Claim OwnershipCulinary Characters Unlocked
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Emmy Winner, International Acclaimed Journalist, Executive Producer, Food & Travel Lover, and Creator of the Beloved show “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives” David Page takes us deep into the world of chefs, restaurateurs, and everything “foodie” from the nationally and internationally awarded to the locally loved on Culinary Characters Unlocked. New episode every Tuesday.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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New Orleans baker Kelly Jacques was just named a Food and Wine
Best New Chef for 2025. After making her mark in New York, she is now running her own bakery in New Orleans, re-defining what to expect from baked goods with signature dishes that include the boudin boy, a highly elevated hot pocket—a croissant stuffed with boudin sausage and a boiled egg; a king cake named the best in New Orleans by the Times Picayune; muffaletta breadsticks; and a jalapeno cornbread cookie.
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Chef Casey Wall cut his teeth at New York’s legendary Spotted Pig and Le Cirque, before moving to Australia and opening a string of successful restaurants and bars. Now he’s come back to the states and settled in Austin, where his Le Calamar, blending French technique with Texas ingredients, has debuted to glowing reviews. And where his deboned and sweetbread stuffed chicken wings are a sensation.
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It’s a double helping of great eating off the beaten path. Erica Curry, who runs the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse at an altitude above 10,000 feet in Colorado explains how diners have to hike, snowshoe, or ski a mile to reach it. Once there, they enjoy four course meals featuring local ingredients, such as elk tenderloin with blueberry, sage, and
port reduction. Then in Anchorage, Alaska, owners Patricia Brown Heller, Heidi Heinrich-Lervagg and Carolina Stacey tell the 70-year story of their Lucky Wishbone restaurant, winner of a 2025 James Beard America’s Classics Award and renowned for its famous fried chicken.
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Born in southern India, a region rarely represented on Indian restaurant menus in the U.S., Chef Vijay Kumar was raised in rural poverty. His culinary aspirations surfaced early and he attended culinary school in India then worked on cruise ships and in restaurants in a variety of locations before coming to the United States and finding a culinary foothold in San Francisco, where he led the kitchen team at Rasa and earned a Michelin star for five straight years. He got a chance to open his own
restaurant, Semma in New York in 2021, featuring his version of the Southern Indian food he grew up with, and has now won a Michelin star there, as well as being ranked the number one restaurant in New York for 2025 by the New York Times and being named the 2025 James Beard Award Outstanding Chef for New York state.
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Chef Kelly Franz developed her taste for great food growing up in Europe as part of a military family. She made her name during the culinary boom in Charleston, rising to Executive Chef at the storied Magnolias restaurant, which took low country cooking upscale. Now she has returned as Culinary Director to freshen up the menu, mindful that there are some iconic dishes that simply cannot be changed.
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1Classically trained chefs Jeanie Janas Ritter and Adam Ritter shared a culinary journey working at great and Michelin-starred restaurants throughout the US and internationally before coming back to their midwestern roots and working in Minneapolis, first for someone else, then taking the risk of opening a place of their own. Their venture, Bûcheron, French for lumberjack, was an instant hit, embracing the French bistronomy movement that marries fine dining with comfortable surroundings. And they embrace a further marriage—French techniques
and Minnesota ingredients in creating a menu that features such standouts as Fois gras, venison tartare, even eel. And yes, they were recently named the Best New Restaurant in America in the 2025 James Beard Awards.
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Bobby Stuckey entered the culinary world as a teenaged dishwasher
and worked his way up through a range of front of the house positions until he achieved the rarely awarded rank of Master Sommelier and became a multi-award-winning restaurateur. The centerpiece of the restaurant group he co-owns, Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, Colorado, which holds a Michelin star, has just won the James Beard Award as America’s Outstanding Restaurant, the fourth James Beard Award it has accumulated since 2008. Earlier in his career, Stuckey worked at The
French Laundry, where his team earned that esteemed restaurant a James Beard Award for Outstanding Wine Service. Frasca features the cuisine – and wines – of Italy’s sub-alpine Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, created and served through the lens of Colorado.
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This was such a fun read! I love how the article treats chefs and food lovers as “culinary characters,” each with their own quirks, passions, and signature flavors—it really brings the cooking world to life. The idea that food reflects personality makes me appreciate the creative side of cuisine even more. Personally, I think watching real chefs in action—seeing their energy and style—adds another layer to understanding these characters. Have you ever watched any cooking shows or food documentaries on Photocall TV online that reminded you of the personalities described in this piece? https://photocalltv.online/
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