Culinary Characters Unlocked

41:48

Chef Ryan Roadhouse on winning a James Beard Award on...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/10/06

2026 James Beard Best Chef Northwest & Pacific RyanRoadhouse is celebrated for marrying Japanese techniques and traditions with fresh local ingredients to create extraordinary meals at his Portland restaurant Nodoguro. What began as a pop-up is now a highly honored destination restaurant. His frequently changing tasting menus are built around themes—everything from the seasons to books, films, memories, and more. And the chef himself remains in the kitchen, not just managing and supervising but

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32:27

Executive Chef Katie Reicher on loving burgers while...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/09/29

Katie Reicher runs the kitchen at one of the most historically important vegetarian restaurants in America, Greens in San Francisco. But she insists she’s cooking for everybody, that her vegetarian food is about great flavors, not necessarily eating healthy, and certainly not about depriving yourself. She also points out that Oreos are vegan.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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43:04

Chef David Bancroft on the journey from 5th grade...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/09/22

Chef David Bancroft got into the food biz early, selling jerky to his classmates in elementary school until he got busted by a teacher.He went on to become a force in southern and local cuisine, then added Tex Mex and barbecue to his repertoire as well. He’s now got three restaurants and a market in Auburn, Alabama and is looking toward expanding that empire in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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41:50

Kyle and Amanda Lussier—he’s the James Beard...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/09/15

Kyle and Amanda Lussier spent five years overcoming challenges to open their own restaurant, The Pines. And speaking of challenges, they did it in a small northern Minnesota town where they admit they’ve had to educate the locals about fine dining. But now they’ve developed a devoted following with a menu of not just classics, but also innovative dishes such as “cauliflower three ways” and tempura battered walleye. And less than a year after opening, Kyle received a James Beard Award nomination in

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31:39

Chef Melissa Perello on winning a Michelin star, then...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/09/08

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

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35:42

Chefs Jack Gingrich and Chris Weber on taking a...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/09/01

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 oniontart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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43:47

Chef Ana Sortun on introducing Americans to the...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/08/25

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

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37:34

Chef Spike Gjerde on making less money to feed us...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/08/18

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

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38:50

Chefs Kari Lauritzen and Sonya Sanford on helping...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/08/11

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

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34:25

Chef Travis Herbert on the bold flavors that earned...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/08/04

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

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37:21

Chef Star Maye on the path from prison to champion on...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/07/28

Chef Star Maye has had a remarkable rise through the culinary world. Born in a small Alabama town, this self-described “black, queersingle 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

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35:55

Chef Andrew Black on the journey from his...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/07/21

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

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39:22

Chef Renee Erickson built a restaurant empire from...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/07/14

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

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38:25

Chef Zak Baker on cooking in Milwaukee the way they...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/07/07

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

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41:35

Chef Kathy Fang on innovating Chinese cuisine and...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/06/30

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

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38:53

Chef Zach Midgett on why he left the legendary French...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/06/23

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

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42:51

BONUS EPISODE—2026 James Beard Award Winning Chefs...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/06/19

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 LasVegas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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36:53

Chef Lonie Murdock on reimagining Caribbean cooking...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/06/16

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

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42:59

Foraging chef /owner David Jackman of a Bon Appétit...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/06/09

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

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46:10

Chef Ellie Parker on winning Hell’s Kitchen and her...

Culinary Characters Unlocked ·

2026/06/02

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

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