farmers’ market the same way again. Today on the show, Ali and I nerd out on all things vegetables. And it’s the return of Three Things, where Aliza and Matt discuss what’s interesting them in the world of food including Matt’s recent trip to Chicago where he visited Mi Tocaya Antojería, Feld, and Mindy’s Bakery. He was blown away by all three. Aliza checks out Elbow Bread’s hot dog pop-up, Chambers for terrific late-summer cooking, and coffee at The Mandarin in New York City. Subscribe: ⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices