Culinary Characters Unlocked

Mesmerized by the chefs see saw on TV, chef Melissa Perello fell in love with cooking as a child. Her mom still talks about the leg of lamb she made from a cooking show recipe when she was 8 years old! After attending the Culinary Institute of America, she rose through the ranks of fine dining in San Francisco, even winning a Michelin star, before deciding great food could be comfortable, approachable, and casual. And she proves it every day at her own restaurants, Frances and Octavia. She even invented bacon beignets.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Their Washington state restaurant boasts of doing farm to table since 1986 and is credited with helping define Pacific Northwest Cuisine. It even has its own farm, and what they don’t grow there they get from a network of trusted local producers and foragers. When we talked in early Spring their remarkable seasonal tasting menu was spotlighting local specialties ranging from sturgeon to polenta to a Walla Walla sweet onion tart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Ana Sortun knew as a teenager that she wanted to cook. At 16 she decided to move to France for culinary school. It changed her life. But so did another trip many years later, to Turkey, where she found her true culinary passion. At her Boston area restaurants, she is cooking up the dishes she has found in more than 30 trips to Turkey, as well as some other flavors of the Mediterranean. And she’s won a James Beard award as Best Chef Northeast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Beard Award winning chef and restaurateur Spike Gjerde has totally re-thought the way restaurants ought to be feeding us. He’s obsessed with doing things his way, building a restaurant group to pursue that passion. And by the way, his food is terrific. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kari Lauritzen and Sonya Sanford met and became best friends when both were private chefs in Los Angeles. Now they are coaxing non-cooks into the kitchen and teaching home cooks how to make fabulous meals (and enjoy doing it) on their podcast Food Friends. And in this conversation, they offer some great tips for upping anyone’s home cooking game.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Travis Herbert began cooking with his grandmother as a child, but it was sharing a chairlift with a chef at a Utah ski resort that got him into the business. Now he’s got two restaurants at the center of a culinary boom in Salt Lake City, serving up bold flavors and unique dishes—like elk osso buco.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Star Maye has had a remarkable rise through the culinary world. Born in a small Alabama town, this self-described “black, queer single mother” went from a small Alabama town to the U.S. Navy, to prison, where she found a mentor who pointed her to the culinary world, to becoming a celebrated executive chef in Nashville and a champion on the Food Network show Chopped. Her creative southern cooking is groundbreaking, rooted in the concept of food from as close to the soil as possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Andrew Black got his first cooking job in his native Jamaica in his teens. That began a stellar career that took him to the Ritz in Paris and the Peabody in Memphis. When he was offered a job in Oklahoma City he sneered, “Where the hell is that?” But he checked it out, liked what he found, and has been at the forefront of a culinary revolution there. Chef Black now owns three restaurants in OKC, including the celebrated Grey Sweater, which he says is built on imagination to take diners on a journey of memorable moments, and where he won the 2023 James Beard award as Best Chef Southwest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a child, Chef Renee Erickson would go salmon fishing with her father. And fruits and vegetables came from the family garden. She’s taken that grounding in the fabulous foods of the Pacific Northwest and built a celebrated group of Seattle restaurants that serve up a range of cuisines, heavy on local seafood. She bought her first restaurant at the age of 25, she’s seen all the ups and downs of the restaurant business, and in this conversation, she is brutally candid about the financial challenges facing her and other restaurateurs in today’s tough economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Zak Baker cooks what he calls Midwest Italian and it's unlike anything most folks have ever had before. It began when he first went to Italy and was thrilled by the food, but also surprised. He'd never had anything like it at any Italian restaurant he'd visited in America. He returned to cook in Italy again and again. And that’s what inspires him at his Milwaukee restaurant Ca'Lucchenzo, where he’s serving dishes created with traditional Italian techniques and flavors, but using the best ingredients of the Midwest. It got him named a 2026 James Beard Awards finalist.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Kathy Fang pretty grew up in her parents’ legendary San Francisco Chinese restaurant, House of Nanking. She tried a career in business but couldn’t escape the pull of the restaurant world. So she returned to her hometown and partnered with her father to open another restaurant, Fang, where she is creating innovative dishes inspired by her childhood favorites, but pushing the traditional envelope of Chinese-American cooking that brings to mind a range of non-traditional influences, even the taste of an In-N-Out burger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When he was in his teens, Zach Midgett found a refuge from problems at home by working in a suburban Philadelphia restaurant. He started as a dishwasher, fell in love with kitchen life, soon was promoted to cook on the line, and rose to the top of the culinary world when he was hired at legendary chef Thomas Keller’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant in northern California, The French Laundry, where he worked his way up to sous chef.  Then, he made a move many in the food world might find inexplicable—he relocated to Lincoln, Nebraska where, as Executive Chef at Casa Bovina restaurant, he is bringing exquisite, elevated dining to a place where he says one of the challenges is convincing local diners to try something new. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this special bonus episode, we revisit great conversations with three chefs who just won James Beard awards. Nok Suntaranon’s Thai restaurant Kalaya won 2026 Outstanding Restaurant. Alinea veteran Dave Beran was named Best Chef California for what he’s doing at his L.A. restaurant Seline, and Sarah Thompson won Best Chef Southwest for her cooking at coastal Mexican restaurant Casa Playa in Las Vegas.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Lonie Murdock learned to cook from her Jamaican grandmother. After years in other professions, she opened a Caribbean popup in Toronto, turned it into a highly successful restaurant with a menu of elevated Caribbean classics, then expanded to Washington D.C, where she’s doing Caribbean with a twist, and where the Obamas dined on date night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canadian chef David Jackman faced hurdle after hurdle getting to cook in the U.S., from being unable to afford culinary school to problems getting a visa that would allow him to work in American restaurants. But he persevered, starting a pop up with his wife and building it into a brick and mortar, Wildweed. His menu features unique and creative dishes made from what he calls “wildcrafted” local ingredients sourced from local farmers and cheesemakers, even some he forages for. Wildweed has been named a 2025 Best New restaurant by Bon Appétit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Ellie Parker grew up in Las Vegas where she’s had a meteoric culinary career—cooking on the strip at age 17, helping Martha Stewart open her first restaurant, Executive Chef of a celebrated steakhouse at 25, then Hell’s Kitchen champion, and now running one of Gordon Ramsey's kitchens. She talks about it all—and explains how to make the perfect steak at home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Matthew Timoszyk first encountered global flavors while serving in the Air Force. He went on to cook in restaurants and as a personal chef before beginning a massive project he calls The Culinary Expedition. For the past year he’s been compiling and cooking recipes from as many countries as he can fit into twelve months, which he will be compiling into his third cookbook. He shares a few of them here, along with a fascinating life story that includes his personal commitment to taking the screaming and brutality out of restaurant kitchens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christina Theofilos was raised in a Greek-American family in Tampa, learning to cook Greek specialties from her mother and her yiayia (Greek for grandmother). After graduating from Notre Dame and spending some time in California, she returned home and, disappointed by the Greek restaurants there, decided to open one of her own, even though she had never even worked in a restaurant before. She called it Psomi, Greek for bread. It quickly became a big success, earning a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and she was named a Michelin Guide Young Chef award winner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dino Figaretti’s nearly 80-year-old Italian restaurant in West Virginia was born from his great grandmother’s homemade pasta sauce. Now it’s been named a 2026 James Beard America’s Classics award winner. And he’s burnishing the legacy and grooming his son to take over. Plus, the next generation of another family business, olive oil importer Nate Bradley, tells all about the ingredient nearly everyone uses and few know much about. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Johnny and Kasie Curiel met working in the restaurant business, got married, and opened a restaurant of their own. Then, they quickly began opening a series of restaurants, winning Michelin stars at two that don’t fit the Michelin mold within their first year-and-a-half. Johnny also won Michelin’s 2024 Colorado Young Chef award. Most of the couple’s restaurants feature regional cuisines from Mexico, where Chef was born, but they’ve now opened a Spanish restaurant, and they are expanding beyond Colorado as well, to Charleston and Austin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Kevin O’Donnell cooked his way through high school at mom-n-pop joints in Rhode Island, then began a career that took him to Italy and France, with a stint at New York’s Michelin-starred Del Posto in between. In France, the restaurant where he was Executive Chef was named Best Bistro in Paris. Now back in his native Rhode Island, he owns two restaurants, one featuring what he calls Freestyle Italian cuisine and one offering an inventive array of pizzas. He is currently a 2026 semifinalist for the James Beard award as Best Chef Northeast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the recent commemoration of Earth Day, check out the Real Organic Podcast hosted by Linley Dixon and Dave Chapman. This episode features James Beard Award-winning author Nancy Matsumoto, who discusses her new book Reaping What She Sows: How Women Are Rebuilding Our Broken Food System Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sisters Sally Kawa and Kari Kawa Harding are keeping a glorious past alive as the third generation in their family to own an Omaha, Nebraska legend, Johnny’s Cafe. The beloved local landmark, now 104 years old and famous for steak and prime rib, recently won a 2026 James Beard America’s Classics award. And no, their grandfather’s name wasn’t Johnny, but when he first bought what was then a bar, he didn’t have the money to paint over the name on the building. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Raised in Washington state, trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Chef Aaron Bludorn held a Michelin star for five years as Executive Chef of Daniel Boulud’s Café Boulud in New York. Now he’s running a growing group of his own restaurants in Houston, Texas. His latest, Perseid, was named a Bon Appétit Best New Restaurant for 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Katarina Petonito grew up in the food biz. Her parents had a grocery store and catering company and as a child she would hang out with them and play while they worked. When she got a little older, she helped out in the business. Then, she decided that she wanted to cook for a living, and now is the executive chef for a unique culinary hybrid—cooking for three different Washington, D.C. restaurants from the same kitchen. The cuisines include New American and Italian and often feature the Filipino flavors she grew up with. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chefs Eric Patterson and Jennifer Blakeslee met in the kitchen of an haute cuisine landmark in Las Vegas. After winning a Michelin star there, the friends decided to move on to open a place of their own. They chose the town Jennifer grew up in, Traverse City, Michigan where Eric says the bounty of local ingredients is second only to California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sother Teague and Greg Benson have boundless knowledge of all kinds of alcohol. Between them, they have experience bartending; brewing; and owning bars, restaurants, and an agave importing company. They host their own podcast, The Speakeasy, and here on Culinary Characters Unlocked they discuss everything in the booze universe, including what’s trendy right now, drinks you’ve probably never heard of, and what’s behind the rise of PBR.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Bricia Lopez and her siblings are carrying on a Los Angeles tradition, the Oaxacan restaurant Guelaguetza founded decades ago by their parents, rescuing it from financial disaster and serving up the unique cuisine of that southern Mexican state, including moles, the special topped tortillas called tlayudas, and the fried grasshoppers called chapulines. The late legendary food critic Jonathan Gold called it the best Oaxacan restaurant in America, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Michelin recently awarded its first stars in the American South region, Chef Sam Hart’s Counter- was the only North Carolina restaurant to receive one. Hart got into the food world later than most after a career in advertising, but he has made up for lost time. His first job out of culinary school was at the legendary Alinea in Chicago. Now, at Counter- he is forging a unique culinary path, with menus based on a wide range of themes such as modern art, fast food, and even mental health. And he spends all of his profits feeding those who are food insecure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Classically trained chef Danielle Sepsy got the name The Scone Queen when she first began selling her home-made scones at the age of 13. And the recipe she created for them launched a baking and media empire. Her bakery, The Hungry Gnome, making scones, muffins, cookies, a Nutella infused banana bread, and more, now supplies more than 300 businesses including Jet Blue, as well as online customers nationwide, with more than 15,000 items per day. She has made numerous television appearances, her online videos have received millions of views, and she is eager to share the secrets of baking at home—she says anyone can do it!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andy Doubrava and Tiffani Ortiz do things their way, re-defining fine dining with a menu that ranges from antelope to candied seaweed to the ultimate chicken wing and a deep commitment to wasting nothing. They turn scraps and leftovers into key elements of remarkable dishes that have earned them a Michelin star and a tie for best restaurant in the country from “The Infatuation” for their cooking at Nashville’s The Catbird Seat. Before settling in there, they crisscrossed the country, hauling a trailer full of cooking supplies and staging pop-up dinners in more than thirty states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Unable to afford culinary school, Dave Beran finally got a break when a fine dining chef in Chicago took a chance on him. He quickly soared in that city, rising to Chef de Cuisine at Grant Achatz’s legendary Alinea, then becoming Executive Chef at Next when Achatz opened that restaurant. He went on to open two restaurants of his own in Los Angeles and over the course of his career has won two Michelin stars and two James Beard Awards.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The tables are turned on Culinary Characters Unlocked Host David Page. This time he is a guest on someone else’s podcast. He is interviewed by Tubby podcast host Alan Zweig about loving food but fighting the weight control battle.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Sarah Thompson says cooking for others, even as a teenager, always brought her joy. When she was a sophomore in high school, she decided it would be her career. After the Culinary Institute of America and a stint at Michelin-starred Marea in New York, she learned Mexican cooking at Cosme, the most celebrated Mexican fine dining restaurant in America. Now she’s in Las Vegas, doing a unique coastal Mexican cuisine at Casa Playa, featuring seafood, an assortment of massive meals to be shared by the table, and a totally-from-scratch masa program, with tortillas made to order.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ashwin Vilkhu’s Master’s thesis was a roadmap to get his family into the restaurant business by opening Saffron in New Orleans. He and his father were named semi-finalists for the 2025 James Beard award as Best Chef South for their cooking there, marrying Indian cuisine with New Orleans favorites. And now they’ve added a second restaurant just down the street, The Kingsway, where as Executive Chef he’s combining New Orleans cooking with a range of other Asian cuisines. Both spots received recommendations in Michelin’s first guide to the American south. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sue Zemanick decided she wanted to become a chef when she was fourteen and began cooking professionally at fifteen. Her love of  seafood, nurtured at the Culinary Institute of America, brought her to New Orleans, where she worked at Commander’s palace and Gautreau’s, where she rose from line cook to Executive Chef, before opening her own place, Zasu, creating a menu featuring seafood, global flavors, and multiple variations of the pierogies her grandmother used to make. The night Zasu won a Michelin star she wasn’t at the ceremony—she was working, which she says was a good thing since diners immediately rushed in and the kitchen was slammed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Perry Hoffman and his partners are turning the small northern California town of Boonville into a culinary destination. He grew up in the restaurant business, as a young child helping his grandmother in the kitchen of the French Laundry in Yountville, California, which his grandparents founded, and cooking in his uncle’s Boonville Hotel and Restaurant after high school. He went on to a high-level cooking career, winning a Michelin star, before returning to that hotel in Boonville, earning rave reviews and a Michelin recommendation for the tasting menu he’s offering there. And now he’s expanding, opening a more casual California/Italian restaurant across the street and an ice cream shop, where many of the home-made flavors are created with local fruit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bethany and Dano Heinze recently received a Michelin star for their Charleston Restaurant Vern’s. He’s the chef. She handles front of the house and a superb wine program built around little-known family-owned vineyards. Their innovative seasonal menu features unique presentations of local produce and charcoal-grilled proteins sourced straight from the farm. They’ve been working together for years — first under Sean Brock at the groundbreaking McCrady’s in Charleston, then at the legendary Animal in L.A. Now back in Charleston, they’re making a major impact on that renowned culinary city. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ken Frank was a pioneer in the creation of fresh and local California cuisine as a young chef in Los Angeles. He became famous not just for his food but also for standing up to and calling out restaurant owners he says didn’t live up to his standards. He’s won a Michelin star 14 times at his own restaurant in the Napa Valley, where he’s still in the kitchen five days a week. And he’s become America’s leading truffle chef, with a lot to say about the allure of that fungus and why truffle oil is an abomination.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maeve Webster is the woman big companies rely on to understand what’s happening—and what’s about to happen—in the culinary world. A trained chef and former café owner, she is president of the culinary research firm Menu Matters and in this episode she predicts the next hot cuisine—not one you might expect, explains how restaurateurs have gone wrong chasing trends, why consumers are becoming bored with restaurant menus, and calls for a return to hospitality in the hospitality business at the same time she advises restaurant owners to simply tell some diners, “No, we can’t give you what you want.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mariena Mercer Boarini invents 300 cocktails a year as Master Mixologist for Wynn Resorts, North America. She supervises the drinks programs at nearly 40 venues at Wynn’s flagship in Las Vegas, treating drinks as culinary creations, collaborating with chefs to match drinks with specific dishes, and often employing incredible molecular gastronomy techniques. She explains some of her best loved cocktails, how and why mocktails are exploding, what’s hot now and what to expect in the future, and talks about her time as a "Tequila Goddess" and wining an international mixology championship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Born in Jamaica, now living in Buffalo, NY, Chef Darian Bryan has elevated Jamaican cuisine to the fine dining level at his restaurant, and through his work as a private chef. He has also amassed a roster of Buffalo Bills NFL players including MVP Qquarterback Josh Allen as clients, as an in-home private chef, preparing ready-to-heat meals, and as a special event caterer. He is engaging, entertaining, and an inspiration—from a childhood of poverty without electricity or running water to a first job in America at Denny’s, to shining in culinary school, to successful chef and restaurateur. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eater Editor-In-Chief Stephanie Wu is probably the most influential person in American food. She was raised in the Taiwan capital of Taipei, one of the world’s great food cities. After college in New York, she began a meteoric magazine career that now sees her in charge of the editorial content at Eater, which just celebrated its 20th anniversary, and has grown from a single blog focused on dining in New York to an online culinary juggernaut with a national edition, multiple city editions, and a host of related media ventures. She sees her mission as helping Americans find their next great meal and this episode is filled with unique knowledge, insights, and predictions about every facet of American dining that only she can provide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Jordan Rubin got into sushi by accident when the sushi chef’s assistant didn’t show up for work at the restaurant where he was making salads. From there, he’s worked his way up to owning his own sushi restaurant, Mr. Tuna and being named a 2025 Best New Chef by Food & Wine. That climb began when he turned a hot dog cart into a sushi cart and began peddling sushi and sashimi on the streets of Portland, Maine. He says he wants to offer something for everyone – including untraditional flavors and sushi burritos—while focusing on the freshest, highest quality, sustainable seafood prepared in the most traditional Japanese way.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt Rebhan is the third-generation owner of his family’s Alpine Steakhouse and Butcher Shop in Sarasota, Florida. And a master of making the turducken – a turkey stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a duck, which runs circles around a plain ol’ turkey for Thanksgiving. He first got national exposure for his turducken on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives back in 2007 and now sells hundreds each holiday season. He’s also got plenty to say about red meat – what to buy and how to cook it – and the challenges of the restaurant business today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Michelin starred brewery! Cousins Jared Rouben (a graduate of both culinary school and brewing school) and Jeremy Cohn, a Wharton business grad, began by opening Moody Tongue Brewing in Chicago, then expanded into restaurants. The one they run above their brewery, featuring a hyper-seasonal tasting menu with a beer pairing for each course, has earned a Michelin star. And their sushi restaurant in West Palm Beach, Florida got a Michelin Guide recommendation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Growing up in a military family, Chef Amy Mehrtens explored new tastes in various places around the world. She trained at the Culinary Institute of America, then worked her way up to Sous Chef at the legendary Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. She is now Executive Chef at Copper Vine in NOLA, where she is expanding her repertoire beyond traditional New Orleans standards and going beyond the dining room to cater to guests at the newly opened inn attached to the restaurant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Northern Ohio native Vinnie Cimino is reinventing traditional midwestern cuisine as “modern grandma” cooking at his Cleveland restaurant Cordelia. His signature dishes include a box of pull-apart smashburgers topped with Kool-Aid pickles, steak tartare done as an homage to the Galley Boy cheeseburger at famed local chain Swensons, corned beef reimagined as corned lamb, and deep fried saltines, a throwback to his grandmother’s past in Alabama.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Diane Moua grew up a child of refugees in the tight knit Hmong community, which at the time limited a woman’s professional opportunities. Still, she followed her culinary dreams and became a wildly successful pastry chef in Minneapolis. Then she took on an even greater challenge – opening a restaurant of her own and adding savory Hmong cooking to her lauded baking. Now her restaurant, Diane’s Place has been named Food and Wine’s 2025 restaurant of the year. It’s on the New York Times list of America’s Fifty Best as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After training under legendary southern chef Frank Stitt, then working his way up to sous chef at New York’s famed Gramercy Tavern, Kyle Knall has become one of the hot young chefs turning once-sleepy Milwaukee into a culinary hotspot. His Birch restaurant features a farm to table menu and open fire cooking. And his French inspired Cassis will be opening soon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices